Author Description

Art + Australia is Australia's longest running art magazine, with its precursor Art in Australia established in 1916. Art + Australia is a publishing and research body that focuses on contemporary art and its relationship to broader theoretical, social and geo-political contexts. Based at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), University of Melbourne, and living intimately with the vibrant pulse of its art school host, Art + Australia presents a rigorous and uncompromising perspective on what might constitute both art and Australia in the twenty first century. The print journals are themed publications encompassing explorations of contemporary and historical art and have thus far included: Recomposite, Extraterritoriality & The Plague. For each edition of the journal A+A has commissioned some of Australia's most highly regarded arts writers, artists, critics and theorists. From the artistic and written contributions, to the layout and design, A+A journals are committed to experimental explorations of the discursive conversations that contribute to Australian culture and broader contexts. Extraterritoriality is a term that is usually applied to the unusual legal status of embassy grounds - a sovereign piece of one nation embedded within another - but it also has much wider usage politically and socially, and may refer to sanctuary and asylum as well as zones of exclusion and infamous 'black sites' of imprisonment. In this issue (the second in the journal's new academic context) twelve contributors offer lively and innovative responses to the current border protection polemic, exploring extraterritoriality as a contemporary artistic and cultural strategy.