Transcending the National Capital Paradigm: The Evolution of Bitumen River Gallery/Canberra Contemporary Art Space

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the fertile tensions in Canberra’s dual status as national capital space and local polis, that dramatically affected the development of a unique contemporary arts practice in the late 1970s. The primary thrust of this thesis is the triumph of local arts practice and community over the powerful nation- building cultural imperatives of a national capital. A complex narrative, informed by rich archival material and interviews, exposes local arts practice as a generative force in Canberra’s cultural development. Here, an examination of the citywide development of local arts and culture from the 1920s to 2001, leads to a case study of the launch and development of Bitumen River Gallery/Canberra Contemporary Art Space from 1978 to 2001. Women are shown to have exerted a profound influence in this important space, in contrast to the trend of the male-dominated art scene in the rest of late twentieth-century Australia. In sum, this dissertation traces the trajectory of arts practice in Canberra as a response to critical social and cultural needs within the national capital space, to a humanising local practice that transcended the capital’s national and international cultural imperatives. Show more