Why Fundamentalism? (2007)

Development to design proposal stage of a visual arts/design exhibition. Key themes engaged around the starting hook of Fundamentalism as a means to ask an accompanying and critical question - What exactly is it that is Fundamental to our collective survival and what therefore are the actual foundations upon which we must build?

SHOWINGS:
1: Proposal Only and Video Document

TEAM: Keith Armstrong (Visual collaborator), TeamDES (Tony Fry & Ann-Marie Willis), Jason Grant (Inkahoots Design) & Jim Gall (Gall and Medek Architects).

MORE: Why Fundamentalism? was an exhibition and critical writing project developed from concept phase through to detailed proposal. It included an edited video document that lay out its core ideas and presented the diverse voices of each collaborator. A number of key themes were engaged around the hot-button (and much misunderstood) concept of Fundamentalism. The proposal included an exhibition layout, developed test imagery, ideas and animations, proposed forms for future works and a process whereby design briefs would lead to subsequent commissions. Two major grant applications were submitted to the Australia Council and Arts Queensland, with the support of State Library of Queensland, the University of Adelaide and numerous others. The project remains at the developed proposal stage awaiting suitable funding.

Critically the show became an active vehicle for drawing and exploring a line of distinction between ideas of ‘what is fundamental’ and ‘fundamentalism’ as it rested in the popular imagination, as well as in political and philosophical debates. It teased out and engaged with a number of key questions that included The Problem of Ungroundedness, A Politics of Finitude, The Post-modern/Pluralist Problem, Silent Fundamentalisms (Voices of Reason and Neo-con Religions), Fundamentalism as a Media Construct, The Pre and Post Cold-war Other, The Pressing Need for Foundations in the West and Islam as Foundationalism (rather than fundamentalism).