Like me, you might think being cultured is lying on a sun bed reading an art book, upside-down.

Colcha or culteur, this month’s lesson is all about it. Be more cultured, appreciate more culture, support culture! Two exciting guests share there own approaches to engaging with different facets of this art business.

Curator at Carriageworks and creator of independent curatorial project Society,  Susan Gibb takes us through the art of talking about contemporary art. And what her dad thinks of it all.

Sam Pettigrew (co-director of the NOW now, and musician) reintroduces our ears to sound art. This time when we meet, Sam provides helpful snippets of information like, “Brian lives down the street from here. Brian, Sound Art likes to challenge practices of listening and offer absorbing experiences in the aural realm of perception”. We get on like a house on fire.

Bookings: 8374 6230

Hi. Hello. Bake Sale are back in action and are hosting 4 monthly ‘microcourses in self-betterment’ at the Surry Hills library on Thursday nights.  This program, designed exclusively for the purpose of boosting your sense of self-fulfillment, presents various experts offering learning experiences in the areas of LOVE, ENTERTAINING, CULTURE and SMARTS. Forged in the spirit of skill sharing, and with a focus on life’s little lessons, this is self-help without ringing your ex-housemate of 5 years back to apologise about that tin of tomatoes you never replaced.

This Thursday- Part One: LOVE

You can’t buy it, but you sure can brush up on the tricks to winning it.  Blog stars Tough Titties share their expertise from their publication ‘Believe and You Shall Triumph, the Tough Titties guide to flirting’. Dancer Kate MacDonald teaches the classic, and contemporary, steps to make ‘em swoon. Free dance after.

Part One skills checklist: make sexy eyes like Zooey Deschanel, krump like you really really mean it.

6th October, 9pm.

Surry Hills Library. 405 Crown Street, Surry Hills.

FREE! Drinks and nibbles provided.

Dress: to fall in love.

You and Your Work

I might start with a blurb that I have taken from the YaYW website which will no doubt be able to articulate what the whole thing is about better than I can;

You and Your Work (YaYW) is a Bristol-based not-for-profit arts organisation, founded in 2008. We seek to facilitate artistic and social exchange between artists, community groups and other creative community based organisations, as well as new and existing audiences. YaYW aims to provide support and development opportunities for promising emerging performance artists, whilst striving to involve audiences from diverse backgrounds.

Since 2007 we have showcased a regular, themed performance platform event, presenting a range of contemporary performance, Live Art, interventions, site-specific work, dance, games and media-installation. Originally based at the Cube Microplex (a community cinema and venue), YaYW has since been held at Easton Community Centre and now for YaYW8, at the Arnolfini (art gallery). By continually re-locating itself, You and Your Work is able to open up new and exciting avenues for artistic production and social encounter, as well as reach new audiences beyond the central Bristol arts scene.
From http://youandyourwork.blogspot.com/

Everyone* talks about “community engagement” – so much so it has almost become synonymous with audience development. Although there are links between the two ideas, and engaging diverse communities can, of course, be part of developing audiences, the core agenda of these two concepts is fairly divergent. Taking work out of an art space, into a community centre, could easily be construed (and practised) as a kind of culturally imperial act – bringing in young hot things of the art community to the masses of the uninitiated. This, to me, is the opposite of what YaYW is about. Carefully curated as delivering accessible, high quality works that are not necessarily interactive but acutely aware of (and sometimes co-created by) their audiences.

*I use the term “Everyone” loosely.

Residence

I will follow suit and again, rip from their website, a lovely little blurb about Residence

Residence is a community of theatre makers who share space, resources, knowledge and opportunities in an old record shop in Bristol.
By moving our work out of bedrooms and placing artists together under one roof, facilitating social space, and running regular events, we have developed a mutually supportive environment. Such an environment allows us to make work independently from institutions, with courage and flexibility. We can take risks more readily and our work is nurtured with a constant source of support, criticism, encouragement, and advice. Residence promotes a spirit of generosity amongst its members with shared resources, opportunities and knowledge. In the 3 and a half years since its inception the artists involved have changed from a disparate group of marginalised artists to a strong, cohesive, powerful group showing theatre work regularly in Bristol, the UK, Europe and beyond.
From http://www.residence.org.uk/

This is one answer to the problem of (lack of) space, that is undeniably a recurring one. It has taken a committed group of artists (and a large one at that) to get this project together, however, the lovely thing that keeps popping up on their website, and through talking to Jo, James, Gemma and Sylvia is the idea of dialogue, feedback and support that comes from being part of this collective. It’s not about whinging about not having any space (although that may have been where the idea came from) – it’s about wanting to connect with other artists to make better work. To me, this seems like a much more interesting and convincing argument for a council to give a bunch of artists highly subsidised space, rather than hearing complaints about illegal venues being shut down (if we’re going to play the game, which of course we may choose not to do).

That’s Bristol. I think.

Some endnotes:
There is a lovely video on the Residence website if you’re interested in finding out more.
I saw “A Western” by Action Hero (members of Residence) and it was really good. Here is their website.
Sylvia Rimat is a member of Residence, co-founder and producer of YaYW. She is also lovely and very generous – here is some more about her.

Thus far, my grand plans of being a super-blogger abroad have been thwarted by activity and inconsistent internet access. I have however been thinking about blogging and writing in a notebook (not really the idea is it?). So, I am now catching up, starting from the beginning, trying to find sense and significance in my scrawlings to share with the big interwebbed world. I’ll try and break things up with titles so you can skip to the bits you might be interested in.

BRISTOL.

Malcolm and I travelled to Bristol the day I arrived in the UK and were met by Sylvia Rimat – who we have been corresponding with about Malcolm’s a lover’s discourse project, which began as part of the ClubHouse program at Performance Space and will culminate in a live exchange with artists in Bristol, at Arnolfini, as part of You and Your Work 8, which Sylvia founded and co-curates (more on that later, but there is a link to some information if you just can’t wait), and LiveWorks, at Performance Space in Sydney. Sylvia welcomed us on our first evening, and over a couple of glasses of wine our conversation traversed a broad range of topics which may or may not be relevant or interesting to you, readers, but, probably for the best, for all of us, my notes are not so comprehensive as to be able to even begin to transcribe much of it. What stuck with me about these first conversations, with Sylvia and subsequently a number of other visual and performance artists in Bristol and across the UK, is a sense of impending doom in relation to projected government arts funding cuts. Ignorant as I may be, in Australia I felt fairly unaffected by the Global Financial Crisis – for such hype, media attention and the household use of “GFC” as a term, honestly, my life did not feel that different. It seems that the reach of the GFC however, is broadening far beyond the walls of financial institutions and government treasuries, towards artists and arts organisations who wait with bated breath to find out about the scale of further funding cuts in the coming years. Read The Guardian theatre blog to find out more about the reaction to an initial round of funding cuts. Much as there is debate about arts funding in Australia (if only within the arts community itself), this ubiquitous sense of foreboding is not one that I have witnessed back home. I’m not sure if this silence about arts policy in the recent election and the subsequent risk in unpredictable governmental policy agendas is actually any better, or if, perhaps, everyone talks about it less? I am finding it difficult to write about this without acknowledging my somewhat privileged position of funded travel, and the uneven distribution of funding between artforms, “emerging” and “established” artists, and the fact that, although I have many opinions, I haven’t the best sense of history as I’m new to this game. Perhaps if you have a thought you could comment?

Bake Sale for Art giving our love to firstdraft for their studios grand opening tomorrow (see previous post).

Natalie and Georgie have both been doing residencies and mentorships at PACT and Bundanon through the PACT Vacant Room program. Nat is working on an exciting new work Pink Piece in collaboration with Kate Blackmore, Frances Barrett, Emma Ramsay, and Brian Fuata. Georgie is working on Kansas with Malcolm Whittaker to be presented at the (holy moley!) Anti Festival in Finland later this year. They are doing showings at PACT this Friday.

Pink Piece at Bundanon

Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore will be opening firstdraft gallery’s new ‘Depot’ artist studios this Saturday, 24th, see flyer below. There will be performances, art, BBQ and Bake Sale are doing tea and cakes. So come! Celebrate! Say hi to the elected representative of your city!

Speaking of new spaces, Plump gallery, an intitiative from past Monthly Friend artist Willurie Kirkbright, has opened on Enmore Rd, Enmore, with the group exhibition Kindling. It was less than a month ago that I bumped into Willurei she told me she was about to sign the lease on a new building. It’s this no nonsense, action over hype approach I’m sure will see this space as a valubale addition to Sydney’s artistic landscape. If that wasn’t enough, our friends Penguin Plays Rough are getting their new warehouse ready for the new and improved version of you favourite monthly literary event. We are excited, you should be too.

Thanks for checking in.

Love BSA.

I make this look good – Matthew Kneale and High Vis Dandy, photo – Sally Lewis.

So, High Vis Dandy is this absolutely fabulous performance/ installation work, not to mention playful and outrageous intervention in to public space (speaking of taking it to the streets). Their setup comprises of a trady’s ute, industrial sewing machine, workbench/ runway, some pretty serious traffic barriers and a variable message board (you know, big screen, ‘road works ahead’ / ‘40km speed limit’). They have set themselves the unenviable task of making orange and reflector panels look good. I have nothing against orange per se, it’s just if you overdo it you can look like a prison inmate, carrot, or Hare Krishna faithful. No such fate for the High Vis Dandy – they turn risk aversion in to a fashion statement. Tutus, tailcoats, one I thought I’d call the Sergeant Reflector Pepper vest, and turned out brocade lining! These and similar pieces I believe are the outcome of the sewing workshops the group have been holding in the lead up to the performance/install. Anyone could get involved so, ‘I can’t find one that’s nicely tailored and sexy’ is no longer an excuse for not wearing high visibility safety wear on your bike. High Vis Dandy is about more than looking good though. Aptly set up in the high fashion, aka ‘Paris’, end of Collins St, I saw the group on their fourth day of performing four daily sessions of cyclical performative actions and they had staked quite a presence alongside the likes of Rolex and Prada. It is a jibe at fashion, known to colonise any demographic towards its evil marketing ends. The Dandies take a lunch break from their hard work. A trady cliché and good opportunity for some product placement. They pout and pose and drink their Big M choccy milk like good product pinups. The work is also an elbow nudge at the dominance of ‘the masculine’ in trade-based work places. It subversively proposes an alternative identity to the Australian ideal of manliness (hard, rugged, practical) by appropriating a symbol of this manliness – the high visibility workwear – and making it over and camping it up. While High Vis Dandy was a delight to watch and certainly open to various interpretations and experience, I’m going to go with, ‘You can be safe and practical without being a macho jerk. You can dress well and be creative about how you look without being a mindless-consumerist-whore’.

High Vis Dandy, 17-21st May. Collins St Melbourne, as part of the Next Wave Festival. Artists: Jessica Daly, Matthew Kneale, Daniel Kroener, and Zoe Meagher.

I got to go to the closing-night of Ashley Dyer’s And Then Something Fell On My Head last night. I was interested to see whether the concept was as simple as the title would have me. Pretty pencils rained erratic yet purposeful from scaffold. The audience was split, the 2 groups sitting on either side of the ‘auditorium’ (not really) – one group had extraneous safety wear, white suits and rubber gloves. I received an insight from the project’s dramaturg Simê Knezevic that the 2 groups were named The better equipped/ The unencumbered. White shrouds dropped from different places atop the 10 metre or so scaff and became the surface for video projections, mostly of a man (Ash Dyer) crawling and falling. More things dropped poetically, all also seemingly office related; water cooler bottles, clean paper, dirty tissues (people are always sick in offices right?). Ashley appears every now and then, in the same shirt/tie/suit pants combo of the video, and looks around perplexed and in wonderment, occasionally his body reacting to the pencils, water bottles or paper that gets too close. The lighting is moody and only some times frustrating. Designer Travis Hodgson aims for the sensory (as opposed maybe to the pictorial), flashing lights towards the audience and at times leaving us in darkness. It’s both spectacular and meditative, even if I can’t help thinking it is about an office worker who got lost in his daydream. There was a publication that might have shed some more light on the ideas in the piece, but these were not available to all audience members.

This afternoon I attended the 4th and final Next Wave forum, ‘Taking it to the streets’. Mostly about art in public spaces (whether existing or a public space that is created through the work). I particularly appreciated Lucas Ihlein’s hand-drawn diagrams illustrating the ideal process timeline as a series of many mini-deadlines, as opposed to the less appealinng burst of high-stress, panic, waste and mindlessness, followed by the fireworks, and then fallout (debt, neglected friends etc), and then a period of recovery. This fits nicely with his larger ideals of art being a part of everyday life, existing in the real world, and yes in the art world too if you like (which is in the real world, he clarifies). But anyway, I was inspired, which is why I am here in Victoria State library at 5.30 on a Sunday Evening trying to tick off some mini-deadlines. Orchestrator of Next Wave’s Chicken Stampede, George Egerton-Warburton also spoke, mostly taking us through his circuitous tangential logic (yes that works, think about it: you go on conceptual tangents only to reconnect with aspect of your original point of departure). Sorry.. circuitous tangential logic that sees the stampede of 300 chickens through a main street to Jeff Khan’s backyard where they can be adopted by the public, as a necessary public action, giving visibility to livestock, commenting on the inherent loveliness of autonomous systems (not unlike meth-labs), and is a step forward in self-sufficiency and the future of Australian cultural identity. Unfortunately the RSPCA do not agree and have prevented the stampede citing that there is no guarantee that the chickens will go to good homes. These are chickens that, Egerton-Warburton says, will likely end up on cage farms otherwise. Instead there will be a ‘Fucking Chicken Sound Stampede’, in which participants are invited to stand in for the chickens and stamped the street making chicken noises. So come along next Sunday and have a cluck.

There. A mini deadline met gallantly. I didn’t actually talk about any of the works, but the library is closing. Coming soon you will have Brown Council, Sugar Coated, the High Vis Dandies, Some Film Museums I Have Known, and more!