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programs installed in 6,000m
2
gallery space. The first live internet artwork was successfully
mounted (Jeffrey Shaw, Michael Gleich et al.’s
Web of Life
2002) along with a range of ambitious
and challenging works. The significance of the exhibition was that it further expanded the official
boundaries of what art could be in China with state sanction. The mix of art with new technology
is one that opens cooperation in the region because of the association with a fast developing,
technologically sophisticated economy and consequently culture.
After this project MAAP continued to include Chinese artists in other projects and returned to
China to participate in
Synthetic Times
in 2008, a major new media art exhibition that was part of
the official Beijing Olympics cultural program at NAMOC. The condition of the art world in China
had changed and for MAAP it was a new challenge to consider other exhibition models that might
create alternative counterpoints to what was happening in the mainstream. To bring that context
into focus, I commend to you Pauline Yao’s compelling essay in this catalogue that provides history
and insight into the development of contemporary Chinese art. While MAAP has made new and
ongoing partnerships in China through exhibition projects, so too in Australia MAAP aligned with
unconventional partners to leverage new exhibition models.
Light from Light
was conceived as a public art project that rather than being housed in a specific
exhibitions area (as many libraries do have dedicated gallery space), the artworks were to be site-
specific, dispersed in and around the collections and public reading areas. In this way the exhibition
was experienced in a slow and low-key manner over a long period of time. Utilising the ‘library as
site’ played on the presumption of an audience in a mindset of research and open thinking. It was
hoped that this special condition inside the library might provide some accidental encounters with
art that might not only be unexpected, but act as a provocative catalyst. The lapses from the tasks
of research, the dilemma of procrastination, the drifts into oblique and seemingly unrelated ideas,
are often reported conditions that lead to break-throughs into new and creative perspectives. It
was intended and hoped that the artworks’ open-ended potential, their integration and unexpected
placement within the library setting would spark curiosity and generate creative encounters.
As custodians of expanding knowledge and collectors of all forms of written expression, public
libraries are precious and vital institutions. While the traditional role of the library as a repository
for books and other documentarymaterial is still a part of the 21st century institution, rapid changes
have been underway since the exponential advancement of information and communications
technology over the past two decades. These developments created opportunities for MAAP to
creatively explore public libraries and newly created and connected public spaces, both real and
virtual. The library has changed, though the context still provides an environment that represents
and encourages very particular and positive behaviours. It is a place to research, to reflect and think
openly. It is an egalitarian setting where people often spend long periods of time accommodated
with seating, desks and quiet comfort.
The curatorial premise of the project synthesised a range of ideas and opportunities that could be
contained in a reflection on the public library as a place of enlightenment. To borrow a philosophical
entry from Immanuel Kant’s explanation of the Enlightenment – ‘
Sapere aude!
[Dare to be wise!]
Have courage to make use of your own understanding’
3
. His advice dating from the 18th century
was not simply to learn facts but to interpret, question and progress our knowledge.
To achieve the project, meetings and negotiations with the State Library of Queensland, Shanghai
Library, the National Library of China and finally Hangzhou Public Library were as rewarding as
they were challenging and involved. This is the substructure, the context, and the exhibition
