The boundary rider has entered Australian mythology as a lonely outsider. As a culutral itinerant he cultivated a tolerance of difference and by deferring judgement he gained a certain intellectual freedom. By employing 'The Boundary Rider' as the theme of this edition of the biennale, the exhibition focuses on the investigation of conceptual and cultural boundaries and on their transgression. Such boundaries often serve to identify apparently opposing forces that are in reality structurally inseparable, for example nature/culture, language/experience, analysis/intuition, chaos/order, belief/doubt.

The present catalogue includes essay by Anthony Bond that outlines the process of conception and selection of the exhibition from the curator’s point of view. Ian Burn develops a study of post-colonial Australia and aritsic strategies in marginalised cultures that can be applied to the critical practice of contemporary art. Stephen Bann has written a revealing piece about the border as a concept in cultural practice. Charles Merewether discussed the role of bricolage in the formation of South American cultures, and John Welchman wrote on the theory and practice of the border and of the key definitions constructed in visual modernism and the historical avant-garde. Images of works in the catalogue are accompanied by brief descriptive passages. Information on the satellite events and performances, together with artist biographies and a list of selected bibliographies are provided.