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 21^st 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:

• Engaging with the practice and project of another artist – and specifically an artist from elsewhere – is particularly useful to spark new ways of thinking and working. Although artists often collaborate, we also often work in isolation or often work in familiar teams with people we trust. We don’t always get to see inside the process and practice of artists who might work in very different (or quite similar) ways to us. Working with an interstate artist/team can also open up a doorway to other interstate artists/ideas/collaborations.
• Meeting and working with other SA artists. Seeding friendships, future collaborations and networks of support. Stumbling upon those excellent local projects and people that you just aren’t aware of because your circle hasn’t organically found them by itself.
• Attachment to and nurturing of a relationship with Vitalstatistix as an artistic organisation and a creative community. The sense that we are not alone in these big hungry questions we are wrestling with. The opportunity to have our work and our voices amplified by something bigger than our own networks.

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 Adelaide-based independent artists Sasha Grbich and Jason Sweeney. Sasha is a visual artist, writer and lecturer; Jason is a singer-songwriter, composer and multidisciplinary artist. Both have long-term associations with Vitalstatistix and each is involved in our five-year climate change project Climate Century.

Climate Century asks artists to consider how will we commemorate and memorialise the climate century? The project includes a series of projects, commissions and events.

Join us on Sunday 17 July at Waterside for Climate Century – An Afternoon of Artist Talks. 

V: Could you each tell us about your artistic practice?

Jason Sweeney: At the heart of everything, I make sound. Melancholy responses to the world. In recent times my focus has returned to song-writing with my band Jason & Silver Moon. But the past has seen me making live performance, online projects, films and installations. I work hard every day to make life and art the same thing. To practice quietness, to embrace melancholy, to live within my means, to give back to the planet in some way.

Sasha Grbich: I am interested in the ways places, things, communities or stories contribute to an artwork happening. My works are open to their local worlds. For example, I have worked with singers to find and record notes for and from fragile environments, made works that respond to the flickering of light in the windows of urban streets, pressed vinyls of uncomfortable silences and broadcast soundscapes from empty rooms, abandoned buildings and moving shopping carts. I am currently building a ‘wind sound effect machine’ in order to respond to gales in upcoming performance and video works. These are the kinds of absurd and poetic acts I undertake to reflect on how I exist within the places and communities I am part of.

V: You are both based in Adelaide and maintain solo studio practices. What are your thoughts on the opportunities available to mature, contemporary artists in South Australia – what are the benefits and disadvantages of working here?

 SG: I go to work each day in my studio space at Fontanelle studio surrounded by wonderful artists and exciting half-formed things. I teach at the Adelaide Central School of Art and enjoy being amongst the vibrant art practices of my students and colleagues. My more personal communities also contribute to making my work. I collaborate with my brilliant partner Heidi Angove and try out new video ideas with my ever-patient sisters, friends and parents. I take great pleasure in these daily engagements within strong creative communities. Working with Vitalstatistix over the past five years has provided important, intense and rewording pockets of activity and openings to national and international art and performance practices. The benefits of working in Adelaide all stem from being part of close, collaborative and supportive industry and communities.

The disadvantages of working in South Australia can be illustrated through the example of recent Australia Council funding cuts. These upheavals have been debilitating to the small to medium sector in contemporary and experimental arts. In Adelaide my sector is small (although vibrant and exciting) – and it is very vulnerable.

JS: I’m an absolute advocate for Adelaide. It’s a place where you can still breathe clean air and make work without too much noise of cultural saturation.

In a world falling apart and a global population increasing beyond measure and pressurising the planet, I choose Adelaide as one of the remaining possible bastions of sustainable life, both in my day-to-day existence and in my work.

I need to be near nature all the time, so South Australia is a perfect place. I suppose it’s the ideal place for an introvert – and the internet connects me to all the people and things I need.

V: Sasha, as well as co-curating last year’s Climate Century exhibition, you made an artwork called Small Measures. Can you tell us about this work?

SG: ‘Stand in a place you feel to be vulnerable. Listen to the sounds happening. Now find a note, tune-in and hold it. Breathe. Hold a note again.’

This is the instruction I gave to volunteers from the Born on Monday choir when making Small Measures for Climate Century 2015. In some louder industrialised environments, the sounds sung became somewhat adversarial and lament-like. A sensitive registering of the small differences between places was played out in the variations between notes the choir members improvised. In the resulting video and sound installation the notes mixed unpredictably across the upper-floor of an old bank building. At once a love song and a lament, the work also held the feeling of ‘tuning up’ reminiscent of moments where a person and instrument (here a person and an environment) start a negotiation. In making the work I was driven by an image of sonography – the way ships tentatively feel their way along the ocean floor by bouncing sound off it.

V: Jason, can you tell us about Climate of Cruelty, a new commission from Vitals as part of the Climate Century commissioning process?

JS: Climate of Cruelty will develop as a song-cycle and live performance event working with writer Em Koenig and my band Jason & Silver Moon (with Zoë Barry and Jed Palmer) – as well as creating an online activist space, writing portal, and resource. It is a way to redress the balance for individual animals slaughtered at the hands of humans in environmentally-impacting commercial industries in Australia and globally.

In my own life, the time arrived when I needed to face the evidence of the history of cruelty against animals to literally feed our human desires; how the livestock industry exists because of our human need to consume animals; how such an industry has a major impact upon the planet, upon the environment, and upon biodiversity; and on the act of needless killing.

V: With climate change being the greatest challenge facing humans, other species, and the planet, there has been a burgeoning of artistic and cultural responses to this condition. Are there things to be mindful of when investigating climate change and the Anthropocene through art?

SG: I am excited by the potential of art to prompt new ways of feeling and thinking within this situation. A great example of this can be found in Sundari Carmody and Matthew Bradley’s collaborative work Winds of Increasing Magnitudes. During the Climate Century exhibition last year their huge semi-transparent silk flag (stripped of all the markers and signs that may suggest ownership or claiming of land) traced movements of air on sky. To visit the work, audiences trekked out to the windiest part of Port Adelaide where loose hair and scarves joined in the action of the flag. Standing in heightened awareness of the wind, people might remember growing up under the hole in the Ozone Layer, checking the UV index, and wondering at the air quality whilst inextricably breathing in. Experiencing Matt and Sundari’s work I was brought into new relation with memories and ideas while becoming sunburnt and windblown.

The ‘Anthropocene’ describes the current period of time in which human acts take on geological proportions. Like many artists, I understand my practice as part of ways of being in, and reflecting on, my world. It is no surprise then the condition of climate change has become a situation within which my own (and other’s) works act.

JS: In order to make responses about our planet as artists I truly believe there has to be equal response in one’s personal life. As humans making art about climate change, surely the only way to fully express an idea is to practice – fully – an investigation into the way one lives.

For me, I can’t make a work about animal cruelty and the adverse effects of the livestock industry on the environment, and then live a life that promotes cruelty: especially to animals. Climate of Cruelty is about being mindful that cruelty can often be silent or silenced or disguised as comfort, especially where the use, consumption, and abuse of animals is concerned.

I’m always confused when artists who say they are environmentalists are still contributing through excessive use of resources in their work, or are not working with recycled materials, or – dare I say – are not vegetarian or vegan. Artists, in so many respects, should be the voices to the dire situation our planet faces – we are, after all, part of the human impact that has led to the coming catastrophes. In a way, all that artists – and humans – should be concerned about now is our place on the planet and our own actions in contributing to climate change. It’s an emergency.

V: As artists working in the space of climate change, how do you grapple with feelings of melancholy and feelings of hopefulness?

JS: Once you’ve made the commitment to live a cruelty-free life, which includes being vegan, there are things you can never un-know. Sometimes I feel such urgency to communicate what I’ve learnt about animal suffering to other people, but then I watch them continue to consume animal products as if nothing were wrong.

My greatest share of melancholia is derived of human behaviour. When it comes to the dire impact of climate change as a result of human greed it seems impossible to not despair. This planet doesn’t need humans. We suck the earth dry. When humans disappear I am sure the earth will breathe a huge sigh of relief. The animals, plants and trees can finally get on with living, as they always have, in a sustainable way with the planet.

Knowing humans have created an industry that literally churns out animals for our desires, our plates, our bodies – creating an even greater impact upon our planet – how can I not exist in sadness?

Sometimes, when I look at the damage humans have inflicted upon the earth it renders me inarticulate, silent.

Hopefulness will come when I begin to observe those around me really beginning to embrace a cruelty-free, animal product-free life. Only then will I know an important change is starting to happen. In the meantime, I will keep my polite silence at the feeding table as I watch those around me continue to be sadly misinformed about the suffering of animals at the cost of our planet and our bodies.

SG: If there was no hope, I wouldn’t make work. I believe artwork always has radical potential to open new ways forward in any situation. I watch for these glimmering moments where art is part of the making of wild associations, and in them find great hope against the backdrop of a very difficult and depressing global condition.

V: You both have made multiple works that explore urban sound and quietness. Tell us a little bit about this area of interest.

JS: Quietness and silence is innate in me. Introversion and seeking solace has been with me since I was a child, in fact I never wanted to leave the womb! Now, I think my quietness has been worn down as I continue to observe the sadness and horrors of the world. Idle chatter is pointless. So it seems only natural in my later years my obsession with quiet seeking has found its way into my work.

My largest project, Stereopublic (Crowdsourcing the Quiet), asks members of the public around the world to use an app to contribute quiet spaces in their cities as a way to respond to the noise, din and anxiety of our urban environments. A participant can record audio of that space, and I gift back to them an original ambient composition. To date 65 cities around the globe are participating with almost 2000 quiet spaces found. It’s pretty inspiring. And, to reflect back on the idea of ‘hope’ above, it gives me hope there is a global community around me seeking the peaceful, seeking out spaces away from the din of industry and crowds and ‘vibrancy’. So I’m continuing this exploration in a more personal sense this year with something I call Quiet Ecology – which maps sonically, culturally, and environmentally the impact of noise on the planet and the real benefits of quiet preservation for our continued well-being.

SG: Heidi and I temporarily “borrowed” a shopping trolley for five Saturdays in a row in a shopping centre plaza in Noarlunga. I clanked about with a mad scientist set of wires and 3G dongles that let me stream online the intimate, sometimes harrowing and delightfully banal soundscapes and conversations I had with passers-by. Nothing was recorded. These sounds and conversations were for those who tuned in and for those who were there.

I am often led by sound, although I don’t describe myself as a sound artist. I love the immediacy of sound and the gentle touch of quiet. I like listening more than creating sound, and as such my works often make heightened situations for the act of listening or tuning-in to an occurrence or community.

V: You have each worked with Vitalstatistix before, on multiple projects in addition to Climate Century, such as our annual experimental art hothouse Adhocracy, and as commissioned artists for Cutaway, a three-year project completed in 2013. What value does these types of long-term relationships between artists and organisations hold? What do you see as Vitalstatistix’s place/role locally and nationally?

SG: My relationship with Vitalstatistix has been (and continues to be) intrinsic to my development as a professional artist.

For Adhocracy, Heidi and I chartered a boat, put an internet radio transmitter on it and took it out to the edge of the broadcast network. This was an act that sought failure, ‘dropouts’ and lost communications. Adhocracy provides a forum for experimentation, failure, and conversation. It is a place for audiences to come close to tentative and fascinating early stage projects. The program brings together experimental artists from many fields, and the conversations had over toasted sandwiches and between showings spark new trajectories.

There is a symbiosis that occurs when an organisation is fueled by, and fuels, the communities it participates in. Long-term community embedded projects like Cutaway and Climate Century allow time for meaningful collaborations to bear fruit.

In order to lead, you have to break new ground. Vitalstatistix is the only place in South Australia for audiences and artists to experience and make works that play with the expanding and increasingly blurred edges of performance and the visual arts. Vitals is a natural and national leader.

JS: My first real long-term connection to an organisation was with Doppio-Teatro/Para//elo between 1998-2004. This was such an important time of my life – and, in the history of contemporary art and experimental performance in SA, they were one of the more significant companies to exist. That involvement, particularly with Teresa Crea, was the best mentorship I could ever hope for. Teresa was really setting the stage for events like Adhocracy – unfortunately people just didn’t seem to get it or appreciate it at the time and that history, especially of Para//elo, isn’t acknowledged. SA needs to honour Teresa and how much she invested in young, experimental artists – particularly artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Teresa taught me art, culture, and community are intrinsic, interconnected. She’s a legend.

And so my next longer connection has been with Vitalstatistix – a logical connection after so many years with Para//elo. Vitals is a company I’ve always loved as a feminist/queer space for performance and personally as a queer artist I saw much comradeship. My deeper connection from 2010 onwards has been so important to my artistic development – allowing me both an artistic and a curatorial platform in which to work. Vitals is the only company in SA dedicated to a national conversation around the delicate practice of emerging and experimental live art and performance.

V: How are you feeling about the future of the arts locally and nationally?

JS: We’re living amongst one of the world’s oldest living cultures and so I’m consciously aware I’m a queer, white, male existing in a place of deep spirituality, mystery and ancient Indigenous creativity. Art has always been here and will continue way beyond my years. Art exists in nature, in people, in the everyday, in the spiritual. The inheritance of this slightly icky European model of contemporary art in Australia has always made me uncomfortable so I struggle to talk about that, but I’ll try.

I’ve always felt it is within the power of the culture itself to sustain and drive forward its future. Like most of our society, we rely so heavily on government bodies to shape and make our lives. Lately, the destabilising funding cuts have made me think about this addictive feeding tray that arts funding has become – and I’ve certainly had my fair share and that’s amazing, I’m very lucky. I am committed to being an artist and making work as a response to the world no matter what – I just happen to be in a country where the option of seeking government funds is possible. Yet, I am worried artists and the art world’s reliance on funding may impact our future. It’s like we align getting a grant with making work or having status – or if a curator selects you then you must be better than those who were not chosen. Sure, it’s great when it happens, when you get the ‘yes’ emails – but would I still make a work if there was no funds or project selections?

Perhaps it’s analogous to the way we consume food. We rely on a supermarket or grocer to provide for us – and yet, you eat a pumpkin, save its seeds, put it in the ground, and in a few months you’ll start to see a new pumpkin grow and you’ve got dinner – and it cost nothing but the time it took and diligence you had to plant a seed in the earth.

At the end of the day we need to eat, so we need sustenance – and it can come for free. In these times of global crisis, the future holds so much for some real creative gardening to take place – literally and figuratively. Let’s get back to the earth and stop worrying about money all the time. Money and the desire for it are killing our planet. It’s up to artists to lead the charge. To create work, live a frugal life, and respect nature – give back to it rather than tear away at the planet’s resources. The death of the arts (in that ‘industry’ sense) will be an all-consuming anxiety around ambition, competition, and the bloody fight to the last dollar or status position. We need to be conscious the arts don’t start to mirror the corporatised and patriarchal systems most of us are fighting to escape from.

SG: Thinking to the future, I feel depressed.

Even as I begin to answer this question I find myself winding up into a rant-like answer about the importance of arms-length funding and the potential of a well-funded industry. But it has all been said, and seems to be unheard by those who need to act.

This isn’t a reason to give up on hope or activism.

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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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Vitalstatistix spoke with Emma Valente, co-Artistic Director of Victorian-based theatre company THE RABBLE, and South Australian-based visual artist and theatre designer Meg Wilson, who has joined THE RABBLE as lead artist intern in 2016.

V: Emma, tell us about THE RABBLE.

EV: THE RABBLE is a group of artists who have been making theatre for ten years together. We produce experimental theatre that interrogates the human condition through a combination of surreal and visceral aesthetics, feminist sensibility, and the application of deeply research.  Kate Davis and I are the Artistic Directors of the company. We are also the creators, directors and designers of all the work.

We are attracted to subterranean feminist concepts in iconic stories from folklore and literature. Our productions are realised through sweeping design and intense theatricality. We have abandoned male-dominated play scripts and replaced them with an improvisational methodology using poetry, prose, image, tableaus and gesture. We have made radical adaptations of many well know stories and novels including: Frankenstein, Story of O, Orlando, Cain and Abel, Picture of Dorian Grey, Joan of Arc and Ulysses.

V: You undertook a residency with Vitalstatistix late last year towards the development of your new work Ulysses. Tell us about this work and the value of a residency in the early stages of developing a new performance.

EV: THE RABBLE is working on a ten-hour durational event that is a radical feminist adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Taking our cues from Joyce’s novel the piece is a series of nine experiments that investigate the act of performing, intellectualism, femininity, the extremes of the body and death. The performance is broken up into eight Acts across the ten hours.

This project is extremely ambitious and the residency at Vitals was imperative in moving the project beyond being just an idea, to something that seemed achievable.

Kate and I knew that to make this project we needed time and space, we needed to be able to immerse ourselves in the book and in the project to map out how we would make it and what it would be. We got to do this at Vitals last year in November. It was such a rare opportunity to be given space to work on a project of such ambition, right at its early stages. I can think of very few companies who would offer this kind of support for such a huge project.

The outcome from that fortnight was so fruitful. Kate and I devised a schema for the whole work, which we are now working from. We really cracked open the whole idea, we decided that the piece would be a series of performance experiments that would take place over ten hours. We started to work out what those experiments would be, and even got to testing a few of them. We were also able to wrestled with the fact that we were doing the book at all, this huge part of the modernist canon, which has little to do with our own experience. This fortnight gave us the chance to work through this problem and has deeply influenced the format and the content of the piece.

V: How important is it to work nationally and what do you think is the fit between THE RABBLE and Vitalstatistix?

EV: It is imperative for us to work nationally. The industry is so small and the market for our work is niche, we can’t possibly expect to work only in Melbourne. We also want to make sure that we can reach as many people as possible; we love having the opportunity to perform for new audiences and make connections with new people.

Our relationship with Vitals has been a very fruitful and exciting one. Vitals emphasises process, development and experimentation, which is our focus as well. It is so excellent working in an environment that privileges these ideas, rather than being completely product driven. Being given space and time to develop and experiment with ideas undoubtedly makes our work better.

V: Why does THE RABBLE offer internships and what’s the exchange like?

EV: THE RABBLE has always worked with secondments and interns. Kate and I have made a huge effort to respond to most people that approach us. At the end of last year we got so many requests that we just decided to formalise the process, try and choose the best person, not just the person who sent us a well-timed email. We also realised that it was probably more beneficial if we offered a program that was longer than just one show or development. So this is our first year of offering yearlong internships.

We hope the exchange is an exciting one.

We have designed the program so that our interns not only get to observe and contribute to our work but also have time to chat about their own work. For me it’s important to understand stay in touch with what emerging artists are doing, how their approaches are different to my own and what are the subjects they are preoccupied with.

This program has been a great way to get to know more emerging artists and their work.

V: Tell us about what you are working on in 2016?

EV: THE RABBLE is developing quite a few projects in 2016. We have already completed two developments this year – one for Joan with Malthouse and one for Ulysses, this time based at The Substation in Melbourne. We will be remounting our version of Cain and Abel in July this year again at The Substation. I’m pretty excited to revisit this project, we performed it at Belvoir St two years ago and I found the subject matter fascinating. In this production we are asking ourselves, what if the first murder was committed by a woman? How would this affect our iconography and our history? There is a chasm in historical representations of women who are violent and it was so interesting to find this black hole in feminist research.  I’m pretty keen to delve back into that world.

V: How are you feeling about the future of Australian arts?

EV: Pretty queasy. Like everyone, I’m waiting white knuckled for the next round of funding announcements. I’m worried that many of the companies that THE RABBLE could potentially partner with will be cut. I’m worried that the cuts are going to mean that the presenters who get funding are going to take fewer risks. And I feel sad. In Melbourne we’d been through a really exciting movement in the independent scene, just before the funding cuts were announced and now that movement has been cut off at the knees. I feel like there’s been a great opportunity lost.

On the other hand, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many artists who are just beginning their careers. I’m inspired and energised by their enthusiasm and creative drive. There is such an incredible next generation of artists coming up at the moment, particularly many female artists who are making gutsy and inspiring work. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next.

V: Meg, tell us about your artistic practice.

MW: I am an interdisciplinary artist who works predominantly with large-scale and often site-specific installation and performance. In recent years I have broadened my practice to encompass design for theatre and events. My visual art and theatre design practices are now mutually influential and often overlap.

A common theme explored within my work is the performativity of space, the surreal and abstract within familiar everyday spaces, and the audience encounter with the ordinary, set within the context of the out-of-the-ordinary.

V: Tell us about your connection with Vitalstatistix and the kinds of projects you have worked on with us.

MW: My first encounter with Vitals was in 2012 when I worked with Gaelle Mellis on Take Up Thy Bed & Walk. I spent a lot of time observing and embroidering handkerchiefs in what was my first encounter with theatre behind the scenes. Gaelle and Vitalstatistix took me under their wings and it is here that I found my creative home.

In 2014, undertaking a residency with Rosie Dennis of Urban Theatre Projects at Vitalstatistix, I was exposed to a new way of working. A way that is not solitary, where no idea is precious, where bigger and better ideas are built through the sharing of ideas. A place where it’s ok to mess things up, and ok to be vulnerable. Coming from a largely solo practice, this was totally new to me. This is also where I met Ashton Malcolm and Josie Were, with whom I have recently formed a performance collective.

I’ve gone onto work with Vitals in the role of collaborating artist/designer on some of the most exciting and experimental projects of my career so far, working with artists such as Mish Grigor on Man O Man and Willoh S.Weiland and Halcyon Macleod on Crawl Me Blood.

V: Why did you decide to apply for the internship with THE RABBLE?

MW: I see working with THE RABBLE as the next step in discovering how and where I can push my skills and ambitions at this point of juncture between visual arts and theatre in my practice. Where abstract installations may become the set for theatre, and where an installation in a gallery can be the site for performance and audience interaction. Where boundaries are pushed and ideas are challenged.

I wanted to become immersed in theatre devised through the manipulation and play with objects in an environment. This is what THE RABBLE do, and do so well. I only knew of their work through word of mouth and from what I could gather from images and short videos online. Unfortunately I was overseas when they were here working with Vitals last year, so I missed out on meeting Emma and Kate then. I think I saw their callout for internship positions on Vitals’ Facebook feed, and I jumped at the opportunity!

V: You kicked off the internship recently, spending some time with THE RABBLE in Melbourne – how was that?

MW: One word: EXCELLENT! So far I have only spent four days at The Substation with THE RABBLE and I have already learnt so much. Emma and Kate are very generous and welcoming individuals who have taken significant chunks of time out of their days to answer the many questions that I have.

Most of my time thus far has been spent observing the way they work in a room with their main ensemble members, Dana and Mary Helen. They’ve been working on another development of Ulysses, for which they did a residency at Vitals last year. It’s nice to begin with a project that has that familiar link between us.

V: What will you be working on with THE RABBLE in 2016? And what is your role?

MW: I was selected for the role of Internship for Lead Artist – for an artist seeking experience in performance making through a devised process. I will be working on five projects throughout the year that are in various stages of development. There are some projects that I will be able to observe from beginning to outcome, such as In the Bleak Mid Winter, an event curated by THE RABBLE at Malthouse. Then there are others, such as Cain and Abel, which are projects already at production stage.

I think that the role will vary hugely dependent on the project. At times it will be a chance to observe rehearsals and performance works at various stages of development, as well as to be able to participate in creative meetings and design concept meetings across the year. There will also be times when all hands will be required on deck…and I’m totally ready to jump in when I can!

V: What’s valuable about this type of opportunity?

MW: THE RABBLE work with real objects and create abstract worlds that show the truth of the materials used in their creation.

Content is created through improvisation and trial and error, then gradually shaped and refined through process. I am interested in the way that they blur the roles in theatrical practice.

The roles of director, designer, performer are all as collaborators present from the very beginning to shape all parts of a work. There are currently very few opportunities to work in this way in Adelaide, so I’m very excited to be jetting to Melbourne throughout the year to work with and learn from THE RABBLE. I have already spent a lot of time excitedly reporting back to Josie and Ashton about how this unique experience could be instrumental in informing the way we hope to work together as a collective back in Adelaide.

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Welcome to Vitalstatistix’s new blog. On the first Friday of each month, we will be publishing a new conversation with artists who we work with.

The articles will pair together artists whose practices overlap in some way – from tangible collaborations, to an interest in similar fields of inquiry, to sharing particular modes of making art.

The articles will give an insight into the diverse practice of Australian and South Australian artists, the place that South Australian experimental art occupies nationally, and the month-to month activity of Vitalstatistix.

We look forward to sharing these stories with you each month.

Our first article interviews Emma Valente from Victorian-based theatre company THE RABBLE; and Meg Wilson, South Australian-based visual artist and theatre designer.

Then we will hit the regular monthly first-Friday cycle from May 6, with an interview with Paul Gazzola, Adhocracy co-curator and Artistic Director of Open Space Contemporary Arts, based in South Australia; and Willoh S. Weiland, Artistic Director of Aphids in Victoria and co-creator of Crawl Me Blood, a new work in development with Vitalstatistix.