The Bunbury Regional Art Gallery is proud to present South West Art Now A New Constellation, the latest iteration of the longest running review of contemporary art practices in the South West of Australia. Using the gallery as a space to align cultural producers in a method akin to creating form out of burning points of light in space, SWAN aims to present an array of contemporary practices that underscore the rich creative constellation here in the South West of Australia.
As a region which continues to produce some of the most significant artists in the state, the biennial survey offers a vital exhibition to reflect on dynamic cultural developments in the region over the past two years. This year’s survey aims to focus more closely on broader creative practices rather than singular artworks, with the intention of demonstrating how the South West’s regionally specific concerns are in dialogue with broader global discourses. To this end, this year’s curatorial focus is on “practice” rather than singular “artworks,” and has been designed to offer an open-ended platform for artists to prioritise process and provocation. As a result, the presence of cultural producers in the gallery may be seen as fluid, experimental, sometimes unresolved, and as moments within a creative inquiry in transition. It is a survey which embraces expansive forms of creativity, at times breaking with the very notion of art, to emphasise the importance of dialogues within cultural production in the region rather than refined singular art statements.
