I'm not sure just what the 'collateral' being minimally damaged is; things indirectly related to art or the security of art education, as either interpretation can be derived from the exhibits. Some students have taken material not normally associated with visual arts and, after little alteration or 'damage', transformed it into a valid art medium that can produce engaging exhibits and stretch the parameters of 'fine' art. Others use traditional materials to take great swipes at the concept of art, intentionally or not, but these efforts only serve to litter the gallery rather than make any significant mark on the hide of art or art education.

Julie Wilson-Foster's sculptural installation Remanence II is an example of how an artist can take those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags and, with imagination, refashion them into a work of fine art. Here blue and grey bags are knotted and twisted into a form that spirals down from the ceiling, serpentines across the floor and enters a 'nest', the walls of which are created by partially melted plastic bags. This is a well conceived and constructed exhibit, one that ignites our imagination and encourages thoughts about how other discards can be resurrected as art.

Rodney O'Brien may have been similarly inspired in the use of rubbish to make art. However his installation Untitled, which involves large clumps of fused beer bottle glass, wire, copper pipe and ochre, is merely a collection of dead weights strewn across the floor. No doubt a great deal of effort and time was expended in its making but there is nothing to invite physical or metaphysical investigation of the work. It is closed - the end.

Quite the opposite is Life --- Mysteries by Theresa Vincent. This exhibit has a certain finality about it too but it remains open as it suggests cyclic renewal. Small abstract forms of rippled copper, accented with droplets of clear glass or acrylic, are placed at random on a square of fine white sand. They are reminiscent of broken shells washed up on the shore and encourage us to consider how the detritus of the sea contributes to the formation of the land. The whole presentation is very well done.

Sara Elson is another artist who manipulates metal well to produce delicate objects. Elson creates miniature plant forms, petals, pods or roots, that remind us of nature's dogged determination to germinate and survive. The complexity of her work and competency of her skill makes her exhibits engaging and visually satisfying.

Complexity is delightfully employed by Peter Bowles. His The Matter with the idea is ... consists of a matt grey ceramic cone, cylinder and sphere, each punctuated with stainless steel, brass and blown glass attachments. There are sufficient metal grids, bulbous protrusions, screws and washers, indents and raised areas, to create the strong belief that these are indeed Very Important Machines found by Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood. This triptych is, however, a finely finished serious work of art.

Deconstruction is a serious aspect of Post Modernism which Mel Dare and Linda Vujcich both consider according to their own interpretation. Dare's wall installation, Deconstructing the Moment, involves 46 separate small square components but we wonder if it should be 48 as there are two 'empty' areas with sticky tape aligned on the wall suggesting their resident squares have come away.  Is the exhibit accidentally deconstructing itself or are the 'blanks' intentional? Some of the components are of interest while others are not, creating an overall sense of random thoughts - incomplete idea.

Vujcich deconstructs a fine musical instrument to produce the mediocre installation Misrule playing piano. I find it the height of arrogance to destroy a beautiful or functional object from one artform (e.g. book, instrument, furniture or crockery) for the sake of creating an 'original' in another. Here the collateral damage is maximum and I weep for music's loss as art has not gained.

In all, this exhibition is a good indication of how fine art education stands up, on this the cusp of a new century - precarious with minimum nudges to go forward.