Locality may be a starting point to get one’s feet under the desk, but the real peer esteem, international cache, is assessed far north of Australian international waters.
We all know what we mean by world standard: curated into the Venice Biennale – commissioned to make an experimental performance work for London International Festival of Theatre; invited to screen a feature at Sundance – world standard obviously means working in the leading-edge global cultural ecology. Or does it? Is world standard a clearly defined, clearly delineated category separate, for example, from ‘national standard’, or is the liminal space between here and there slightly more opaque?
While it would be conveniently easy to suggest that world standard is what cuts the mustard in the world’s so-called peak cultural institutions, festivals, venues and events, a deeper dive suggests that it is far less straightforward. Might, for instance, a curated exhibition in an alternative space in Berlin look world standard on paper (Berlin is an art city, right?) but in reality, lacks either quality assurance mechanisms or a critical rigour?
On the flip side, might a different exhibition curated locally in Broken Hill or Murray Bridge have more compelling and rigorous quality assurance mechanisms, selection criteria and, crucially, artistic outcomes?
Might it be the case that these projects that seem nationally significant are, in fact, the embodiment of world standard?
If we think about this from the point of view of an ERA assessor there is an assumption that discipline experts are going to ‘know the skinny’ on every alternative art space in Berlin or if they don’t, can somehow research the venue/institution’s status virtually. But one might suggest this is not an especially rigorous or transparent process.
Without a directory of every cultural institution on the planet and its quality assurance mechanisms, we (the ERA assessor) fall back onto what we know – which is always partial and partisan.
What about important cultural developments in Africa, Latin America and Asia and the hundreds of towns and cities in those places? How does, or how can, an assessor grasp the nuances of the cultural ecology across the diversity of these continents or regions and be in touch with its assorted zeitgeists? When does a venue/institution become world standard and how do we measure this? What if the same venue/institution is actually on a decline and trading on bygone glories, a space/venue or institution cutting corners on quality assurance and no longer at the cutting edge, no longer setting the agenda? You’d need to be networking 24/7 to even scratch the surface of this knowledge.
Is it too easy as a creative arts researcher to show internationally in Berlin, Toronto or Seoul and simply claim the status of world standard? And relatedly, are we undercutting important scholarship that carefully picks apart locality and specificity?
When it comes to quality assurance one might offer the provocation that it is potentially straightforward to hide our peas under the mashed potato so-to-speak, in playing the international card?
Part cargo cult/part colonialist logic, does this mentality of measuring a supposed global impact come at the expense of a system that could be seen not to reward far more compelling and rigorous creative projects developed and shown locally and nationally in this country?
In recently evaluating the standing of an output from an international university that took place at the Louvre, my first thought was that this work had reached the summit of peer esteem. Until that is reading the fine print and understanding that this ‘exhibition’ was more trade show than rigorous creative output. The institution had bought ‘page space’ in a Louvre commercial corridor hoping that the transaction could be hidden under the dazzling quality of the Louvre brand. The devil was in the detail. More peas carefully camouflaged under more mashed potato.
How to make sense, or nonsense, of the idea of world standard in our ever-accelerating world, and to whom do we cede agency in making these calls? What does a level playing field, or at least a rigorous system of evaluation, in an increasingly gamified academic system look like? There is more to deconstruct in this fragile if not nebulous nomenclature of world standard.
David Cross is Professor of Visual Arts at Deakin. Working as an artist, curator and writer, his practice extends across performance, installation, sculpture, public art and video. Known for his examination of risk, pleasure and participation, Cross often utilises inflatable structures to negotiate inter-personal exchange. He has performed in national and international live art festivals. David has served on the DDCA Board since xx