Diaspora, Psyche: Panel Discussion

Coinciding with John Young’s latest exhibition Diaspora, Psyche at Bunjil Place Gallery, the artist panel will discuss how the experience of diaspora has informed their artwork and ideas about the world. 

Audience members are invited to continue the conversation and share their own experiences after the event. Bubble tea and an inspired curated food offering by Bunjil Place Head Chef Colin Wilson are included in the ticket price: 

• Mushroom, Mountain Pepperleaf dumplings
• Lemon myrtle prawn dumplings
• Cheeseburger Spring Rolls
• Desert Lime Egg Tarts
• Nutella, Bruleed Banana Steamed buns

Schedule:

• 3.20pm - doors open
• 3.30pm - 4.30pm - Panel discussion
• 4.30 - 5.00pm - opportunity for questions from the audience
• 5.00 - 6.00pm - networking and catering

Diaspora, Psyche presents a survey of paintings and installations by one of Australia’s most senior Asian Australian artists, John Young, and is now showing at Bunjil Place Gallery until 12 September 2021. Exhibition information is available at Bunjil Place Gallery in Dari, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Sinhalese and Traditional Chinese.  

We are also hosting a special performance of Home(s) before the panel discussion. Bundle your tickets for both events here and save.

Home(s) + Panel Discussion – Package
Adult $20.00
Concession (pensioner, senior, ft students) $17.00

Our Speakers

James Nguyen
James Nguyen is currently a Gertrude Contemporary studio artist. In his practice, he works with short-form documentaries, sculpture and experimental collaborations. Together with friends, colleagues, and family, James creates conversations around epistemic refusal, the diasporic absurd, and risk. Nguyen has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honors) from The National Art School, a Master of Fine Art at the Sydney College of Arts (University of Sydney), and a PhD from the University of NSW. He has taught experimental drawing at the National Art School, Film Anthropology at UNSW, and Sculpture at VCA Melbourne University. With the support of the Anne & Gordon Samstag Scholarship, Nguyen was a Collaborative Fellow at Uniondocs Centre for Contemporary Documentary Arts in New York City. Most recently, Nguyen has received support from the Australian Council for the Arts, and ArtsNSW for the BLEED Festival and Dream Sequence with Urban Theatre Projects.

Nikki Lam
Nikki Lam is an artist, curator and producer based in Narrm / Melbourne, Australia. Working primarily with moving images, her work explores hybridity and memory through the contemplation on time, space and impermanence. Born in Hong Kong, her work deals with the complexity of migratory expressions within and beyond the concept of diaspora. Nikki’s current research focuses on the artistic agency during cultural, social and political transitions, particularly within the context of moving image and screen cultures. Drawing upon the tension and misalignments between histories and cinematic imageries, colonial gaze and the migrant body, she is interested in negotiating and speculating truths through translation, fragmentation and re-generation. With an expanded practice in writing, exhibition and festival making, she is interested in exploring anti-colonial methods in art making and curatorial practice, as well as relational and community practices. Nikki is currently Co-Director of Hyphenated Projects and Hyphenated Biennial and Curator-at-large of The Substation. She has been the Artistic Director of Channels video art festival, alongside many hybrid roles in the arts including ACMI, Next Wave and Footscray Community Arts Centre. Nikki is currently a PhD (Art) candidate at RMIT University. 

John Young
The values in Young’s work – a keen sense of form, a brave synthesis of content; a consideration of technology, its relationship to affection; and the melancholy inherent in the diasporic spirit – find their roots in his bi-cultural experience. Born of Southern Chinese parentage, in the then-British colony of Hong Kong, Young moved to Australia in 1967. Equally engaged by theoretical concerns and the pleasure of painting, he read philosophy of science and aesthetics at the University of Sydney. His investigation of Western late modernism prompted significant phases of work from a bi-cultural viewpoint. His evolving concerns with the discourses of the time, including postmodernism and post colonialism, and the ongoing tensions surrounding globalisation, have contributed to intriguing cycles of works. Young’s intellectual rigor, combined with a fundamental commitment to painting, make him one of the most fascinating and respected artists in Australia today.

Associate Professor Carolyn Barnes
Associate Professor Carolyn Barnes (PhD Melb 2004) is Academic Director of Research Training at Swinburne Design, where she teaches research methods for design and researches co-design practices. In her spare time, Carolyn is an art fan, being widely published on the subjects of Australian non-objective art and artist-initiated activity. Craftsman House published her monograph on the Hong Kong-Australian artist John Young in 2005.

Image: John YOUNG, Flower Market (Nanjing 1936) #3 2010 (detail), digital print and oil on Belgian linen, 240.0 x 240.0 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

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