For me, it was pretty straight forward — I graduated from high school and went to art school at QUT — it was just what I wanted to do. Through the kind of art I was producing, I became interested in the gallery space as a subject and was moving to position myself as an artist/curator. So I was particularly interested in artist-run spaces and as I neared graduation, it was just a logical step to startup my own artist-run project space.

Satellite Space (1999-2001) was a contemporary project space that presented exhibition, studio, forum and publication programs. It was located in Studio 17, Level 2 Cameron House at the corner of Brunswick and Ann Streets, Brisbane. Cameron House had been utilised a couple of times for art projects by others. David Pestorius had used the stairwell for an exhibition (1998). Then Renai Stoneley had co-organised a project to coincide with APT3 (1999), which sited works across a small series or constellation of satellite spaces including Studio 17 at Cameron House. I approached Stoneley when I learnt that she had a lease and no further plans for the space. Initially I sublet the space from her until the lease was transferred to me. At the time I was still making and exhibiting as an artist. The art I made tended to be Untitled and so to more-or-less adopt the reference to Satellite was a way of effectively having an Untitled space.

Unlike artist-run spaces of the time, which tended to favour group shows that were often unwieldy, Satellite set out to present solo exhibitions and tended to emphasize site-specific and installation processes. Its scale and focus was modelled on Jay Jopling’s original White Cube in London, which was a tiny space that presented single artworks or small, coherent bodies of work. Likewise, Satellite was distinguished by its dimensions, the intimacy of the room — dominated by a large North-facing window — and its discrete, tucked away location.

Well, Jay Younger would often refer, in conversation, to artist-run spaces of the late-80s, to people such as yourself, and she would make these references as if it were perfectly natural that I’d be aware of them. She’d refer to what I was doing in relation to those past activities, as if what I was doing, in some way, reminded her. So I was aware, or made aware and consistently reminded that I was a part of that history, that trajectory. I was also aware of John Stafford’s Demolition Show and that Mark Webb had been active during that period too. Peter Anderson — he probably doesn’t remember — would pop into Satellite from time-to-time and practically lecture me about the importance of documentation, pointing out that artist-run spaces of the late-80s were poorly documented, that they lacked good photo-documentation and even the ephemeral material of the time was difficult to date, because it rarely, if ever, included the year.

I mainly just remember going to a lot of openings and drinking a lot. Openings were fairly coordinated. They typically ran for three weeks. I think Metro Arts were on Wednesday evenings, IMA Thursday evenings, and then there were usually multiple artist-run and commercial galleries openings in the Valley on Friday evenings. So you might walk to Soapbox first, then smith+stoneley, and sometimes Fireworks. Bellas, Craft Queensland (now artisan) and the university galleries were sometimes in the mix too. And there were annual events like the Artists Party at Artworkers’ and the IMA cocktail party — they used to be really fun, especially when they got messy.

I vaguely remember an exhibition curated by Amelia Gundelach, Emblematic (1999) at smith+stoneley. It included craft-based works and I think it included an early Christopher Langton blow-up. I liked it because it was something I would never have curated. I often tend to appreciate exhibitions, then and now, that I would never curate. David Pestorius’ project with Ed Kuepper accompanied by video works, at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Art (2004), would be another example. At Satellite, I remember Ciel Fuller making me a birthday cake based on Jeff Koons’ Rabbit (1986); I also remember Jemima Wyman’s leak 2000 being a lot of fun; Chris Worfold telling a story of trying to pickup a lesbian at an ISNT opening; and Troy-Anthony Baylis storing a cum painting (for Alex Mackay), wrapped in a plastic garbage bag in my office over the summer — it reeked! I suppose the most memorable things were people in relation to their work, talking about art and to some extent, each other.

To be honest, I’m laying low to focus on my research. Although I do have a folder called While I was working on my PhD and the last thing I popped in there was an invite for The Walls, Miami.

We perhaps tend to think of ARIs as generational and even succinct, but they were actually successive and overlapping. With the 90s era spaces, you can see that many of them, like the late-80s era including THAT, occupied premises closely associated with urban development; ISNT, Process and Carbon are probably good examples. Then there seemed to be a drought between Satellite Space (1999-2001), The Farm (2002-2004) and the next wave, starting with Moreton Street Spare Room (MSSR) (2006-c.2009), followed by Boxcopy (2008-present). In retrospect, there was probably a corrective whereby ARIs retreated to domestic and nomadic settings.

But sometime ago, I participated in a forum at the IMA alongside Channon Goodwin, formerly Co-Director at Boxcopy, and I was surprised to learn institutions / arts schools were supporting / funding ARI activities. Basically what was being inferred was that ARIs were operating as an extension of art schools. In a way that inference is acknowledging an institutional loop. Regardless, while ARIs tend to focus on exhibiting — they provide an important testing-ground and a social aspect — there’s still a spectrum of activities / a lot of scope in terms of infrastructural activism. (For which, the online arts guide BNE ART or the online publication Maximilian are good prompts).

Broadly, it’s about contemporary art and politics in Brisbane. Specifically, it examines the ways contemporary art is instrumentalised through governmental policies, urban development and the marketing of cities for political-economic benefit — which is at odds with aesthetics, in the political sense. To do this, I’m comparing some recent projects with projects of the late-80s, and both era’s coincide with policy and funding shifts for contemporary art production in Brisbane. It’s also influenced by Henri Lefebvre’s right to the city, particularly the right to imagine the city. It adopts Lefebvre’s proposition as a productive lens to interrogate the role of contemporary art practices in relation to Brisbane’s spatial politics and as a way to defend aesthetic territory.

My thinking is that with the late-80s era, there was this focus or attention to the conditions of production, to developing spaces and opportunities, and in turn policies. This is evident in early issues of eyeline, for example, where alongside exhibition reviews there were also columns dedicated to policy reviews. The terms artist and artworker weren’t mutually exclusive. Advocacy was a key part of practice and there was an interest in and discussion of broader issues impacting arts practices. But during the 90s, while there’s a continued energy about generating opportunities, some of that earlier critique, particularly with regards to policy review, starts to, in a way, disappear. Policy-making becomes more specialised and is removed from a more generalised purview. I suspect this developed in a reasonable way, but it has also meant that a range of consequences weren’t necessarily being fully anticipated. That situation informs a range of consequences now.

Although my research isn’t focused on the history of QAA, it has been highlighting a current need for an advocacy organisation. Quite simply because a range of projects are being negotiated without artists/artworkers being represented. Developers, for instance, can lobby governments and their negotiations can impact upon artists. Individual projects might rely on a curator to represent an artist/s, but sector-wide issues would benefit from being addressed collectively.

Artists/artworkers, as precarious workers, don’t really have a unified voice. Or even project a diversity of voices. Observing some past and existing organisational relationships, also raises the question of whether it is appropriate for funding bodies to both fund and speak for artists.

A renewed Artworkers’ might be a research-project, a particular campaign or chapter associated with NAVA, with links to other organisations like, for example, AAANZ. And I think it’s important that it be Brisbane-based, maybe South-East Queensland at the most, because while NAVA is federally focused, the State’s unicameral parliament coupled with the city’s municipal scale, demands particular political attention. But, most importantly, it should be issue -focused, and less concerned with exhibition opportunities.

I emphasize this because years ago I was working with QAA to develop a strategy for young and emerging artists, and I was surprised to learn that the majority of members were based in the regions and that they were only ever interested in exhibition opportunities. While I’m sure exhibition opportunities is an issue in the regions, it’s probably not the same / most pressing issue in the capital. I think QAA really floundered when it focused on developing opportunities, especially exhibition opportunities, as opposed to advocacy.

In a recent conversation with Alice Lang, I liked that she made this point: an opportunity isn’t a currency of itself. Artists are routinely offered “opportunities” without payment commensurable to the work. Even when artists are offered a fee, they’re customarily expected to over-service contracts. For example, a paltry exhibition fee doesn’t typically cover things like transport and install etc. And some galleries have a discretionary budget, where the money isn’t even offered unless artists ask for their expenses to be covered; which they typically don’t.

So in my view, a renewed alliance should prioritise advocacy, representation and unfinished business: professional pay rates, studios, affordable housing and superannuation. I imagine this would involve research-based projects, and both medium- and long-term campaigns. As a project, I don’t necessarily think dedicated premises etc. would be required, and so it might have some flexibility with the capacity to expand and subtract as needed. And while it’s likely to be an organisation in the sense that it would have a membership — ideally a broader membership of artworkers, predominantly artists, but also curators, writers etc. — I ‘d imagine that an advocacy coordinator would be critical to drawing attention to issues, policy developments and changes.

Over the years I’ve periodically referred to a couple of articles by Michael Bulka and Tim Porges (both 1997) that discuss artist-run-initiatives as once “true” alternatives and as becoming mini-gallery-museums which today form part of the institutional infrastructure that circulates contemporary art. Peter Anderson pointed to this in a local context during the ephemeral traces forum — by highlighting changes in policy and funding instituted by the Australia Council, which established a three-tiered hierarchy or spatial system for art spaces, with state institutions at the top, contemporary art spaces i.e. the IMA in the middle, while ARIs were designated the bottom position.

Yes, of course. I liked seeing Mark Webb’s work attempting to push QAG, with the 20th century Masters, into the river. Actually seeing a work by Webb is a bit of a rarity — if you were an Ornithologist, it’d be like see seeing a rare bird take flight. And generally, I liked being reminded of the hand-produced, cut and paste collages. As well as seeing the posters for the Artworkers’ Conference — that list of questions — and the State government’s policy excerpts, and seeing these posters in the context of ARI activities. I also enjoyed the forum, including for example what Brian Doherty had to say about ‘conspiratorial’ versus collaboration. The term collaboration is overly misused. It infers that parties are equal and denies the power dynamics at play. I also attended the art walk and enjoyed Virginia Barratt and Adam Boyd’s performance. It was fun, unpolished, irreverent / didn’t take itself too seriously and it conveyed the idea that it was more important to get the work out there — with urgency and rapid fire — and without fussing.

I think it offers a phenomenal opportunity to own our history — and to have an ownership of our history, is critically important. Again, Peter Anderson recently raised this in eyeline by referring to an earlier article by Peta Rake. Where Rake, predominately focusing on the present and uninformed by the past, incorrectly asserted that there were few artist-run-initiatives prior to 2000. Although Rake raises some sound points regarding ARIs forced to sustain a ‘seemingly resistant but in reality mutual relationship’ with the institutions of contemporary art (Rake 2011), there are multiple issues with her account. But primarily, by not recognising prior activity typifies a prevalence of amnesia — exactly what that the late-80s era, including eyeline, had rallied against through activities that emphasized a critical regionalism. Consequently, Rake’s version of the present ‘flounders on a flawed account of the past’ (Anderson 2015).

Critically, the archive conveys something that’s usually mercurial and elusive. Building this particular archive addresses a perceived lack of documentation, which is sometimes caught up in quite personal histories, and makes these resources easily accessible online, which can prompt and inform a range of other projects. Furthermore, it presents an opportunity to celebrate and assess successes and failures. And potentially counteract institutional histories. There’s also an element of trainspotting that I quite enjoy.

I’d like to be hopeful about the future of alternative projects. I’m inclined to say that institutions, like GOMA, operate in a different stratosphere to ARIs, and they have a tendency to homogenise.

For me, your question/s call to mind Szeemann’s Exchange of Views of a Group of Experts (published in Unesco’s journal Museum in 1972). It incorporated the views of eight experts including Georges Henri Rivière — museologist and the first director of the ICOM, and Harald Szeemann — curator and the text’s editor. This lesser known text remains timely. The text argues for the necessity to define the museum as a democratic space resistant to its potential instrumentalisation by the ‘establishment’; an expression Szeemann consistently used to mean structural support for museums by governments, patrons and corporations rather than, or even in opposition to public interests. Extending the gallery-museum’s field of action, the text calls for ‘a deliberate shift’ beyond the museum’s hallowed territories as a repository or mausoleum for cultural artefacts. In support of the democratic function of art, Szeemann argued that the museum should ideally be a politically active transmitting centre, a site of information, experimentation and political debate, a site that enables democratic public engagement with art and ideas.

I like Szeemann’s idea of gallery-museums as transmitting centres, linked to participatory democracy, social critique and the role of artists in society. While I do think institutions are really important, I sometimes question whether they fully comprehend their scope. They could be doing a lot more as a transmitting centre. In the past, I wondered why institutions, such as QAG didn’t offer information about other galleries, particularly ARIs. I mean really, it’s just annoying that people refer to QAG | GOMA as the gallery, as if it’s the only gallery. Sculpture is Everything (2012) at GOMA is another example. This exhibition communicated some really key contemporary art issues. Namely, that the categorisations of painting, sculpture etc. can be somewhat irrelevant or superfluous. But without a marketing budget, it amounted to a missed opportunity to make some of these ideas more palatable to a broader public — that could’ve really helped with a range of awkward conversations arts practitioners have to have.

I suppose I’d also ask, how do ARIs currently engage in institutional critique or hold more visible institutions like GOMA to account? It appears that in the past there was an acute awareness of the conditions of production, in the early issues of eyeline, for instance, there was an assessment of QAG’s collection policies, of policy development, the State Library shredding the Mapplethorpe’s and so on. However, these kinds of assessments don’t seem to circulate in the same way or as accessibly anymore.

As an example, previously as a member of Council’s Cultural Advisory Group, I was encouraging Council to provide space for a ARI residency program. As I mentioned, at that particular time (early-mid-2000s) there was a dearth — there weren’t any ARI spaces and it would be some years before the likes of Boxcopy would emerge. In the end, it was another member, Sue Benner, then Director of Metro Arts, who adopted the idea.

More often, I’ve been called upon to advocate for young and emerging artists, and ARIs usually come under that umbrella. As I mentioned earlier, the strategy with QAA is another good example. An aspect of that project involved extensive conversations with young and emerging practitioners, many of whom were well aware of the power they possessed within the sector — which is a bit back-to-front. I referred earlier to the forum with Channon Goodwin at the IMA, where he related his experience of being flustered or overwhelmed and pressured to take advantage of all the opportunities offered to young and emerging artists. For me, hearing this was experiencing total déjà-vu — I remember Joseph O’Connor telling me to slow down. While supporting young and emerging artists is really important, cultivating a public interest and respect for established artists, not to mention career longevity, is pretty important too. Categorisations like young and emerging can be superfluous and undermining or counteractive. I think it’s more pertinent to advocate for artists, without such categorisations.

As I’ve mentioned, I think a renewed alliance needs to address unfinished business: professional pay rates, studios, affordable housing and super. I think there’s probably a role for an advocacy coordinator to critically anticipate, assess and draw attention to, petition and facilitate participation in these issues, policy developments and changes. The successes and failures of QAA, as well as other types of advocacy groups like Tenants’ Union, offer valuable lessons for negotiating the local political context.

In terms of articulating demands, broader political environments offer some key prompts. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Council’s Creative Brisbane, Creative Economy strategy. It’s a somewhat specialised document that probably doesn’t circulate very widely amongst the arts; even though it’s a patriarchal statement for a range of arts policies. It’s one of those Council documents that refers to Brisbane as a place where artists no longer have to leave and in effect, really strives to capitalise on the presence of artists. But if it’s all about the mere presence of artists, in a way minimising art- and exhibition-making, then why not campaign for studios and housing for artists? Instead of generating more exhibition opportunities that freely offer the visibility of artists, I think there’s an opening here to make a claim for studios and affordable housing.

In respect to rights and professional development, I think a lot of that work has been done. QAA developed a range of handbooks that offered this kind of information to artists. A project might be to update and upload this information online. I’d imagine a project like that could quite easily acquire funding.

I’ve been pretty unimpressed by past iterations of these ARI-type festivals. Their programming has seemed to be dominated by the performing arts, rather than contemporary art, and they’ve failed to introduce broader audiences to ARIs. I think the Metro Arts ARI-in-residence program has, by providing space, especially when space has increasingly become cost prohibitive, been more critical to supporting the development, visibility and sustainability of ARIs.

But to be fair, I feel like I should mention that, as a curator, I bang on about audience reception now. Back when I was running Satellite, I didn’t give a sh*t about broader audiences. I knew and accepted that Satellite’s audience would primarily be the contemporary arts community, which is why its forum program sought to facilitate critical engagement.