This presentation seeks to provide important insights for educators and researchers into two nationally significant artworks: the American artist Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974 – 1979), exhibited in Melbourne during Australia’s Bicentennial year in 1988 and the Australian artist Kay Lawrence’s Parliament House Embroidery (1984 – 1988) created for the opening of Parliament House in Canberra during the same year. These works have a number of connections, but most importantly visually symbolise their shared ideological commitment to equality by the demands of an increasingly multicultural population. Both The Dinner Party and The Parliament House Embroidery offer, both individually and in combination, immeasurable opportunities to engage with universal issues such as identity, life, loss and change and provide the viewer with significant visual metaphors which re-position issues of gender and social justice to the forefront of reflection and discussion. A juxtaposition of The Dinner Party and the Parliament House Embroidery will be undertaken in order to examine the two divergent approaches taken by the artists to ascertain the influence of these significant national works.

Margaret Baguley is Senior Lecturer in Arts Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of Southern Queensland, Springfield campus, where she teaches in the field of arts education. This research builds upon Margaret’s doctoral work on creative collaboration. Margaret has published articles in numerous journals, including the Australian Online Journal of Arts Education, The International Journal of the Arts in Society, The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, Teaching in Higher Education and Teaching and Teacher Education (in press). In 2008 Margaret was awarded a national citation for outstanding contribution to student learning from the ALTC for her contribution to visual arts education.