It’s been a busy few months on the arts front as I work on concepts and logistics for a new solo work in 2019, prepare to start applying for an overseas residency for the same year, get the 3rd annual #bringtolightproject event underway and start an exciting, international collaboration via correspondence through the Arts Territory Exchange.
Blogging has been a low priority of late.
These projects have all seen me having to address not only pushing the boundaries of my practice into new areas, collaborating, and thinking of extending my concepts beyond the Australian context.
It’s exciting.
Despite time being at a premium at the moment, I managed to find a few hours in the studio today to work on my correspondence with German artist, Didi Hock, with whom I’ve been paired as part of the Arts Territory Exchange (ATE) project.
ATE pairs artists from across the world, allowing them to explore ideas around personal territories and topographies through long-distance collaborative correspondence. They also host events, realising collaborations through exhibitions, lectures, and publications.
One of the things being documented through these exchanges are the views from each artist’s window. My contribution can be seen above.
Did I say it was exciting?
Didi Hock lives in Hamburg in Northern Germany and has a background in conceptual design, sociology, gender studies, and photography. More recently, she’s been reflecting on her experiences with trauma, illness, and chronic pain through text and pictures. Living in the middle of the city of the industrial city of Hamburg, on an island in the river Elbe. Didi’s home territory is more like a village than an industrial city due to the fields, the dykes, natural reserve and bird reserve zones next to the river. A vastly different landscape to the semi-arid, sparsely-populated one I live and work within.
Yet, she describes where she lives as probably the most spacious area of the city, with a lot of horizon, no tall houses, and no industry within visual range. The limitation of her territory is really related to illness and pain, and her inability to move.
We’ve been in correspondence for about two weeks now and are still getting to know each other and working out the parameters of our collaboration. While on the surface of it our ‘territories’ seem vastly different, the more we exchange information, the more similarities emerge. One thing that is exciting us both is the idea of using sounds and smell to explore these territories.
I have no idea where this will go at this stage, but I see it as an opportunity to be part of something bigger, taking me outside my comfort zone, my home territory and opening the door to new experiences to explore through my chosen mediums.
Stay tuned for more on the ATE front. In the meantime, #bringtolightproject17 kicks off next weekend (30 Sept/1 Oct) in Dubbo, NSW, and Natimuk, Victoria. Each year, it throws up something new so I’m looking forward to being a fly on the wall as the public experience our works. It’s all about putting the contemporary art of regional artists in ordinary places.
My collaboration with Kelly Leonard Weaving from Mudgee, Bee Box Sounds, will be showing at the Church Street Rotunda, Dubbo on Saturday and Sunday 30 September and 1 October from 10am – 2pm.
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