Worlds Colliding—The Ongoing Influence of Amalgamation

Abstract

The creation of a Unified National System in the 1980s gave the university sector custody of practice-based creative arts previously conducted in independent art and music schools, and in colleges of advanced education. The relocation created upheaval for many disciplines as these new staff and their universities adjusted to organisational restructure, multi-campus sites and new cultural traditions. For those in creative arts disciplines, whose practice had previously been considered outside their tertiary employment as teachers, the move brought practice into their research obligations as university employees. Despite taking place over twenty years ago, the changes catalysed by this reform continue to resonate in art and music schools and influence the relationship between artistic researchers and their host universities, although as exploration of a recent breakdown in relationship between one university and its art school indicates, subsequent developments play an important role.