Expand/Contract: A Case Study – The Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools

Expand/Contract: A Case Study Paula Silva University of Tasmania This paper discusses aspects of Expand/Contract an event and exhibition presented in Hobart in 2009. This exhibition is the second case study in my PhD research project. Specifically, the paper discusses the competing formats of ‘event’ and ‘exhibition’ and strategies employed for their presentation. Central to this discussion is the notion of encounter between audience and the artwork. Drawing from Chris Burden’s performance White Light/White Heat the paper discusses the exhibition as ‘power field’, a notion used previously by Vito Acconci to describe a space of intersection and interaction. Key words: event, exhibition, audience, Public Art, documentation

About the author

Paula Silva PhD Candidate, University of Tasmania Paula Silva has completed a Fine Arts Licenciate degree, Faculty of Fine Arts from Porto University in Portugal, 1999, followed by a one-year program at Bilbao, faculty of Fine Arts, Basque Country University in Spain. She has curated eight public art exhibition projects since graduating. A key project, Interactive Spaces was a public event funded by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture and the European Cultural Capital Program held in Porto and Rotterdam in 2001. She moved to Australia in 2005. She developed a number of projects in Tasmania including Made Public, exhibited at the Carnegie Gallery in 2007 and Commonplace produced in collaboration with Dr Rowland Atkinson and the House and Community Research Unit, University of Tasmania and presented at the Moonah Arts Centre in 2009. She also curated Clarendon House for Trust, an exhibition produced by Tasmanian Art School in collaboration with National Trust Tasmania and Ten Days on The Island and Expand/Contract, an event and exhibition part of CAST off-site program, both in 2009. She is interested in alternative exhibition development methodologies and art practice outside traditional gallery contexts led her to commence a PhD (Fine Arts) at the University of Tasmania in 2008.