The Imagined Australia Project

Imagined Australia is an ongoing project that AILAE will carry out in other locations around Europe.

The Imagined Australia project wishes to investigate the unexplored territories that the relationship between Australia and Europe, in its reciprocity, has traced over the centuries.

In an interdisciplinary fashion the Imagined Australia Project invites reflection on the reciprocal and self-imagining process of the two regions.

From Terra Nullius to land of opportunities and last frontier, the European dream has constructed and deconstructed Australia to feed its imagination of new societies.

At the same time Australia has over the last two centuries forged and re-invented its own liaisons with Europe arguably to carve out its identity.

From the arts to social sciences, to society itself a complex dynamics has grown between the two continents in ways that invite study and discussion.
The Imagined Australia project wishes to promote and carry out research in that direction.

I.A. 2007 has taken place at the Monash University Prato Centre in Italy as one event encompassing:

An academic symposium
Two art exhibitions
Mates (link)
Installations (link)

From the 2007 event has emerged the project to write a book, a peer reviewed publication:

Imagined Australia, which will deal with the many themes of the event (link to TRAILS).

Imagined Australia will take place with other exhibits also in Paris this September at the Maison de la Chimie, invited by the Institut des Mondes Asiatiques …. (Link http://www.reseau-asie.com).

AILAE
The Imagined Australia Project
The Mates Collection