Much Said, Much to be Done

Abstract

The Australian National University (ANU) School of Art Field Study programme is a well-researched and pedagogically awarded procedure for artist engagement with community for the production of visual art about the environment. In 2009, researchers from the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, then under the aegis of Professor Tony McMichael, collaborated with a field study programme to inform artists who were inspired to produce visual aesthetic imagery to raise community awareness about the contested landscapes of Western Sydney. Unexpectedly, awareness was also raised about the scholarly relationships that evolved between the artists and the scientists. This chapter recounts these developments, leading to the conclusion that the artists opened the minds of the scientists to a more nuanced, and yet in some ways more disturbing, contestation. Show more