Australian artists drawn by Chinese artistic orbital pull

A growing fascination with Chinese culture and art is drawing Australians across the Pacific including musicians, artists and leading Australian icons as the Australian Studies in China Conference kicks off Wednesday.

THE BIG PICTURE

It's a big picture way of thinking, believes Professor David Walker, the inaugural BHP Billiton Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University.

It was Walker who masterminded the'Reflecting on Chinese/ Australian cross-cultural engagement, past and present'; the Foundation for Australian Studies in China(FASIC) Australian Studies in China Conference; The Big Picture; Lives, Landscapes, Homelands in Australian and Chinese Art, hosted by the People's University in Beijing and comes as the lauded Australian String Quartet (ASQ), embarks on its first tour with its current lineup.

The alignment of Australian artists deriving inspiration and motivation from sharing their experiences with Chinese audiences and their counterparts signals a growing momentum of artistic exchange in Australia.

The ASQ embark Wednesday -- in conjunction with the University of Adelaide on a series of master-classes and mentoring sessions at two of China's most distinguished music schools, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shenyang Conservatory of Music.

China has become an increasingly important touring destination for Australian classical music ensembles and orchestras; the Quartet's forthcoming tour marks the start of a broader commitment to cultural exchange and partnership-building in the region.

"Certainly at the moment, Asia is the largest market for classical music in the world; they're lapping up all the performances at the moment, and the CD sales reflect that," said the ASQ's Stephen King.

"It's also a bit of cultural exchange we're doing a lot of master-classes and that type of thing, hoping that we may also end up with some new students at the university," he said.

The not-for-profit Foundation for Australian Studies in China ( FASIC) supports existing and future initiatives which aim to deepen awareness of Australia in China across a range of disciplines and fields of study -- a program conceived and led by the tireless Professor walker.

AUSTRALIAN IN BEIJING

Although deeply immersed in his life in Beijing, Professor Walker remains a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, leading Australian artistic initiatives to China.

His knowledge of the ways China has influenced the growth of modern Australia is providing a valuable platform for a new generation of young Australians to engage with China in creative ways.

"The Chinese presence in Australia dates from the 1850s, but ' exotic' China has excited the Western imagination for centuries. However, over the last thirty years there has been a substantial two-way exchange of artists and curators, whose reflections on ' lives, landscapes and homelands' are central to our conference theme," he told Xinhua.

"For many Chinese, Australia is now an exotic land of strange animals and landscapes, a mysterious place of beauty and beguiling difference. There is a great deal of instruction and enjoyment to be had from seeing how each country sees, represents and imagines the other," he said.