Jan Davis

Head of School of Contemporary Art
Southern Cross University, Lismore

Collaboration: playing the third hand

It is impossible to address the issue of collaboration in artists’ books without acknowledging the broader collaborative trends in arts practice of the twentieth century. This paper looks at the desire to subvert authorship that dominated collaborative practice since the 60’s and asks if the same motivation drives collaborative artists’ books. Jan Davis will present some examples of books to suggest alternative motivations.

Jan Davis studied printmaking at Phillip Institute of Technology in Melbourne in the late 1970s. She moved to Lismore in 1988 to take up an academic position at the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education. She currently holds the position of Associate Professor and Head of School of Contemporary Arts at Southern Cross University. She works with computer manipulated images and in 1995 won the Fremantle Print Prize with a suite of artists books produced on a bubble jet printer. She has an M.A. (Fine Arts) with distinction. Her work is in many national collections including the National Library of Australia in Canberra,  the State Library of Queensland and Mackay Regional Council, Artspace Mackay.

DOWNLOAD JAN DAVIS' CONFERENCE PAPER (56.8 kb)