Guest edited by David Cross and Cameron Bishop
Perhaps it is appropriate that the etymology of risk is caught between two competing meanings. The Italian word risco loosely translates to cliff which implies that negotiating said cliff is not for the feint hearted. There is another school of thought however that risk has its origins in the Arabic word rizq which means gift from divine providence. The space between cliff and gift seems like a prescient reflection of how we are currently negotiating risk in the academy. Risk in the academy oscillates wildly either as a set of properties to be managed, reconciled and neutralised, an electrical current essential for activating any kind of zeitgeist transformation, or as a category always negotiating territory along this continuum. This forthcoming issue of creative matters attempts to take some risks with risk, inviting contributions that grapple with what this term or operation means in an academic world of seemingly ever-increasing dissonance. At a time when organisational structures and systems are under duress and we negotiate disinformation, deepfake AI and the brutalities of global and local conflicts with their concomitant partisan politics, how might, or can, creative practitioners working in the university context navigate the myriad faultlines and at the same time preface a heightened and committed capacity for taking risks. We invite contributions from across the creative spectrum to consider what risk means and how it might be configured to build resilience, alterity and resistance to forces that seek to neutralise cultural complexity.
We are also curating a special section that includes your thoughts on the following questions:
1. How does the increasing bureaucratisation and brand-safeguarding against risk in the neo-liberalised university curtail creative and intellectual experimentation, and what strategies might creative practitioners in academia employ to resist this institutional anxiety?
2. What role can artistic and curatorial practices play in exposing and challenging the mechanisms of self-censorship and executive cancellation within academic institutions, particularly in contexts where external political pressures dictate cultural programming?
3. In what ways has the contemporary university become an arena for the spectacle-driven culture wars, and can the concepts like agonism and dissensus help rehabilitate frameworks for creative discourse?
4. If the university is irretrievable as an incubator for exploring challenging, and even dissenting and provocative ideas, what alternative spaces or methodologies become necessary to sustain and protect radical creative inquiry that doesn’t just speak to the initiated, but also engages audiences across the political spectrum in critical debate?
Take your pick or answer them all!
Write to us! editor@ddca.edu.au BY THURSDAY 17TH APRIL 2025