The New School for Collaborative Development held its first exhibition at PICA in 1993.  Presented in this exhibition were pieces of work, which the originators felt unable to 'resolve' but also unable to discard.  It was decided that other artist might see ways out of these 'unresolved' situations.  Hence each work became the product of the imaginative energies and technical skills of more than one artist.

The School's recent exhibition at The Verge was the result of a similar experience.  This time, however, works were not only produced by more than one artist but also by more than one culture.  Some twenty artists produced more than forty works, some of which travelled backwards and forwards between Perth and Asian centres such as Kuala Lumpur.

Over thirty years ago Roland Barthes described writing as a composite oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost.(1)   This was because he saw writers as 'mediators' who provided channels through which cultural narratives of the past were brought together and transmitted into the present.  Meaning, in such a system, is both inscribed and erased at the same time.  It has no identifiable origin, no centrality and no end.

Collaborative artwork at its best can be described in these terms.  It brings together different histories, different experiences and different voices so that each work as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  It leaves space for the viewer to participate in its different narratives and subjectivities because it does not impose centres or finalities.  This was the case with many of the works in the exhibition but others seemed to be still not quite finished or resolved.  The artists themselves are, however, well aware of this and in recognition of it, the works were not for sale.  As Philip McNamara indicated,"collaborative authorship" and "notions of development" were taken into account and formed part of artistic practice of the group.(2)

Collaborative authorship certainly challenges the concept of the great master, or the artist hero - that powerful, individual human consciousness which confronts the mysteries of the universe and interprets them for the rest of us.  It is part of the post-modernist movement, which is challenging so many Romantic and Modernist beliefs and constructs.  It challenges the Structuralist model, which privileges signifier over signified, nature over culture, and text over context.

Several of the works in the exhibition reflected the move away from originality and centrality by combining different narratives, techniques and genres in single works.  What! No Balcony? for example combined an image of Manet's painting of The Balcony with clippings from old Western Australian newspapers.  Another work simply entitled Collage was completely non-representational and by naming the medium as the title questioned the usual separation of medium and significance.

Other works reflected the rejection of traditional compositional conventions and of structuralist privilege by avoiding the usual approaches to space, perspective and vantage-point.  Some of these referred to such rejections in not only their compositional treatments but also in titles.  Titles such as Crossthreads, Island Hopping and Grid invoked the idea and the form of networks rather than hierarchical structures - structures which privilege surface structure over deep structure, figure or focal point over the ground.

Collaboration may never replace completely the idea of the individual artist as subject, but it is playing an important part in challenging some well-entrenched modernist ideologies and in doing this, it is helping to pave the way for future developments.

These artists obviously enjoyed their collaborative efforts but are also aware that they must continue to develop as individuals.  While they continue to learn from each other, they will do just this.

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1. Roland Barthes (1968) 'The Death of the Author'  Manteta V in Image Music Text (1977) London: Fontana Press  p 142
2. P. McNamara (1999) 'Never solely a matter of "art": the New School for Collaborative Development' in The New School for Collaborative Development goes West.
 

The current committee of the New School for Collaborative Development is:  Himali Friday, Andarini Jackson, Leah Van Lieshout, Philip McNamara, Sandra-Lee Murphey, Anne-Maree Pelusey, Geoff Vivian