Vitalstatistix spoke to artists Emma Beech and Ashton Malcolm about what they hope to get out of their yearlong residencies with Vitals this year.
Both Emma and Ashton are Adelaide-based theatre makers and actors who have a continuing relationship with the company. This year Emma Beech is Vitalstatistix’s Shopfront Studio artist and Ashton is one third of Points in the Plane along with Josephine Were and Meg Wilson.
Vitalstatistix: Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re hoping to develop with Vitalstatistix this year?
Emma Beech: In a change for me, I am looking not to develop a new work but to develop some new ideas and new ways of engaging with Port Adelaide and its people. I’m also looking to see how Vitals and its Port location could interact creatively with other companies internationally. What are those Port towns across the world doing? How can we speak with each other through art?
Ashton Malcolm: We are hoping to come out of this year with a clearer idea of who we are as a performance making collective. We love working and experimenting together, and have been collaborating as a trio for the past few years. So it feels like the right time to focus on our identity as artists and how we would like to shape our work and our collective going forward. And maybe we’ll even come up with a name!
V: What does it mean to have a yearlong relationship with the company?
EB: It means supporting the company, it means bringing a new set of eyes with a lot of fondness and seeing what myself, Emma Webb and all the others in the mix can cook up for the company in the present and in the future – in these highly un-plan-able times. How can we keep bringing what we do and the place we do it (Waterside) to life? The year is a chance to have one hell of a long conversation.
AM: I am so excited and feel very lucky to have a yearlong relationship with Vitals. Vitals have always been a shining light for me. Ever since I was at uni studying drama, Waterside was a place to see experimental work, to meet contemporary artists and to build new ideas. It is also where Josie, Meg and I first collaborated, so it feels very fitting (and rather romantic) to be there again this year, as we grow and develop into a more established collective.
V: Emma, how do you feel now you’ve had some time since Life is Short and Long wrapped up? And how do you think using the shopfront will shape your engagement with the Port this year?
EB: I feel like I’ve done the very best I could with the artistic process that I have, and I have now come to the point of putting my practice in a very attractive box and putting it on the shelf. I’m proud of what we made and did, and now is the time to soak up ideas, put out some ideas and work with others on what they are doing – to allow some space for me to come back to my practice at another time.
I see it as a whole year of working for and with the company, doing what needs to be done as guided by [Vitalstatistix Director] Emma Webb.
The shopfront: from working in that space during Life Is, many people passed the door to ask me where the shops were, what was I doing, to collect mail and gain access to the hall. I think the presence, any presence, will remind people that this space is very much alive and kicking and even kicking goals. I’m excited to be the interface.
V: Ashton, how do you juggle collaborating and working independently?
AM: It is always a matter of pulling out diaries and finding any time to be together that we can! We are all very driven and hardworking, which is part of why we work well together, but it also means that we are all very busy! Usually though, we block out some time throughout the year to develop new projects and to present work. Applying for grants together is helpful too because it forces you to plan timelines well in advance! The best thing though, I think, is how honest we are with each other and how much we support each other’s individual careers. When independent work comes up we tell each other, we celebrate our personal joys, and we do our best to be flexible and make it all work.
V: How do you balance the competing demands of your creative work with non-artistic pursuits?
EB: Ahhh, I don’t really. I’m writing this after a big day on the home front with my eyes bulging from their sockets. So I wouldn’t say balance. I’d say it’s the thing I have to do, want to do, and so I squeeze it in and around the other incredible life I have running around at knee height. So I don’t balance, I squeeze.
AM: I am in a very fortunate position at the moment in that I spend most of my time working on creative pursuits. When I’m not acting or making work, I work at the Starlight Children’s Foundation providing positive distraction for sick kids. That is highly creative too so all of my different worlds seem to compliment each other quite well, which helps. I’ve also had to become very good at compartmentalising – every morning I check my diary and whatever I am doing that day gets my full focus. If I think too much about balancing it all, it just gets way too stressful!
V: What do you get out of working with Vitalstatistix that you don’t get out of working with larger companies?
EB: A sense of continuity, a sense of community, a sense of possibility, a sense of being regarded and a sense of building something together. But also sometimes, a sense of how much harder it is for small company to have to pull together outcomes that are of as high a quality as the big companies. A sense of struggle. I do value that challenge.
AM: I’ve worked with Vitals a lot over the years and what I’ve always loved is the incredible freedom to take creative risks, to make brave work and to be unashamedly who I am. The great strength of a smaller team is that you get to know everyone very well. Vitals gave me my first big acting job out of uni (Cutaway: A Ceremony) and I’ve always felt like myself there.
They allow artists to be all that they are, to develop and grow, and to embrace their complexity. As a young woman, this kind of space can be a very hard thing to find- both at work and just generally in the world.
V: What else are you working on this year?
EB: I’ll be working at the SA Museum, I’ll be brushing up my straight acting skills because I love the idea of someone handing me a script instead of conceiving the script, writing the script, getting funding for the script, and then performing the entire script. I’ll be working on getting fit and eating really well and being nice to people.
AM: It’s going to be a very fun and busy year! I’ll be working with Vitals again in May to develop Rebecca’s Meston’s new work, Drive. I’m also making and performing in Patch Theatre Company’s new work, Yo Diddle Diddle, performing in a return season of McNirt Hates Dirt in the Dream Big Festival, and touring Grug with Windmill Theatre Company.
V: Do you see your art and processes as political? What do you think is the role of arts is in politics?
EB: I never have seen my process as political; I see it as social. Social may well be political but my first call is social. Social, because talking to people is connecting and connecting to strangers in this way is not a regular daily thing for most people but the practice of it – for all and sundry – could bring some big changes in the way we all do things.
People say the social is political but I think the political is social, and if we really knew how to speak and if we really knew how to listen, we could be doing a few things quite a bit better.
I don’t know if art does have a role in politics – art is art and it can be political and the act of making art is counter cultural, but where politics and art meet for me is uncut and unclear, and relates differently to different artists and different artworks.
AM: Yes. Especially the work I make independently, and with Meg and Josie. I am and always will be a fierce feminist, so that undoubtedly comes through in all of my work. I actually think it is kind of impossible to live in the world as an aware, engaged, human and not have that affect your work. If you are a politically engaged human, who is making work for a contemporary audience, then it can’t help but be of this world and time, which means it is bound to be politically and socially engaged. I think the role of arts in politics is to playfully provoke, to question, to open conversations. In my dream world, people would see a show and then spend the rest of the night in the foyer bar not talking about how good the actors were or how big the set was, but rather about the ideas raised.
Vitalstatistix spoke with performance-maker and conversationalist Emma Beech and curator, producer and director/dramaturge Steve Mayhew, who is also Creative Producer at Country Arts SA.
Vitalstatistix and Country Arts SA will premiere Emma’s new work Life is Short and Long, in Port Adelaide and Wirrabara in October.
Vitals: Could you each tell us about your current artistic practice?
Emma Beech: I say that my practice is essentially having deep and meaningfuls with (mostly) strangers and then re-telling the gold moments of those conversations in a theatre show that I create and perform in.
To be in a position where I created the most obscure of pastimes for myself into an actual art practice still surprises me.
The essential drive behind this practice though is about connection – connection through the knowledge and experiences of people we walk by in the street being re-created into an intricate theatrical yarn. I am always, always more connected and therefore caring of a person or a thing or an opinion or a way of life if I know more about it. This is my contribution to that opening up of ourselves to others.
Steve Mayhew: As a curator, producer and director/dramaturge, I often find myself in dual roles, where one part of the job is very technical and practical; ensuring agreements are signed, budgets are made or adhered to and meetings are arranged and held. The flip of that is the role of a researcher, a thinker, questioner, strategist and outside eye. It’s in that part where I often get to reflect an artist’s decisions and work back at them through discussion, consider larger themes, ethical concerns, and so on.
Over the past decade, inside and outside of Country Arts SA, I seem to have forged quite an idiosyncratic specialisation in three areas of interest where I produce, curate, direct or dramaturge digital / participatory works, dance pieces and works that embody regional experimentalism.
I have also been known to make sound tracks, most recently for Larissa McGowan and her work Fanatic with Sydney Dance Company. I am currently working with NSW based director Alicia Talbot as a dramaturge/sound designer for a work that will premiere at Bundanon Trust’s Siteworks in a few weeks time where I will play live a DJ mix set of original and well known tracks to a six-hour improvised durational performance work.
V: Each of you has spent significant time working and living in regional South Australia. Can you tell us about some of your favourite places?
EB: Every place that I form a relationship with through work becomes a favourite place. It adds itself to the list.
I loved Goolwa for its surprises and quiet passion, and I love Wirrabara (the town I am currently gathering stories from, three hours due north of Adelaide in the Southern Flinders Rangers) for its quietness, complexity and history.
SM: For food you can’t go past The Metro Bakery in Mt Gambier; they serve excellent cheap meals and their staff are always happy and friendly. The Stone Hut Bakery in Stone Hut (on the way to Wirrabara) is also a find, when it’s open. In the last 12 months I discovered Arrosto Coffee, boutique coffee roasters from Renmark whose ‘Columbia Hacienda Black Label’ is pretty tasty. I always make sure I drop by Di Giorgio Wines in the Coonawarra, to top up my thirst for their sparkling. When possible (unfortunately rarely), I love relaxing near the flowing waters of the Murray River and by the beach in Goolwa or Port Elliot during winter.
V: Artists and cultural experiences contribute to places, towns and cities, especially when they are embedded rather than imported. Place-making is the jargon. How do you think artists contribute to making places? And what are the dangers of expecting artists to revitalise places?
EB: I think my work is more about reinvigorating the relationship locals have to their place. I think artists can help locals and outsiders to see beauty, to remember beauty and interesting details now forgotten or overlooked, through the reframing all forms of art provide.
It is a form of lovemaking, and artists do this lovemaking for a town with fresh eyes.
The issue I think with expecting artists to be place-makers is that there is a strategy to place-making which I think can halt the creative process and frame the re-experience of a place, even though art, into a sales pitch rather than an unique and chaotic artwork. A sales pitch only shows the good stuff, and in art and life I would argue you also need complicated, unresolved and unnoticed stuff.
SM: Here are three tasks all artists, funders, gate-keepers, cultural shapers and the general public should familiarise themselves with before even thinking about place-making.
Firstly: Read ‘The New Rules of Public Art’ by a UK organisation called Situations. (I just love these simple and direct tenets.)
Secondly: Equip yourself with an ethical and trustworthy practice and outlook in order to follow and/or accept the new rules.
Thirdly: Be brave, trust your instinct and don’t settle for the “I want one of those” or “This is the way I’ve always done it” syndromes.
V: Emma, Life is Short and Long is about crisis and resilience in three very disparate places. Do you have any advice about coping with crisis and developing resilience that you have learnt from your research for this show?
EB: It’s tricky. There are many different approaches, of course, as there are different people; but I have noticed that an exterior crisis, one that happens to you beyond your control, tends to do a lot of work in developing a person. Developing in a wise way.
However, after a long enough time, if that wisdom is not continually cultivated and worked on, it will go away. One must work at change, must work at resilience, on an almost daily basis. You need to be prepared to make some choices about the way you live. Be flexible. You need to know a couple of things that make you happy and keep doing them through any crisis situation and beyond. And you can’t expect external circumstances to prop you up. They will, of course, always change, and from what I’ve seen, holding on to something too tightly – a thing, an idea, a person – actually inhibits resilience.
You must also fight for what you believe in. This means knowing what you believe in and fighting for it; this fight will probably come to be fought at some time in your life. And if you don’t find it, it seems that most people later regret it.
V: Steve, what are some of the most exciting regional arts practices and models that you are seeing at the moment around the country?
SM: The regional arts practices and models that excite me the most are ones that embrace local artists whilst looking to the nation and the rest of the world for collaboration, nourishment and benchmarking.
In terms of regional dance, Dance North (Townsville, QLD) currently with ex ADT dancer Kyle Page as their Artistic Director seem to be doing some interesting works. It’s always worth keeping an eye on what Dalisa Pigram and Rachel Swain at Marrugeku (Broome, WA) are doing and Tasdance (Launceston, TAS) are very consistent with their engagement of nationally and local dancers.
As for regional theatre practitioners, I’ve been in conversation with Julian Louis from NORPA (Lismore, NSW) a bit recently and their work in development Three Brothers could very well be the next big thing. I also keep my eye on students graduating from the Bachelor of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong (NSW), where Sarah Miller and ex South Australian and Red Shed Theatre alumni Tim Maddock and Catherine McKinnon lecture. Lyn Wallis’ directorship at Hot House Theatre (Albury, Wondonga, NSW/VIC) is starting to take shape also.
I think my colleague Eleanor Scicchitano at Country Arts SA is really doing some excellent work in making regional visual artists extend their practice whilst at the same time dragging the many regional South Australian volunteer run galleries kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The biennale visual arts festival Cementa (Kandos, NSW) held next April 2017 is also growing in stature.
I admire the true experimentalism of The Wired Lab (Cootamundra, NSW) and Punctum Inc (Castlemaine, VIC) who have managed to embed their practice deep within their regional communities and still have time to nurture people in sound art and live art (respectively) through residences and their own projects.
V: There is both a global and a localised sensibility to Life is Short and Long that could be likened to a large tree – deeply rooted with long branches. For each of you, how does this analogy (deeply rooted with long branches) extend to the ways you work with artists, communities and other collaborators?
EB: I think for me it is knowing that for any story there is rarely a simple tie off. One story goes on and on and on forever in a way. So when you talk about deep and long I think this applies to every person I have ever told a story about.
When I collaborate with artists I think this sense of ongoing time, and timelessness, ends up becoming represented in many different forms in the work, and I hope we all work towards creating the anti to the ‘happily ever after’ myth. With collaborators, I seem to find my people and stick to them. Not because I feel we have to, but because I seem drawn to continuing this longness and deepness with them as well. We grow, our work grows, life goes on.
In terms of community, and how I work with them, it is so simple. It is so simple, and basic, and ancient really, this oral story telling, this meeting and sharing our lives and then re-sharing them in a dramatic performance, and I think this relates to the idea you are talking about.
SM: I was only reflecting the other day to some other artists that I believe I discovered my fascination with a global and local sensibility between the age of eight and seventeen when my family dislodged themselves from an easy Adelaide suburban lifestyle and chose to travel across Europe and the UK in a small van for nine months and then immediately after, chose to reside in my great-great-grandfather’s house in Kadina on the Yorke Peninsula.
This literal local/global/local experience affected me at this young and formative age. I have always been innately aware that there is a bigger picture to the smaller one and vice versa, that many things are connected and don’t happen in isolation and that the only constant is change. This practice of zooming in and out seems to be reflected every day in my collaborative work and life.
V: You each have long-term associate relationships with Vitalstatistix. Emma you have developed and produced a number of works with us, been part of Adhocracy and you are also a very regular audience member! Steve, Vitals and Country Arts SA collaborate on projects each year and you have an artistic collaboration with our director Emma Webb. What value does these types of long-term relationships between artists, organisations and collaborators hold? What do you see as Vitalstatistix’s place/role locally and nationally?
EB: You can see just what that artist is capable of and be ready to give opportunities to that artist when you can see they are ready. This is a great gift for both parties.
I love knowing I can go to Vitalstatistix with an idea, go to Adhocracy with something really risky, and have a chance to try it. That I am trusted, that I trust.
I think this builds an artist, it allows them to grow bigger and stronger and richer and that is good for everyone – for the art, for audiences, for travelling interstate / overseas even. This is growth, I love to grow, and I think that long-term relationship allows this to happen.
I therefore feel that this says what Vitals role is locally and nationally – allowing artists to grow their flavour and style in a local setting, with its own nuances and details and quirks, and then getting them out there nationally to share in the artistic results of that. Vitals is an incubator of significant proportions.
SM: Long-term relationships are built on trust and alignments of ethics. Collaborations are the building blocks to long-term relationships. Trust and ethical alignments lead to collaborations. It’s a bit Escher and Vitals is on the continuum of a Penrose Triangle.
V: How are you feeling about the future of the arts locally and nationally? What kind of arts initiatives and arts organisations do you think are most critical at this time?
EB: I am excited. I can’t help it – I know now that this kind of shift we are seeing, this kind of change will bring something new and dynamic. So I’m excited. I think places that keep people supported, keep people developing are really important right now – there needs to be places to do our thing and audiences to see our thing and this is critical.
I also think that we need to become extremely smart and work out what we need to do to be the professionals we’ve always wanted to be, or to maintain what we already are, to be thorough, to be sure of what we are doing and why and that requires some attention, that rigor, and often we are busy busy making so that the space and time and money to answer those questions is not really available.
So seeing those become available I think will be crucial, especially in SA where I see there may be less options available to us to do this. To be challenged to do this.
SM: South Australia seems to be currently suffering from a weird style of leadership that I think is unsure of itself, where it might be going, slightly inward looking and lacking confidence. All played very publically through a very opposite tone on social media, which is constantly provided by certain leaders in the arts.
I find social media feeds fascinating. You have your ‘broadcasters’, the “what about me’s?” this is the “everything I do other than work feed” or “this is the work I do” or “family family family” and of course “cats and star wars”.
I see the style of cultural leadership in South Australia and Adelaide to be very different to say Victoria and Melbourne who on the other hand seem to be developing and attracting a serious amount of diverse and measured leaders. From the outside, it seems it’s about many and not just about a privileged few and their positions. They relate locally with a national and international perspective, they have that global/local view, the ability to encourage and gently persuade with vision.
David Pledger is writing some excellent stuff of late – I really enjoyed this article…
And as an addendum I recently got caught down a rabbit hole around entrepreneurship. Listen to this Adelaide born podcast and then talk to me about the future.
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Vitalstatistix spoke with Melbourne-based artist Lz Dunn, whose work Aeon features as this year’s Adhocracy residency project, and South Australian artist and creative producer Alysha Herrmann who will be participating in the Aeon residency.
V: Could you each tell us about your artistic practice?
Alysha Herrmann: My artistic practice is a shifting mess of questions. I currently describe myself as a parent, writer, theatre-maker and cultural organiser.
I make things. I help others make things.
I am interested in projects that explore connection and vulnerability.
I am interested in projects that are cross disciplinary and are in conversation with non-arts experiences (like theatre + farming). I am interested in collaboration and experimenting and exploring and not knowing.
My independent works in 2016 have been intimate (for between 1 and 8 audience members at a time) and have delved into soundscapes/audio and installation rather than traditional ‘plays’. I am interested in theatre-making that blurs the lines between roles and focuses instead on what collaborators bring to the table and making something that wasn’t there before.
I am interested in projects that are in direct conversation with audience – that might be literally through live text message conversations, or by here and now subject matter or by ancillary experiences (like feasts and dress- ups pre or post show) – especially audiences who have felt left out or intimidated by theatre/art spaces/worlds. Regional communities and young people have my heart. I like urban discoveries and old people too.
I have stepped in and out of many roles – performer, director, producer, writer, co-designer, dramaturg – some roles fit more comfortably than others, some roles come more easily than others, some roles I have fumbled my way through.
Being in the room and on the floor making things is one of my favourite things. I like to say yes.
Lz Dunn: I’ve realised that what I continue to be interested in is creating experiences and spaces for people to move through. I get excited by quite large concepts and look for ways to craft a time and space that invites people to consider ideas through an experience of doing something somewhere rather than watching something happen. I’m reading a book at the moment, which compares Western and Chinese philosophies of time and processes of change, where I came across a phrase I really like. Rather than trying to create ‘being’ by insisting on precision and distinction, it speaks of a need to ‘advocate the outline’. I think this might be what I try to do.
Walking seems to recur as a form and birds as a theme. The possibilities of queerness are key too. In process, collaboration is really important for me. I have some key collaborators that I work with regularly (most of them are working on Aeon) and I really love the way things diverge and explode when I’m working with other brains and bodies.
There’s a generosity and reciprocity in collaboration that is really energising. I really think I get as much out of artistically leading a project as I do out of working to support and share someone else’s initial vision because I get to go places I wouldn’t have otherwise taken myself.
As well as my collaborative projects I sometimes make videos that either capture field recordings or field performances and I’ve started a solo dance practice over the last two years that has been really fun. I’m presenting my first public performance at the end of this year, which is very exciting and pretty terrifying.
V: Lz, Aeon is part of a body of work you have made that takes birds as an inspiration and is informed by queer ecology. Can you tell us about your interest in these fields of inquiry?
L: Aeon evolved from an earlier project called Flyway (that I made with Lawrence [English] and Lara [Thoms]) where I was interested in linking migratory birds with how we experience ‘nature’ in urban environments and our acculturated perceptions of boundaries. I’m interested in birds both personally (yes, I do enjoy some bird watching) and culturally. Birds in cities, like pigeons, are often viewed as pests. Still we accept them as belonging there but not in the ‘natural world’ beyond. Queer culture is also something that has historically been naturalised in cities–seen as the deviant product of human culture, not nature.
Queer Ecology is about questioning dominant ideas of what is considered ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’, by asking what powers influenced this way of thinking and who or what might be excluded or made invisible by that.
For me, birds have become this very visible, specific lens through which to meditate on interconnection, how we share space with humans and other species.
V: Alysha, you have previously participated in an Adhocracy residency project called Future Present with artist Rosie Dennis in 2014. Can you tell us your thoughts on the value of this annual residency opportunity for South Australian artists?
A: I’m still wrestling with the questions Future Present woke for me. That alone speaks to the value it had for me.
Fight this footprint/ with the fire in your fear/ the legacy in your belly/ we can begin this #futurepresent // #tinytwitterpoem 2014
I think that there are multiple points of value in the annual residency opportunity as a whole but the ones that most stand out to me are:
Since Future Present, I’ve employed other artists from that residency on projects I’ve Creative Produced, become friends with others, continued to share information, ideas and support with all of the SA artists, continued to be inspired by Rosie Dennis and the work of UTP and Vitals. Future Present was only two weeks but it had a significant and ongoing impact on me and my practice.
I came away from Future Present asking why art? Is that the best use of your time, does it actually achieve your mission? Or would you be better off using your time as an activist, a social worker, a teacher, a farmer?
So far I’m still making art.
V: Aeon is a site-specific work, which invites audiences on a sound walk. You both have experience making works for sites, whether that is parks, city streets, lounge rooms or other locations outside of formal performance or gallery spaces. What are some important things to consider when making a site-specific work?
A: Why are you making site specific work? I think asking yourself that question first of all is pretty important. Because your reason might be about testing a way of working, or about who your audience is, or about something else entirely. All of which can, and probably should, shape how you might approach making whatever it is. Depending on the exact specificity (loungerooms vs a particular loungeroom) I think spending as much time in that space as you can before you start making the thing is good. I think thinking about what that site might mean to the people/creatures who already use it and how your use might interrupt or challenge their use is really important – especially if that use takes power away from those who already have less power than you – that doesn’t mean don’t use it, but I’m saying I think we need to have considered those impacts.
Considering the logistics is also important – like where will I go to the toilet, what happens if it rains, what’s our evacuation plan, who do I need permission from to work here, am I okay with things being stolen or vandalised (and how does that change the experience I intend?).
L: I tend to work from a kernel of an idea or question that expands slowly. So the interest is often conceptual and may not be reliant on a specific site but the idea itself is reliant on considering the specifics of sites. To make site-specific work you need to be interested in the realities of working outdoors, in public space or in non-traditional art venues; it’s unpredictable and lots of elements are out of your control. This needs to be central to the idea and the form so that you’re not feeling anxious about needing things to be a certain way for it to ‘work’. It will always be different and that’s what keeps it dynamic.
V: You are both parents to young children/babies. Has the experience of parenting changed your perspective on art making or sustainable arts practice?
A: I have an almost 13 year old and a 2 year old. I became a parent for the first time before I became an adult – and before I stumbled into the arts – and it was my first child who actually led me to art making. I became a participant in a community arts and cultural development theatre project that was a co-production between Riverland Youth Theatre and Vitalstatistix about teenage mothers (which I wrote about for the Griffith Review in 2014). It transformed my life and led me into this rabbit hole of art making.
Parenting my second child has been different in many ways, because I’ve grown and changed so much and my life and its circumstances have shifted so significantly. There are questions I asked myself this time around that weren’t even on my radar in the slightest the first time around. Questions about gender and language and clothing and parenting practices and lifestyle that with my first child I just did what everyone else was doing, I replicated what my own parents had done. With my second child I questioned everything. I think if anything my artistic practice changed my perspective on parenting more than the other way around.
Having said that –
My youngest was 5 weeks old when I participated in the Future Present residency with Vitals. I was still breastfeeding, so expressing milk throughout the first week while they were home with my partner and then they were with us in the room during the second week of the residency. That residency was exploring climate change through the focus of primary production. Everything about that experience, from the themes, to the reality of having baby in the room while ‘making’ honed and shifted my perspective in myriad ways. It still hasn’t settled. I’m still discovering and figuring out what that means. What I have to sacrifice, what I don’t have to sacrifice, how I make, what I make, when I make, who I make with, where I make.
My perspective as an artist is completely shaped by my role as a parent though, absolutely, and I try to always name that in my bios and introductions because it does inform me as ‘artist’.
L: I’m sure it has but I’m not even three months into it–still in the magical twilight zone– so I might need to get back to you on that in another 10 months! But basically I think all artists are thinking about the sustainability of their practice all the time and parenting is just one version of a big life change. If you decide having children is also important, and you get the opportunity to make that happen, then you’re just really lucky. A couple of years ago I had a chat with an artist who is also a parent to three kids and she had just taken a bookkeeping job. And she saw that work as part of her practice too. She’s a trained dancer but is really expansive about what she brings into her practice – she lets everything she does have a creative value that can feed into her making process. I think it’s a great way to move through the world.
Saying that, I’m always scheming towards setting up a utopic art commune where my family and my friends can all live in some permacultured, beachside paradise where awesome humans from the big wide world come to stay so we don’t all implode.
V: Lz, you are an associate artist with Melbourne-based experimental arts organisation Aphids. Your Aeon creative team also includes some long-term collaborators. How has your connection to a group of artists and collaborators informed your practice?
L: Yes! I feel so fortunate to work with the artists I do and they massively inform my practice. I’ve been working with Lara [Thoms] and Willoh [S. Weiland] as part of Aphids since 2010, and Lawrence [English] since 2011 through our project, Flyway. Collaborating is really important for me; it means ideas can develop in conversation with other brains and that I’m constantly opening up to new possibilities and processes.
I think maintaining collaborations does take a lot of effort and as Aphids, Willoh and Lara and I have invested a lot in our collaborative relationship and worked really hard to keep making art together. I have huge respect for their brains and their art. In every project we do we learn more about our process and how our specific skills and interests complement each other. We all initiate quite different kernels of ideas but share key approaches and aesthetics, which keeps a healthy tension alive.
I think my work with Lawrence draws on his interest in the act of listening, particularly in relation to field recording. His methodology for combining site-specific sound and musical elements really resonates with the ways I approach the performative experience of moving through and relating to space–it’s somewhere between a tangible, factual, very specific encounter and a sort of dreamscape of infinite possibilities. We use Flyway as a reference point in Aeon a lot. That shared understanding that crosses over projects is really valuable.
Also, working with other people is mostly more fun. Important.
V: Alysha, in 2015 you won the Australia Council’s Kirk Robson award which recognises young leadership in community arts and cultural development. What do you see as the future for CACD, socially engaged and community-based arts practice in Australia?
A: I feel like I’ve been asked this question before and I didn’t have a good answer the other time either. I think CACD, socially engaged and community-based arts practice is always shifting and redefining itself and will continue to do so into the future. I see more and more CACD and related practice creeping into mainstream artistic conversations nationally. I see a stronger recognition for the hunger communities and audiences have for experiences that have relevance to their lives and experiences. I see CACD and socially engaged practitioners continue to have a key role to play in advocacy at every level and they are more nationally organised and effective in doing so. I see CACD work pulling major institutions into the here and the now and the conversations we all keep avoiding.
I see regional practitioners that stop taking every else’s advice and start forging their own identities. I see less organisations and more organised individuals. I see organised individuals inserting themselves into the work of non-arts organisations as integral and valued players. I see less money. Less ‘opportunities’. I see ‘opportunity’. I see smaller scale and larger scale. I see echoes of 20 years ago and promises of 20 years from now. I see continued commitment and increasing need.
How do each of you feel about the future of the arts nationally? What kind of arts initiatives and arts organisations do you think are most critical at this time?
A: I keep looking back and thinking about all the amazing opportunities and pathways and connections that got me to where I am now – so many of them no longer exist. So I am angry and demoralised and worried about the future, especially for young and emerging artists. But I also think in the biggest picture, the longer ‘game’ and how sometimes old structures have to entirely collapse to make space for new foundations. So I feel both disillusioned and hopeful. There is both grief and excitement. The challenges and complexities of this moment in time feel like an invitation to tear down and replace the things that are broken, to question everything. I’m not saying that’s easy. It terrifies me and I question my ability and skill to even contribute to that, but it feels important and valuable and ‘right’.
I think arts initiatives and organisations that foster collaboration and questioning and are local in action but global in thought are critical at this time.
Initiatives that actively question who is in the room.
Initiatives that talk to the here and the now and the future maybes. Initiatives that invest in people, not product. Initiatives that explore the borders and the boundaries and all the blurriness. Initiatives that make people feel invited and welcomed AND manage to also be thought-provoking. Initiatives that build on and learn from the past and imagine new futures. Initiatives that give artists and audiences a framework and a space to ask questions.
Initiatives like Adhocracy are critical at this time.
Organisations that are willing to stick their neck out for everyone who hasn’t been invited to the table. Organisations willing to challenge themselves and their own history. Organisations willing to champion others, even when those others might be competitors. Organisations who foster connection, community, conversation and a willingness to not have all the answers. Organisations who share. Organisations who dream big and deliberately and act locally and intentionally.
Organisations like Vitalstatistix are critical at this time.
I consistently look to Vitalstatistix as a source of inspiration, provocation and reassurance. Adhocrary as a framework is totally something I want to see stolen and copied in as many locations as possible. I’m not even trying to suck up.
L: I feel really confused about a lot of the decisions that have been made. It can feel like a bit of a disaster.
There’s obviously a whole plethora of stuff to rant about on this topic but just to focus on a personal perspective, my practice has grown absolutely through the support of small to medium organisations. Every key opportunity I’ve had has been enabled by organisations that, like Vitals, value experimentation and give emerging and established artists support to test out new ideas and forms. They offer programs that encourage process as well as production. They provide residencies, laboratories, workshops, classes, development programs as well as presenting artist’s works. I think it’s this range of activity that builds artistic connections and conversations. It’s as valuable for emerging artists as it is for established ones because it’s the cross-pollination of practices that keeps the whole community dynamic. I moved to Melbourne six years ago not really knowing anyone and it’s through local organisations like Next Wave, Dance House, Arts House, Lucy Guerin Inc. and Aphids that I was able to make connections with my local peers and art heroes. And that’s because they intentionally offer accessible programs to engage artists at various stages of their practices and in various contexts. They’re not operating behind closed doors. They invest in creating connections.
I think this residency program at Vitals is a great example of this. That we can come and work with local artists and share ideas and processes and experiment and play and then share with audiences is really valuable. That applications are open to artists and thinkers across disciplines broadens the dialogue. That it’s quite difficult and uncertain and that there’s a real risk of failure is also important. It takes a lot of consideration and effort to bring a group like this together and we don’t really know what’s going to happen and it’s not a finished work and we need to find methods for many people to establish a connection with a process and an idea that’s already underway but certainly not finished! That’s where the interesting and exciting challenges are and organisations like Vitals take that on because they value artistic risk. We all really need that.
I guess the positive side to the whole arts-funding debacle has been the energy and action it’s provoked within the arts community. People have been spurred into action and into being really articulate and vocal about the importance of what they do within the arts community and what the arts do within the broader social structure. It’s also prompting us to scrutinise the existing ecology and have these conversations and be advocates for what we all do and carry placards that yell, ART MATTERS!
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Vitalstatistix spoke with Hilary Kleinig from Zephyr Quartet and Jennifer Greer Holmes, independent creative producer and ZQ’s manager, about contemporary and experimental music, their focus on collaboration and how they are feeling about the future of Australian arts three weeks after what’s become known as Black Friday.
V: Zephyr Quartet is really forging a reputation for experimentation and interesting collaborations. Tell us about some of your recent projects.
HK: Our most recent major project in the Adelaide Festival, Exquisite Corpse, is a musical version based on the Surrealist parlour game of the same name. Instead of passing fragments of text or drawings from one person to the next, we commissioned twelve composers from Australia and the USA to write a 65min seamless score, whereby one composer would pass the last fragment of their section onto the next composer as a starting point for the following section. For this project we also worked with visual artists Jo Kerlogue and Lukukuku who created an animated visual response to the music that was projected into the performance space.
Another of our favourite recent projects is Between Light, which draws together five jazz musicians to compose a new piece for Zephyr in response to the theme of ‘chiaroscuro’ – the Italian art term used to describe the effect of contrasting areas of light and dark in a painting or drawing. We then invited Geoff Cobham and his team of Chris Petridis, Lachlan Turner and Alexander Ramsay to respond, not only to the music but also to the space in which we were performing the pieces (for the premiere season this was at Queens Theatre). They created a ‘house’ for each piece by using different parts of the building and utilising separate installations that responded uniquely - using varying notions of light and dark – to each piece of music and the space. During the performance, the audience moved around the space with the quartet as we performed and joined us in an intimate conversation of music, light and space. We liked this project so much that we wanted to do it again and are really thrilled to be able to explore Between Light in a new space at Vitals’ wonderful Waterside Workers Hall.
JGH: Zephyr’s approach to collaboration is what drew me to working with them. It’s at the heart of everything we do: artistically; the way we make decisions; everything is a discussion, everyone plays a part. I’m constantly bewildered by how successful the collaborative process is with ZQ – sometimes we are talking about projects with more than twenty artists involved, often from multiple cities or countries. It’s an interesting and satisfying process of working.
V: There seems to be flux and development in contemporary and experimental music in South Australia at the moment – why do you think that is?
HK: I am very proud to be a part of a dynamic and talented music community here in South Australia, and I think the quality of music making here is extraordinary and world-class. Whilst there are things that I personally would like to see more of in the music scene, what I see as a big part of the success in the form of flux and development is the sense of community from a large part of the sector – a willingness to support each other in playing for projects, by going to each other’s performances, recording each other’s music and getting excited about what other people are doing. I think that COMA (Creative Original Music Adelaide), who run a performance series at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, have had a large impact on bringing together musicians from different genres and supporting a creative community, too.
V: ZQ’s recent projects have seen the Quartet collaborate with other established South Australian artists across artforms. What is the collaborative experience like for the Quartet?
HK: Collaboration is key to what we do, and the nature of the collaboration changes from project to project. We are very interested in adopting theatre and dance models in terms of creative development for producing work (although on a smaller scale), however this is rarely supported by funding bodies because it is a practice not utilised in music, especially not on a collaborative level.
I feel that there is a great depth and authenticity within work generated from a ‘ground-up’, collaborative practice and we Zephyrs are interested in making work that speaks deeply, uniquely and personally to a people, a time, and a place.
Sometimes this means finding existing music and placing it within a certain context or environment, but often it means creating from scratch – which of course is more risky and hard to promote because you don’t know exactly what it will be like until you perform it! For instance, when we premiered Between Light, I remember such a profound sense of relief after the first performance that it ‘worked’ – I really couldn’t tell if it would from an audience perspective! (I then proceeded to tell all my friends to come along!)
It is great for us to be able to have opportunities to present projects again. Aside from the vast amount of energy, time and money it takes to create projects such as Between Light and Exquisite Corpse, a remounted presentation (again, not such a common occurrence in the music sector) offers us a certain peace of mind, in that we have an idea of what the outcome will be for us and our audience, as well as the chance to make something good even better!
V: What are you thoughts on the opportunities available to mature independent contemporary artists in South Australia – what are the benefits and disadvantages of working here?
JGH: On the one hand, the opportunities that Adelaide offers are largely due to the ease of making relationships with people. It means that, personally, I have found work easy to come by because after all this time I have a really diverse network of peers in multiple art forms, and outside of the arts. It’s the main thing that’s kept me in Adelaide – I haven’t wanted the challenge of rebuilding that. Also, it’s a relatively cheap lifestyle: a person can live fairly easily on a fluctuating income. This means that there are loads of artists doing interesting things.
Of course, there’s also access to funding, and some initiatives for development, in-kind support and residencies.
Having said all that, and with the bright eyes of someone who is currently travelling in Berlin, the disadvantages are more apparent. Over the past few years, the isolation of being in Adelaide has got under my skin. Shows that I want to see don’t tour here (whether that’s an experimental intimate theatre work, or someone as mainstream as Madonna) – so to remain engaged in national and international performance we have to travel. I love travel, but it’s disruptive, expensive and not always possible. I’m interested in what’s happening right now – although I have concern for the future and respect for the past – and I feel I am neglecting my professional responsibilities if I don’t see contemporary performances. So, it’s either travel, or waiting and hoping that presenters like Vitals or one of the major festivals tour contemporary works into Adelaide.
The other disadvantages are that I often feel the sector in Adelaide is stifled by a lack of politicisation, a lack of forward thinking (but present-acting) leadership, too many gatekeepers, and a vast misunderstanding by some decision makers about what it actually takes to be an innovative maker of live art. And then, perhaps it’s the flip side of what I was saying before… It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone, so it can be hard to find freshness – both personally and professionally.
V: Tell us about Between Light and why ZQ wanted to present the work with Vitalstatistix at Waterside.
JGH: I have a really strong connection to Waterside and Vitals, stemming from my family’s history with the building, growing up in the area, and my work with Vitals – as a former staff member, a documenter of events, and as an independent artist. Vitals is the state’s only presenter supporting innovative, experimental, cross-disciplinary collaboration in a way that is affordable for independent artists and small organisations. When Emma Webb responded to the premiere of Between Light at Queen’s Theatre so positively, I immediately thought that it would be a good work to see in that spectacular old hall, Waterside.
HK: Between Light was always conceived as an adaptable touring show and, in essence, a conversation between three elements – music, light and space. What is special about the music created for Between Light is each score comprised an improvisation component, which means we will never perform – and audiences will never hear – any piece quite the same way twice. Likewise, the lighting is stimulated, manipulated and generated live manually and through technology that turns sound waves to light. To be able to explore the possibilities of a different space adds yet another dimension to the life of this project, and we are very excited about this!
I also deeply admire Vitalstatistix’s role in our artistic community – Vitals are game changers, leaders and fearless producers of work that has national and international impact. I personally admire the way the organisation delves deeply into the local community, history and a broader social commentary to support artists and create work – I feel humbled and proud to be able to be a small part of this.
V: Jennifer, you work across a range of art forms as a creative producer, arts manager, curator, documenter, DJ and other roles. How do you approach your relationship with artists and your career as an independent cultural worker?
JGH: In short, from the heart. I have been evolving my ‘rules’ for how and who I work with over the past five or so years. When I first decided to give this whole independent caper a crack, my only motive was to not work with dickheads or Boards. Now, I have refined that somewhat!
When I work as a creative producer, I mostly work with friends (or artists who have been recommended by friends) who are trusted, both personally and as artists. I’m not interested in working with people or on projects that I wouldn’t want to see or artists I can’t advocate for the type of work they do. That’s not to say I haven’t done that – I’m just not very good at it.
In terms of artist management, again, I only do that for friends. At the moment, I work with Zephyr, Jason Sweeney and Heath Britton. I want to work with people I can be brutally honest with, for better or for worse (and it’s no coincidence that I use that marriage vow – I see it as a bond and an honour like no other).
I’ve been with Zephyr for more than four years, which is the longest job I have ever had. I love it and I love them. I think they’re completely shit-hot and I have had the privilege of talking about them overseas for the last month and a half – and people are so impressed.
They’re really leading the way. I already knew that, but having spent this time away and seeing what else is out there, it became even more obvious.
As a documenter, I see myself as a tiny cog in the process of telling a story. That’s a weird one to me, the documentation. It kind of just happened, without any deliberate choice. I think it’s vitally important to have records of things, and I’ve always been obsessive about hoarding memories, so it totally fits with my history and personality that I would do this for work. It is quite technical (which isn’t me at all) – I work with Heath Britton in this role, who I have known for over 20 years, so we have a shared language and defined roles that we’ve slipped into with making videos for artists.
Being a DJ is my favourite job I’ve done. It’s purely indulgent, hedonistic, joyful and outrageous. I work with a dear friend, Jo Kerlogue, and we get paid to drink bubbles, play our favourite records, dance and watch other people dance. If I could do that every day for the rest of my life I would be a very happy lady. Also, being a ‘post-modern feminist vinyl only DJ duo’ means that we kind of have a particular niche! It’s still work, and sometimes it feels like “going to work” but there is no comparison to a bad day at the Bad Jelly office – it’s still pretty darn good. In terms of collaboration, and the way Jo and I work together, pretty much we are just old mates who love records and tell each other how it is.
Back to the short answer though: I don’t do work that I don’t believe in. I can’t. When I stop enjoying something I don’t feel like I am being true to myself if I keep doing it. Work is very personal to me. Sometimes that’s problematic; most of the time it’s fucking fantastic.
V: You have worked with Vitalstatistix in many different capacities over the years. What do you see as the current value and role of Vitalstatistix?
JGH: As I mentioned before, Vitals is pretty much a standalone in Adelaide and South Australia in terms of the opportunities it offers artists. I have been fortunate enough to benefit from being an Incubator artist, which supports the development of new work; I’ve documented every Adhocracy since it started and am just astounded at the way that it continues to evolve the way it supports and engages artists and audiences. It’s completely unique in Adelaide, there is simply nothing like it. I love it. It’s my favourite part of Vitals’ programme.
Vitals is there for independent artists. It has helped develop audiences’ understanding of and taste for live contemporary art. It has facilitated so many creative relationships and sparked multiple collaborations that I have directly benefited from – both as an artist and an audience member.
In relation to the current funding situation, I always felt Vitals should be safe due to the unique offering they make to local and national artists. No-one else is doing what Vitals does, and no-one else has the kind of impact Vitals does in terms of public outcomes on the kind of money that’s available. Post-funding announcements, I am completely devastated by the news that Vitals missed out on funding. I have no words… Ok, maybe some: Shocked. Gutted. Appalled.
V: How are you feeling about the future of the arts locally and nationally?
JGH: Every time I think about this question I try not to be bleak. Yet, here I am again, attempting to answer it and feeling bleak. Not in terms of the art that is being made (there are truly exceptional artists here) , but the opportunity for artists to make it with adequate support for their work – not just funding, but infrastructure: both physical, such as venues; and in education, such as audience development and training.
That aside (and I don’t cast it aside lightly, I’d just prefer to focus on something that gives me hope), the emergence of a strong and diverse live art scene in Adelaide over the last few years is largely what’s kept me there. And it’s no coincidence that I am writing this for Vitals, as it is Vitals who has been at the forefront for supporting this type of work locally.
When I think about making work in Adelaide and Australia at the moment, I feel a bit limited. We are insular, we must reach out to be part of conversations, for it is rare that we are invited into them. For the most part, I don’t feel this is especially problematic: it definitely informs the experimental nature of our work, as I feel we are somewhat uninfluenced by trends. However, it does have limitations for audience growth – not just in numbers (which is an obvious one) but for the growth of an audiences’ understanding of what else is out there, what they can demand from their engagement with artists and the type of work they can see.
I’ve been writing this blog from various parts of the world – all away from home (I’ve been to 15 cities in just under 7 weeks!). I’ve been incredibly fortunate through my work in this sector to be supported to attend markets and festivals in order to find presentation and collaboration opportunities for SA artists. I am in love with Europe, and absolutely see the increased potential for artists to work there. I imagine it’s for a range of reasons, but one of the things I noticed in my conversations with Europeans from a variety of backgrounds (cultural, social, economic, language) – is the acceptance of the arts. It made me sad for Australian artists: I feel that we are apologetic or defensive of our choice to do creative work.
Again, short answer: it feels bad and sad. The devastation of the Australia Council news is fresh and I am tired of being told we need to find new ways to survive – as if we aren’t already doing that! Three companies I’ve worked with a fair bit in the past two years haven’t been funded. And I guess the other thing that has me down – particularly now, as I arrive back in Oz – is the potential of Adelaide to be this great city for arts and artists. There are amazing cities all over the place which have half - or less than half – the population of Adelaide which are all absolutely thriving with stuff to do and people who are out there hungry for it, publications who pay writers to write about it, and businesses who rely on the arts to bring people through their doors. It has nothing to do with our size. It’s an excuse we’ve been hearing for ages. I don’t know how to address it, I feel like I’ve been trying for half my life and am a tad battle weary. When the fight outweighs the joy – that’s a sign for me.
HK: There are no doubts that these are fairly dark times for the arts and I see the more recent Australia Council funding cuts as just yet another nail in the coffin. A myriad of things have contributed to making a hard job even harder over the last 5-10 years – ABC funding cuts, changes and cuts to arts courses at university and TAFE, etc.
I too, at times feel incredibly sad about this and echo Jennifer’s laments about the place and importance of culture within Australia, and I am not sure what to do to make changes to this. What we are talking about here are fundamental changes to our national identity! In a real practical sense I do feel that vast changes at a fundamental levels need to be addressed in education, access to arts, and media.
On a positive note over the last month or so I have felt a sense of purpose, of coming together, of unity and strength from the vast majority of the arts sector on many different levels. People are realising that they do have a voice, that they can speak for change, and that this is better done from a united front. Whilst none of us know what the future will hold there is a sense, for the most part, that we are all in this together, and that we are a community that – despite our differences – want similar results and outcomes.
I can’t speak for others, but these are my feelings today, right now, in this time and place:
I, too, feel that sometimes the fight is too much, that I am tired and have nothing left to give. On the other hand, at times, and most recently this last week, I am reminded by the power of art, the power of community and the power that a sense of shared experience in time and place is a strong and important reminder of our common, shared humanity.
On Monday I had the honour of playing music for a friend’s funeral – it was sad and it was happy, it was funny and it was joyful. Trying to read the music and play the right notes through the tears, trying to make a beautiful, moving sound that would honour a life well-lived, and looking at the vast crowd of people who were there sharing in this most primal human experience, I was reminded that music says things that words can’t say, that art has a power that no one can undermine and that it is our shared humanity and a strong sense of being part of and being valued by a community which makes life worth living.
I don’t know that will happen in the future with governments, with funding, with arts bodies, with politics, and what this means for the future of the arts locally and nationally. I know that changes in these areas can make our jobs as artists easier or harder but it can’t and won’t ever take away the power of and our human need for art.
Zephyr Quartet presents Between Light in association with Vitalstatistix, 30 June – 3 July.
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Vitalstatistix spoke with Paul Gazzola, Adhocracy co-curator and Artistic Director of OSCA – Open Space Contemporary Arts (South Australia); and Willoh S.Weiland, Artistic Director of Aphids (Victoria) and co-creator of Crawl Me Blood, a new work in development with Vitalstatistix.
V: Both of you lead small, under-resourced, experimental, artist-run organisations. It’s a tough environment at the moment. Tell us about your organisations and what makes you proud about how they work in the current context of Australian arts?
PG: In January of this year I began in my new role as Artistic Director of the South Australian-based organisation, OSCA – Open Space Contemporary Arts. OSCA is a platform and conduit for artists to extend their practice in a supportive and collegial environment; it’s the brainchild of Dario Vacirca who took the chance to re-establish KneeHIGH Puppeteers as a contemporary arts-based company. OSCA’s mission is to provide artists and non-artists with opportunities to dream, develop and create contemporary art works that explore new models of participation and practice in urban and regional contexts. OSCA explores contemporary notions of being Australian through community engagement, collaboration and exchange.
Three years and fifteen-plus projects into its new life, OSCA is finding its momentum as it defines its place within the local ecology of South Australia and the realm of artists and individuals that it collaborates with on a local, national and international scene.
WSW: Aphids is Melbourne-based company that has been making interdisciplinary art for twenty one years. I work with an incredible group of artists, including Artistic Associates Lz Dunn and Lara Thoms, who work as artists and managers of the Aphids supermassive program. What’s amazing about Aphids is its ethos of being artist-led, working collaboratively and working across disciplines, which has not changed across its long history.
V: Each of you have been part of Vitalstatistix’s national experimental arts hothouse, Adhocracy. Paul, you have co-curated Adhocracy with Emma and Jason for the past four years. Willoh, you have developed two works through Adhocracy’s residency program, where a national project undergoes creative development with a team of South Australian collaborating artists. What are your thoughts about the value of Adhocracy and the kind of opportunity it presents for artists?
PG: Adhocracy is a highly unique event in the experimental and interdisciplinary arts calendar of Australia. Its open call-out offers national and local artists space, time and technical support to develop and explore new ideas and formats of presentation across a diversity of sites, over four days within the Waterside Workers Hall – the home of Vitalstatistix.
As a former participating artist in 2012 and current co-curator since 2013, I have seen Adhocracy evolve as a highly engaging event that continues to open up new models of audience accessibility and participation within the SA contemporary arts scene as it focuses on stimulating and supporting emerging and experimental arts practice within Australia.
WSW: Yes, we have developed two works through the residency program, Forever Now and Crawl Me Blood, both of which have been incredible, fruitful opportunities that have had huge impacts on the way the projects have unfolded. The unique thing about Adhocracy for us has been working with local SA artists. This allows a different kind of experimentation to take place. In both residencies these artists have taken on a variety of roles becoming collaborators, writers, performers, researchers, audience members – allowing us to test the breadth of the idea in a much broader way than we would if it was just us in a room.
V: What advice would you give to artists interested in applying to Adhocracy this year?
PG: Make your application simple, clear and precise in what you want to do. Don’t get too lost in heavy concepts but make sure you think about how an intense residency can allow you to explore your ideas and further your project.
Also remember that to make work, means being able to speak about how you make work. Part of the curatorial focus of Adhocracy is to facilitate the public’s engagement across the event so you will be expected to present your work through a series of showings or talks.
WSW: DO IT. It’s an incredible chance to work on a project at the really vital stage of its development, the point when all the wild ideas coalesce into decisions! If you are interested in collaborative models for art-making and experimental practice then it’s an ideal place to learn.
V: Willoh, last year you won the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art; Paul, you also regularly work in a live art context. How do you describe what live art is?
PG: It’s always an interesting question to frame parameters for live art. I just made a new work for the Festival of Live Art (FOLA) called the FOLA GIFT SHOP by OSCA that precariously placed a commercial venture within a heavily subsidised arena. So live art, from my perspective, plays with form and experiments with possibilities. It centres on the moment of encounter in real time between the artist and the spectator. The slippages in its difficulty to be defined, is its liberty and its confusion. The aspect of liveness in its title reminds one of the immediacy of a practice that works within the experience of engaging directly with the public in action.
Overall, I actually prefer to leave the defining of the term as an open-ended one. Especially as its historical emergence, in the mid 1980’s in the UK, was exactly about trying to locate an expanded genre of work that didn’t fit the current categories and classifications of dance, theatre or performance. So maybe its better that a statement on what live art is goes out to the audience as their complicity in the form is paramount to its’ coming to be.
WSW: It’s like Kate Bush. It’s mysterious and weird and rarely seen. It’s for the people, by the people and it challenges the people to re-define how they view performance.
Actually I usually direct them to the incredible video by UK live art hero Joshua Sofaer.
V: How important is social practice and sense of politics to you? What makes art contemporary and/or radical?
PG: My interest is to how art practice offers a space for new ideas and viewpoints that challenge the normative notions of society and the way things are. Hence, the interweaving of a social dimension is fundamental in the work I create. And by default, its politics lie in how I negotiate processes when working with others. This means I aim to work from a strong ethical position that is conscious of the relationships that develop and unfold over time.
That being said, I don’t believe art is always about the provision of a democratic space and this may be where notions of art being contemporary or radical are of use to discuss. If I address what I normally see associated with these terms, I am usually reading a promo line.
WSW: I think making art is radical in itself. To choose to be an artist is by its nature to live on the outside and I think this applies across form from landscape painters to contemporary art makers like ourselves. The political necessity of art is something that has always driven me, I think the ability of a society to celebrate and support its artists – and voices that are often outside mainstream opinion- speaks to the heart of democracy and our capacity to value and encourage debate.
V: Tell us about a project you are working on in 2016?
PG: Currently, OSCA is working on a number of Associate Artist projects including a new work from Dario Vacirca called 2Beaches: Future Island Nation, a collaboration with four Aboriginal women artists, the Bound/Unbound Collective, plus the ongoing commissioning program PROJECTS OF THE EVERYDAY, which asks: what does it means to be living on the edge of the city and at the start of the suburbia? This year’s South Australian artists – Mona Khizam, Ben Leslie and Laura Wills – have been invited to actively engage with a local community in the making of new work that investigates and celebrates ‘the ordinary’
I am also in the process of developing two new projects in regional Australia. The first, Collectors/Collections, is in collaboration with artist Nadia Cusimano and the community of local collectors in Waikerie. It focuses on the preservation and presentation of their collection of super 8 films that form an integral part of the historical memory of the town and the river. And secondly, I’m working on a new work for Cementa 17 that explores the relationship between art, economics and life.
WSW: We just finished our major work for this year, Howl, a parade of controversial artworks, which premiered at the Festival of Live Art (FOLA) in Melbourne. In August I’m moving to the wilds of Finland for three months where I am premiering a new work commissioned from the ANTI Festival live art prize.
V: You both have strong associate relationships with Vitalstatistix. What value does these types of long-term relationships between artists and organisations hold?
PG: Long-term relationships with institutions and organisations generate possibilities. They offer a healthy and supportive environment to develop projects and initiatives through the ongoing understanding of each other’s interests and evolving agendas. They also become a facet in how one can survive and maintain an arts practice.
Vitalstatistix’s history of working with a pool of liked minded makers and presenters clearly shows how it understands the way community is formed and maintained. That it also holds a unique space in Australia as a feminist organisation with a continuing tradition of supporting women artists is key to its ongoing importance. Vitalstatistix’s ability to champion and generate a space for the diversity of voices and ideas that challenge the mainstream and experiment with changing the world is as the name says ‘vital’.
WSW: I think this current environment demands that everyone, from major organisations to independent artists, be vocal advocates for the value of interdependence. We shouldn’t be silo’ing ourselves but seeing the obvious lineages between independent practice and bigger companies. However because organisations have more infrastructure, they need to be the ones to reach out, to create structures that will support this idea, like Vitals does so well. Basically all organisations should take a leaf out of Vitals book, make a program small or large that does something to support independent art making.
V: How are you feeling about the future of Australian arts?
PG: Whilst I do have great concerns about the dwindling economies of the various local and national funding bodies, I am never too worried about the future of Australian arts practice. One can never underestimate the power of individuals to produce and create works of great importance and nourishment for the cultural life of our nation at any time or under any condition. So whilst successive governments continue to financially decimate the frameworks that offer and support diversity, artists will always continue to make things happen where it seems impossible.
WSW: About the art itself I feel privileged to be working in a community of people who are so visionary, who are making world-class work, who are literally at the forefront of creative experimentation in the whole universe. A few days out from the dreaded Australian Council decision for small-to-medium organisations, I feel distressed, as what I know is that the manifest unfairness that we saw exhibited in the politically motivated and insanely managed decision-making of the Abbott government in the last year, will on May 9th have an incredibly harmful impact on artists and organisations. No one is going to win. It’s everyone’s responsibility to take action towards the arts not being in this position again. End rant.
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