Foreword 前言

Welcome to Beyond the Journey the 2016/17 Master of Fine Art Exhibition. After two years of intense study eleven students are now graduating into the professional world of art. As the title of the exhibition suggests – the journey of the MFA is now over and it is time to look to the next phase of each artist’s career. And what a time it is to be graduating from art school. The art scene across the world, especially in Asia, is expanding rapidly and growing at a phenomenal pace.

Today artists, curators, institutions and collectors are now more numerous than ever before. But why? I believe it is because art has very tangible and constructive experiences to offer our contemporary global society. Art as a field of intellectual inquiry, the way it is practiced today, emerged in mid 15th century when the European Renaissance re-invigorated the investigation of how the world operates and functions. This investigation used ‘natural philosophy’ as a way of understanding and interpreting the world in conjunction with, but also sometimes antagonistic to religion. Art as we know it today, like many other contemporary practices of thought, such as science, grew out of this philosophical inquiry. For the last five hundred years art has continued to try to understand ‘the way we are’ and has postulated critical perspectives, aesthetic relations and social practice as a means to that end.

As the world in which we live, and our social relations, grow ever more complex, art has a key role in continuing to make sense of the way things are; and even more so in suggesting adjustments, corrections and alternatives. It does this in a number of ways. For instance, art as a practice of critical reflection, empowers our communities through its engagement and participation. It plays a substantial part in assessing and processing the values of our cultures by examining how these values are developed, determined and articulated. It is able to reflect-back that which can otherwise seem natural and ordinary, and by doing so bringing attention to preconceptions, ordinariness and assumptions that need to be questioned and bettered.

Likewise the manifestation of beauty, again an old artistic trope, has a vital role to play in making our contemporary world a better place to be. Aesthetic experience, through the production of beauty, stands in stark contrast to the crass materialism of our day-to-day lives as mere consumers. The apprehension of beauty requires time and a sensibility, possibly even a particular disposition, that allows for a way of experiencing the world as pleasure and connection. An experience hopefully outside the everyday that is able to enrich our being.

In contemporary culture, art also creates and builds community by bringing groups of people together sharing ideas and conversations facilitated through art’s distribution and connectivity. Through galleries, social media and other venues and forms of publishing, art plays a dynamic role in the social life of our communities by fostering conversations, relationships and social awareness. Likewise artists have their own ‘communities of practice’ located through shared interests, histories and structures of engagement. Art school communities are another case-in-point; providing special places where students, staff and others congregate to work out ideas, continue traditions and foster new artistic knowledge.

The Hong Kong Art School is such a micro-community. Embedded in the larger social fabric of Hong Kong, the School continues to graduate artists of high calibre ready to engage not only the community of Hong Kong, but also the rapidly developing global culture of which Hong Kong is such a vital part. Similarly RMIT University’s School of Art enjoys its own sense of community with a proud history of 130 years of graduating students in Australia to take their place in the wider milieu of art.

It is now reaching 20 years since the two schools began their wonderful collaboration. Over that period a growing sense of a shared community has developed between the two schools. The interaction and cooperation the schools enjoy has cemented a deep respect and appreciation of each other by bringing together students, staff and alumni in a manner that

straddles cultural differences and strengthens our shared aspirations and achievements. Our joint desire ‘to make the world a better place’ through art binds the schools in a mutual project which enriches the lives of our shared community and others who connect with us. As the 2016/17 graduates from the Master of Fine Art programme begin the next journey into professional practice they can be reassured they are equipped to embark on that journey with the skills, knowledge and training to manifest types of contributions to society mentioned above. But also through their studies, they have been empowered to do good things for themselves. Their new journey into a career in art will bring personal fulfillment and achievement in a manner probably not possible other than through an art school experience by which the world becomes a place of possibility and wonder.

I would like to congratulate all the academic and administrative staff associated with this group of graduates and their exhibition. By fostering and nurturing the wonderful students it is the hard work and expertise of the staff that makes this event happen. I would also like to acknowledge the important work of the Hong Kong Arts Centre in making all of this possible through their exceptional support for the Hong Kong Art School; especially the indefatigable Ms. Connie Lam, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Arts Centre, for her deep commitment to and support for our joint programmes. But mostly I wish to congratulate the graduates who have worked so hard to achieve this milestone in their lives. Well done!

Professor Julian Goddard Head of School. School of Art, RMIT University. Melbourne.

11