Exhibition: Traditions & Transformations

Exhibition Opening Invitation

The Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC) at Western Sydney University is proud to present the Traditions & Transformations Exhibition (20 September – 10 November 2023) featuring Australian artists of Chinese heritage, Dongwang Fan and Susan Chen. Every artist has a different relationship with traditions and takes a different approach to them. Artists of migrant backgrounds are bound to take a conscious path towards their cultural heritage, which in turn has a fundamental impact on their artistic creation.

The artists in this exhibition are from different generations and had different childhood experiences. Dr Dongwang Fan was a well-established artist in Shanghai when he migrated to Australia in 1990, while Susan Chen is a second-generation migrant of Chinese heritage. But their unique and surprising reconfiguration and transformation of traditions in their artworks both contrast and connect them in their creative depiction of tradition and contemporaneity. This is what makes this exhibition so interesting and inspiring.