Engaging Asia – The Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools

This paper is in two parts. Firstly, Julian Goddard speaks about the long relationship Australian schools of Art and Design have enjoyed with Asia and some possibilities growing out of that experience. This can be seen in the broader context of Australian Higher Education becoming increasingly internationalised in line with the forces of globalisation over the past three decades. However, Australia’s proximity to Asia and the region’s growing appetite for education has lent itself to new experiences for Australian academics and artists. The second part of the paper has S. Chandrasekaran respond with a blueprint to strengthen the relationship between Australia and Asia through awareness and understanding. By focusing on Singapore, the paper argues for an appreciation of the long associations between Australian Art and Design Schools and similar institutions in Asia. At the heart of these associations are personal friendships that take the relationships beyond transactional and financial reward.

About the author

Professor Julian Goddard is an academic, curator and artist specialising in the aesthetics of the everyday. Over the past 30 years as well as being a teacher and post grad supervisor, as a curator Julian has made numerous exhibitions and published widely on Australian, Aboriginal and Concrete art, including three books, book chapters, articles, papers and many catalogue essays. From 2015 -2019 Julian was Dean of the School of Art at RMIT and before that Head of the School of Design and art at Curtin University.

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Dr. S. Chandrasekaran obtained his doctorate from Curtin University in 2007. Over the past eighteen years he has held several academic positions both in Singapore and abroad. Currently, he is Head of McNally School of Fine Arts at LASALLE, College of the Arts. He represented Singapore in major exhibitions such as Havana Biennial (Cuba),

1st Asia Pacific Triennial (Brisbane), Asia-Pacific Performance Art Festival (Canada), International Performance Art Festival (Poland), 49th Venice Biennale, 8th Festival of Contemporary Art (Slovenia), Singapore Biennale 2016 and New Ben Art Festival (Taipei), 2018.

In 2016, he was invited as a keynote speaker for 1st international Conference on Social Arts and Transdisciplinarity at University of Evora, Portugal, and also for 3rd Academic International Conference on Multi-Disciplinary Studies and Education, Oxford, UK, 2017. He presented papers at international conferences such as Gender, Sexuality and Justice: Resilience in Uncertain Times, Chinese Hong Kong University, 2018 and 5th Arts & Humanities Conference, University College of Copenhagen, 2019.

His research interests are Cross-Cultural Studies, Asian Aesthetics, Life Science and Experimental Theatre.