Creative Arts Research Institute was established on 1 July 2021.
Here you can find a small taste of creative arts research projects that demonstrate the depth and breadth of our interdisciplinary artistic contributions. You can discover more creative research outputs from CARI members on the research-sharing platform Creative Works and learn about our research impact on the Griffith Impact Website.
MEMBER PROJECTS
The impact of immigrant theatre artists on Australian culture 1919-1949
Julian Meyrick (CARI & GCSCR)
Using an innovative mixed-methods research design, this ARC Discovery Project aims to investigate the lives and impact of immigrant theatre artists working in Australia from 1919 to 1949, focusing on the influential Latvian “power couple” Dolia and Rosa Ribush. After 1918, increased migration flows led numbers of foreign artists to come to Australia. These have been studied individually but never as a network, so their contribution to Australian culture has been greatly undervalued. Benefits of the project include better understanding of the way Australian theatre has been creatively shaped by diverse patterns of immigration.
Acknowledging Place (installation)
Carol McGregor (QCAD)
Acknowledging Place (installation) 2022 is a public art project that occupies the ground floor foyer area of a building on the corner of Adelaide and George St, Brisbane. The work is comprised of a number of components: 186 stainless steel cotton tree leaves (15-30 cm diameter) and 36 large backlit perforated metal panels (180 x 150 cm). The leaves were individually heat treated with fire and shaped to give organic life to the work. Each leaf is suspended by a rod from the ceiling; they all hang off a central spine modelled on the veins of a leaf. The title of the work draws attention to the importance of place, and through native flora the viewer is encouraged to reflect and acknowledge a sense of place, First Nations perspectives and caring for Country. All of the components were modelled on actual leaves and the holes created by harlequin beetles. The flame-treated colour recalls the harlequin beetles that created the holes. The cotton tree is a significant plant for South-East Queensland First Nations people.
Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra
Paul Dean (QCGU)
Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra, commissioned by Caroline and Ian Fraser for Phoebe Russell and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, won the Arts Music Awards 2023 Work of the Year - Large Ensemble. The work was premiered on 19 November 2022 at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Johannes Fritsch at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, and reviewed by Limelight Magazine, “Concertos for double bass are few, and successful ones even less so for the main reason of the projection, but also the fact that concertos are inherently virtuosic, and the double bass is not considered to be virtuosic, or nimble in the hands of most players. I was lucky to have a true virtuoso of the instrument to compose for that I could discuss at length the various sections and passages that on the surface looked innocuous, but in reality proved otherwise.” Paul Dean also received the 2022 Paul Lowin Orchestra Prize for Symphony No. 1, Black Summer.
The School of the Living and the Dead
Bill Platz (QCAD)
The School of the Living and the Dead interrogates the pedagogical, historical and practical value systems hitched to the notion of drawing ‘from life’. In this experimental and innovative work, humans are sidelined and the investigation of ‘from life’ is given over to puppets. The draughtspuppets make the work. The life studio is both anachronistic and prescient — in this respect, it shares deep historical and practical connections with puppetry. Puppets are simultaneously ancient (shadow plays flickering on cave walls) and futuristic (cyborgs and replicants). The School of the Living and The Dead features over 50 works: drawings on paper; drawings on cast carbon fibre/aramid fibre panels; instant photographs; pieces of the draughtspuppets themselves; and a series of rotoscoped animations. The work was shown at Grafton Regional Gallery.
Image: Exhibition entrance, photo courtesy Grafton Regional Gallery
Women on the Walls
Katja Fleischmann (QCAD)
The first book to focus exclusively on women as subjects in street art, this study, part travelogue and part dialogue, examines these depictions of women artistically, politically, and culturally across continents. Interviews with artists peel back the layers between artist and image, revealing stories about their work, its context, and its environment. From artists in L.A. pushing back on Hollywood's shiny perfection; to painters in Costa Rica examining the cultural links of women, myth, and nature; to women in South Africa decrying domestic violence, what links these works are their temporality and public ownership. Why do wall artists choose women as their frequent and favorite subjects? What does it say about our conceptions of gender and rebellion, protest, pride, place, and community? And how does the growing commercialization of street art affect their portrayal? Colour photos and guided historical context provoke these questions and inspire further ones. Co-written by Robert H Mann.
Sounding Good
Catherine Grant (QCGU)
A multi-year research project with a team spanning five continents, Sounding Good probes the deep and sometimes surprising interplays between music, cultural sustainability, and matters of social justice. Through these musical case studies, Sounding Good traverses pressing contemporary social concerns—from poverty, forced migration, and educational equity, to matters of racial, cultural, and climate justice. The project explores how strong, sustainable cultural practices can advance the cause of social justice, and vice versa. Music can help us better understand how cultural sustainability and social justice are entangled. Understanding that link has never been more urgent. In these uncertain times, it could help practitioners, communities, scholars, and cultural agencies protect and promote a continued rich global diversity of cultural expressions. Perhaps even more vitally, it could enhance our prospects of an equitable, thriving world, now and in the future.
Image: Master-artist Bengala (centre) with members of his Arturos Community. Photo: Pedro Aspahan, 2022.
Sorella's Story
Peter Hegedus (GFS)
Sorella’s Story transforms a smuggled 1941 photograph, buried by history, into an unforgettable 15-minute immersive experience. Viewed through a VR headset, Sorella’s Story stands the viewer in a 360° snowy landscape with 10-year-old Sorella Epstein, tragically part of a group of Latvian Jewish women ordered to undress in freezing temperatures prior to mass execution on a beach in Liepaja, Latvia during the Holocaust. The film is a visceral and timely reminder and warning of how prejudice can escalate to devastating tragedy and comes at a time when the memory of the Holocaust is, alarmingly, fading. Sorella’s Story premiered at the Brisbane International Film Festival in 2022 and was selected to World Premiere In Competition at the Venice Immersive (Formerly Venice VR Expanded) strand of the prestigious Venice International Film Festival.
Screenwriting from the Inside Out: Think and Write like a Creative
Margaret McVeigh (GFS)
This book provides aspiring screenwriters with a practical and informed way to learn how to think and write like a “creative”. It stands apart from, yet complements, other screenwriting “how to” books by connecting the transdisciplinary academic fields of screenwriting, film studies and cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Using a stepped approach, it shows the writer how to understand that how we think, shapes what we write, so that we may write better. 'In this book, Margaret McVeigh takes our hand to guide us through the journey of creating and facing the challenges of being a creative screenwriter. And she accomplishes this by moving beyond mere personal reflection to allow us to truly comprehend what happens when we create a story. She expertly combines her acknowledged experience in the field with the most recent scientific advances in the psychology of creativity, sharing tools that screenwriters (and all writers) can easily use to construct creative and meaningful stories', Andreia Paula da Costa Valquaresma, Assistant Professor, University of Maia, Portugal.
Ecoscenography
Tanja Beer (QCAD)
Ecoscenography: An Introduction of Ecological Design for Performance (Palgrave Macmillan) examines the emerging concept of ‘Ecoscenography’; a neologism that researcher Tanja Beer uses to bring performance design into an increased awareness of broader ecologies and global issues. In the book, Beer argues that the current ecological crisis calls for a new philosophy for theatre production that promotes more ecological (holistic, interconnected and symbiotic) ways of doing things. Ecoscenography outlines Beer’s research in the field over the past decade and showcases the burgeoning body of work being produced by ecological theatre-makers around the world.
Problematising the potentials of music programs to address Australia's youth justice policy problems
Alexis Kallio (QCGU)
With a unique scholarly profile across both criminology and music education, Dr. Alexis Anja Kallio's research builds upon the substantial evidence for the benefits of music for young people to examine how musicians can inform and support whole-child, preventative, and strengths-based approaches to youth justice in both custodial and community settings. Problematising the potentials of music programs to address Australia's youth justice policy problems reflects an international shift from punitive to more rehabilitative responses to youth offending, revealing many Australian youth justice systems undergoing significant revision and reform.
The Interior
Natalya Hughes (QCAD)
Natalya Hughes’ The Interior invites audiences into an exaggerated consultation room playfully furnished for psychoanalysis. This immersive exhibition combines sculptural seating, soft furnishings, and a hand-painted mural to generate a stimulating space to consider our own unconscious biases. The Interior is a travelling exhibition organised by the Institute of Modern Art and toured by Museums & Galleries Queensland. Hughes is the 2022 recipient of the Michela & Adrian Fini Artist Fellowship, awarded by Sheila Foundation. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Image: Chair 3, fabric design, Natalya Hughes, 2022
Biograph
Julie Fragar (QCAD)
Biograph is the first career survey of Julie Fragar’s work. Mapping more than twenty years of practice, the exhibition assembles key works made between 1998 and 2021, including some previously unexhibited. The survey is arranged according to key ongoing themes for the artist, including biography, memory, identity and narrative. This major retrospective of Fragar’s distinctive style will tour between galleries in Queensland from February 2023 to December 2024, commencing at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery before travelling to University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery, Tweed Regional Gallery, and Rockhampton Museum of Art.
Image: The single bed, or cheers to forty years (2017) by Julie Frager. Oil on board, 135x100cm. Photo by Carl Warner
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Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this Country on which we live and work. We recognise their continuing connection to place and culture, and pay respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.