Interview with Belinda GUNN
the ephemera interviews
In this series of interviews artists directly involved in ARIs and artist-run culture 1980- 2000 speak about the social context for their art making and provide insights into the ephemera they produced or collaborated on during this period. Artist ephemera includes artworks, photocopies, photographs, videos, films, audio, mail art, posters, exhibition invites, flyers, buttons and badges, exhibition catalogues, didactics, room sheets, artist publications, analogue to digital resources and artist files.
BIO
Belinda Gunn, born 1967, is an artist living in Sydney, Australia, working in mixed media, primarily soft wall sculpture, and including ceramic, crocheted, drawn, painted, stitched and other elements, often in combination.
PA:
Belinda Hi and thanks, why does a public archive mapping artist testimonies and artist histories about the ephemeral nature of the vibrant Queensland 1980-1990 artist-run scene matter to you?
BG:
I was directly involved with several QLD artist-runs during this era including being co-director of Arch Lane Public Art together with David Holden.
As a Queensland based artist at the time I was working with multi-media installations, sculpture, drawing and photography.
From my perspective ARI’s at this time provided many artists like me an opportunity to establish networks, exhibit works, have the work critiqued by our peers, and to participate in a wide range of related professional activities. ARI’s were crucial for many artists at the time as this provided the platform for galleries such as the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) and Bellas Gallery to view and consider young/new potential artists.
Although a time has lapsed, it is now more important than ever, that documentation and ephemera from this pivotal ‘underground’ era in art history is not lost forever but collected and published.
I understand that the REMIX project is aiming to rectify the current status of documentation which is all but non-existent, at the least uncollated. This project will ensure that an important phase of Brisbane’s cultural development -and indeed part of Australia’s art history- can be captured and better understood.
I could not be more grateful to those in our community like Paul who take on the task of documenting history and presenting it back to us in a coherent and engaging format. I understand that REMIX is designed as an online project and what is wonderful about this is that it will make these interviews and archives available to a world-wide audience online.
Today I am still an artist and I run a craft supplies business. This is part of mine and many other artists’ history and I am saddened that it remains largely undocumented.