This exhibition was only on for three days (11-13th September 2009) at the Margaret Laurence Gallery in the Victoria College of Arts (VCA), so I’m pretty impressed that I could organise myself enough to visit it.
‘Proud‘ was advertised in the Art Almanac as ‘art students exhibition and prizes‘; sadly though, an internet search shows no other references, so I have no links and don’t know who won what prizes.
installation view; photograph taken with permission
The more of these group shows I visit, the more obvious it seems to me that I am gravitating towards photography and drawing, at least when there is no jewellery to distract me. There was a lot of work here, but I found I didn’t respond or connect to many of the pieces – though there was a great large-scale pen/ink drawing [sadly I didn’t take note of the artist; centre in the below photograph.
However I did find a piece I like very much, a photograph by Sarah Mote, which I’ll hopefully be bringing home shortly [you can see some of her work on the VCA Photo blog].
installation view; photograph taken with permission
This visit also brought into perspective the campaign to Save the VCA. I have been hearing about this in the press, but life has been so busy the last few months that I must admit I don’t know enough of the detail of the fight, but am now inspired to do some more reading about it…
Melbourne Jeweller 
Hello,
I’m one of the curators of Proud this year. Glad you could make it, the large drawing you liked is by Rohan Schwartz, and it’s title is ‘2’. I can send you a list of who won what prize if you like, and we will have a fully fledged website next year. Glad to hear we inspired you to find out more about Save VCA as well, the campaign website has heaps of great information and I thoroughly recommend it.
Cheers,
Catriona
Hi,
I just wanted to say that i’m honoured that you liked my drawing.
Warmest,
R.