Extended Conversation Pieces

'Extended Conversation Pieces' brings together conversations about art, and conversation as art. The exhibition features collaborative works by six Brisbane-based artists, Catherine or Kate (Catherine Sagin and Kate Woodcroft), Scott Ferguson (Erika Scott and Brooke Ferguson) and Courtney Coombs and Caitlin Franzmann. These artists engage with ideas of contemporary feminism through processes of dialogue and exchange; exploring subjectivity, humour and intimacy in performance and installation works. 'Extended Conversation Pieces' showcases the distinctive approach to contemporary practice at Boxcopy, an artist run initiative focused on supporting and commissioning new experimental works by Australian artists, and engaging with collaborative processes and practices. This project was commissioned by the Melbourne Art Foundation and presented at the MAF Project Rooms, Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne in 2014.

Conversation Pieces

This curated exhibition presented works by Australian artists Agatha Gothe-Snape, Alex Martinis Roe and Hannah Raisin and collaborative works by Catherine or Kate (Catherine Sagin and Kate Woodcroft), Scott Ferguson (Erika Scott and Brooke Ferguson) and Courtney Coombs and Caitlin Franzmann. These artists engage with ideas of contemporary feminism through processes of dialogue and exchange, exploring subjectivity, humour and intimacy in performance and installation artworks. These works are generated by physical, verbal or textual dialogues between collaborators, participants or the artist and audience; and spark a conversation about contemporary feminist art practice in Australia today.

Warning constraint limit experience

'Warning constraint limit experience' is an installation comprising drawings, a large scale fabric work, and a performative video. This work explores the performative act of drawing and the limits of language and subjectivity. The fabric work acts as a bodily extension that both facilitates and constrains movement during the drawing process and operates as a provisional structure for viewing the work in the gallery. This work was developed and presented at The Lock-Up Cultural Centre, Newcastle NSW in 2011 and revised for the solo exhibition ‘I build my dwelling’, held at Metro Arts in 2012.

Language is, language is not

‘Language is, Language is not’ is an installation comprising wall drawings, a fabric drawing prosthetic, performance and digital video. This work investigates ‘redrawing’ as a revisionist feminist strategy, taking as it’s starting point Mel Bochner’s work ‘Language is not Transparent’ (1970). 'Language is, Language is not' functions as both homage and critique, drawing on the legacy of conceptual art and questioning the engendering of language that it implies. This work was developed and presented for Bus Projects, Melbourne in 2012, and subsequent versions exhibited at Screen Space, Melbourne and Metro Arts Galleries, Brisbane.

Muscle flex

'Muscleflex' is an installation comprising large scale fabric works, wall drawings, performance and digital video. The large-scale fabric works act as bodily extensions for two performers and constrain movement during the drawing process. These drawing performances are documented and re-presented as digital video works. This work examines the limits of language and subjectivity and offers a feminist engagement with the history of abstract painting. 'Muscle flex' was developed and presented for KINGS Artist Run Gallery, Melbourne in 2012 and revised for the exhibition 'I build my dwelling', at Metro Arts Galleries, Brisbane in 2012.

What's in a name - Catherine or Kate?

This paper discusses the art practice of Australian artists Catherine Sagin and Kate Woodcroft, who have been working collaboratively under various monikers since 2008. The duo define their artworks in terms of winning and losing, and play out the division of labour in an artistic practice that employs video, performance, photography and sculpture. Catherine or Kate utilise combative and comparative processes, which challenge notions of artistic collaboration and highlight the inherent tensions and competitive nature of working together.

The last avant-garde?: Disability arts and (rethinking) mobility

Taking as its starting point a remark by Turner Prize nominee Yinka Shonibare that disability arts is “the last avant garde”, this panel focuses on the role of aesthetic experimentation in disability arts and the possible rethinking of the relationship between avant-garde aesthetic strategies and inclusive arts. Points of connection between the avant-garde and disability arts include a rejection of traditional aesthetic forms, the development of aesthetic strategies appropriate to non-normative bodies, politics and populations and the implications of these ideas for the conference themes. This panel is intended as a facilitated discussion involving researchers and artists undertaking work in this area. The panel will begin with some brief provocations reflecting on the implication of Shonibare’s comment. For example, Gerard Goggin will discuss three projects by Antoni Abad with artists and activists with disability in Barcelona, Geneva and Montreal as part of Abad’s Megaphone project, a decade-long, global digital art project. Bree Hadley will speak on performative interventions in public space, performance art, live art, activism and culture hacking by artists with disabilities, such as pwd's online performances, and artist’s performative responses to the austerity agenda in the US, UK, and Australasia. Eddie, Lachlan and Sarah will discuss ideas arising from their work on the project Beyond Access: The Creative Case for Inclusive Arts, which involved research with six Melbourne-based artists/artistic companies with disability, supported by Arts Access Victoria. Chair: Dr Eddie Paterson (School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne) Dr Bree Hadley (Creative Industries, QUT) Professor Gerard Goggin (Professor of Media and Communication and ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney) Dr Lachlan MacDowall (Head, Centre for Cultural Partnerships, University of Melbourne). Sarah Austin (PhD candidate, Theatre/Centre for Cultural Partnerships, VCA and MCM) Artists (tbc, based on existing relationships with artists developed in the Beyond Access research).

Elämää suuremmat sankarittaret : Suomalaisen teatterin elämäkerralliset taiteilijahahmot vuosina 2000 - 2010

In the first decade of the 21st century, national notables were a significant theme in the Finnish theatre. The lives of artists, in particular, inspired the performances that combined historical and fictional elements. In this study, I focus on the characters of female artists in 18 Finnish plays or performances from the first decade of the 21st century. The study pertains to the field of performance analysis. I approach the characters from three points of view. Firstly, I examine them through the action of performances at the thematic level. Secondly, I concentrate on the forms of relationships between the audience and the half-historical character. Thirdly, I examine the representations of characters and their relationships to the audience using myth as a tool. I approach characters from the frame of feminist phenomenological theatre study but also combine the points of view of other traditions. As a model, I adapt the approach of the theatre researcher Bert O. States, which concentrates on the relation between a play s text and an actor, and between an actor and the public. Furthermore, I use the analysing tools of performance art in an examination of performances counted among the contemporary performance genre. The biographical plays about these artists are concentrated in the domestic sphere and take part in the conversation about the position of women in both the community and private life. They represent the heroines work, love, temptations and hardships. The artists do not carry out heroic acts, being more like everyday heroines whose lives and art were shared with the audience in an aphoristic atmosphere. In the examined performances, criticism of the heterosexual matrix was mainly conservative and the myths of female and male artists differed from each other: the woman artist was presented as a super heroine whose strength often meant sacrifices; the male artist was a weaker figure primarily pursuing his individualistic objectives. The performances proved to be a kind of documentary theatre, a hybrid of truth and fiction. Nonetheless, the constructions of subject and identity mainly represented the characters of the mythical stories and only secondarily gave a faithful rendition of the artists lives. Although these performances were addressed to the general and heterogeneous public, their audience proved to be a strictly predefined group, for which the national myths and the experience of a collective identity emerged as an important theme. The heroine characters offered the audience "safe" idols who ensured the solidity of the community. These performances contained common, shared values and gave the audience an opportunity to feel empathy and to be charmed by the confessions of well-known national characters.

Entremeios da arte: moda e arte

Este trabalho versa sobre o universo da arte tangenciado pela moda, sua efemeridade, pertencimentos e seus agenciamentos. Nesse contexto, busca-se exemplificar o quanto a moda e a arte estão intrinsecamente ligadas. O ponto de partida é a moda como experiência e expressão coletiva e/ou individual, principalmente em trajes e formas vestimentares, pois são esses que mais forte influência exercem sobre o homem, seu corpo, seu espaço e memória. Localiza-se esse processo de aproximação entre arte e moda no século XX, quando vanguardas romperam com o academicismo clássico, agregando à arte sinestesias de sistemas relacionais. Rejeitam-se intermitências escultóricas e pictóricas para dar lugar a linguagens que interagem com o espectador. Os dados do presente trabalho traçam o panorama da aproximação entre arte e moda, a partir de duas vertentes: a primeira demonstra como a arte busca, no traje, suas sinergias, influenciando-se e apropriando-se da sinestesia proporcionada pela roupa; a segunda, como a moda apropriou-se de elementos da arte, em busca de um reposicionamento como expressão e não somente consumo

O corpo-limite

A pesquisa Corpolimite parte do discurso de onde a fisicalidade e experiência informe do corpo que atravessa camadas, dos rituais de passagem às políticas urbanas, cria complexidades e zonas desestabilizantes que revelam saberes via percepção e sentidos através da experiência poética em carne-viva. Partindo da perspectiva das modificações corporais no contexto das transformações extremas (como tatuagens, piercings, escarificação, implantes e suspensão corporal) o trabalho traça um percurso errático acerca das práticas de corpo que borram fronteiras, abrem fissuras e desviam, criando novos caminhos poéticos, novos jogos de significação. Baseando-se numa escrita poética e biográfica, o texto mistura imagem e palavra de forma a elaborar uma trama das complexidades envolvidas nos processos descritos. Trabalhando no campo da Performance Art e da Body Art o discurso arte-vida é permanente, trazendo à tona traços da vida cotidiana. Estes rastros transbordam e jorram pelo texto que é carne, matéria viva deste corpo de papel

Quando a palavra está ligada ao corpo e o corpo à palavra (um ensaio dramático)

O objetivo desta tese é, por um lado, abordar a relação entre o corpo e a linguagem a partir das perspectivas da poesia, do teatro e da performance. Por outro lado, propomos que a compreensão de tal campo relacional pode esclarecer pontos em comum entre essas diferentes artes, trazendo uma nova percepção do fenômeno poético. Para tal, fez-se necessário operar um desvio com relação à concepção moderna que entende o corpo enquanto substância material extensa e a linguagem como algo associado à substância subjetiva ideal do pensamento. Pelo contrário, procuramos trabalhar com a hipótese de que corpo e linguagem se encontram em estado de relação senão necessária ao menos constante, valendo-nos da ideia do corpo-em-vida, e da linguagem enquanto ação e enquanto discurso. A análise opera um recorte contemporâneo entre obras que vão das poetas Angélica Freitas e Marília Garcia até a da atriz e encenadora Cristina Flores, e da performer norte-americana Laurie Anderson. A escrita da tese nos levou a uma combinação entre aspectos formais do ensaio e do drama, numa costura de múltiplas vozes, de modo a concretizar o entrelaçamento entre as ideias vividas ao longo da pesquisa e a experiência física da produção do texto

Performing Pedagogies and Exploring Embodied Knowledge

Performing Pedagogies was a week-long performance and exhibition series I organized that took place in Kingston, Ontario between March 15th - March 20th 2016. The motivation for this project came from a desire to explore performative modes of experiencing critical, embodied knowledge. The series featured five performances, a long distance collaboration between thirty-one Queen’s undergraduate students and a Vancouver artist-run free school (The School for Eventual Vacancy), a subsequent exhibition, a panel discussion, and a radical performance pedagogy workshop led by co-artistic director of the international performance art troupe, La Pocha Nostra. Artists featured included Golboo Amani, Basil AlZeri, Caitlin Chaisson, Justin Langlois, Saul Garcia-Lopez, Francisco-Fernando Granados, and Andrew Rabyniuk. By curating examples of performance art that variously incorporated embodied pedagogical interventions, I examined the processes of performance as pedagogy. Performing Pedagogies explored interventions into contemporary contours of neoliberal education paradigms through embodied encounters—fostering conversations about the meanings and limitations of knowledge dissemination and education today and posing questions about possibilities for radical pedagogies, embodied knowledge, and counter curricula.

The Representation of the Female Body in the Multimedia Works of Regina José Galindo

The female body is central to the performance art, poetry and blog site interventions of Guatemalan Regina José Galindo. While Galindo is best known for her performance work, this article compares the hereto overlooked, distinctive and often shocking representations of the female body across her multimedia outputs. We first consider the ways in which, in all three media, Galindo presents an ‘excessive’, carnivalised, grotesque and abject female body. Second, we analyse representations of the female body that has been subjected to violence at a private and public level. In so doing, we show how Galindo not only contests hegemonic visions of gender and (national) identity but also challenges the viewer/reader to engage with, rather than look away from, the violence to which women are subjected in patriarchal society.

The Queen's Shilling:A collaboration with Goldin+Senneby

A performance art piece in the Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry/Londonderry as part of the City of Culture. International conceptual artists Goldin+Senneby commissioned me to write a short play inspired by their obsessions with alchemy, royalty and the financial markets. The play dramatises the suffering of Queen Elizabeth II as she confronts her own mortality in a world where she is an immortal symbol. Through a conversation with her predecessor Elizabeth I, she reveals that the whole stability of the financial system rests on the weight of her daily effluvia.

ABODE

Commissioned for FIX11 International Performance Art Festival, Catalyst Arts, Belfast (with Caroline Pugh).