A Site of Convergence

September 17, 2011 marks ten years since the formal opening of the Monash University Prato Center, Monash University's teaching and research hub in Europe. The Center is located in the heart of Tuscany and the dynamic city of Prato, in a landmark 18th-century mansion, the Palazzo Vaj. Reflecting on the collaborative ethos that made the Center's establishment possible, this book is the result of collaboration between writer and editor Cynthia Troup, and photomedia artist Jo-Anne Duggan, the Center's first artist in residence. A Site of Convergence highlights the Center's vitality as a place where knowledge is shared and deepened - across the world's hemispheres, across generations, and across a wide spectrum of disciplines and areas of research. Rich in images throughout, the book draws attention to the elegant spaces of the Palazzo Vaj as the context for exhilarating encounters with: the city and people of Prato, art and artists, researchers and experts, teachers and students from around the world. Examples of such encounters are personalized in vignettes contributed by individuals involved in the Center's establishment. Designed as a tribute to the humanist vision that shaped the development of the Center, and as a fitting marker of the commencement of the its Artist in Residence program announced in 2010, A Site of Convergence includes the late Jo-Anne Duggan's account of her association with the Center, and its profound effect on her creative vision and practice.