55 At the well-attended opening of TradeOff, Christine Dixie was introduced by the Dean of the FADA, Prof Federico Freschi, and then she responded with an overview of her work. Indicating appreciation for the role of the late scholar, Jane Taylor, who had encouraged to purchase a mask at the National Arts Festival which ultimately inspired the figure of the plague doctor, she made evident how this led to an important iconographic step. But Dixie focused especially on the relationship of images and words. Trade-Off, she explained, is an engagement between not only image and word but also between two scholars – herself and Brenda Schmahmann, the latter of whom has written about her work over an extended period. In giving Prof Schmahmann’s words on her art practice concrete form, Dixie sought to honour the SARChI chair’s writings, to indicate her profound appreciation for scholarship on her practice, and to indicate how art practices and theorical writing – while they can “never be can be reduced to the other’s terms”, as Foucault indicated in his groundbreaking essay - are nonetheless interwoven in a mutual relationship of support.
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