Arts OPPORTUNITIES

Conspicuous Presence,
Trocadero Guest Curator Program 2018
OPENING WEDNESDAY 21ST FEB - Please join us!

Image Khi - Lee Thorpe, Unseeable, 2017

Conspicuous Presence makes visible the work of five Australian women artists. Through the heightened material presence of their work, the artists’ deploy conspicuous methods of commanding our attention.
The Women’s Art Register, historically inclusive of a wide range of cultural and political identities, shares our IWD platform with these five contemporary artists.

All women of colour, we acknowledge their presence and listen to their voices.
Artists: Georgia MacGuire (Indigenous Aust), Khi-Lee Thorpe (Indigenous Aust), Sofi Basseghi (Iran/Aust), Su Yang (China/Aust), Ema Shin (Japan/Aust).

Gallery 2 will feature material selected from across 43 years of the archive of the Women’s Art Register, with a projection program in the Trocadero 'Nooky' space.

 

Exhibition Dates: Feb 21 - March 10, 2018

 

Launch event: Wednesday, February 21, 6-9pm

Artist Talks: Saturday,  March 10, 4-5pm (final day of show)

 

Venue: Trocadero Artspace, Lvl 1, 119 Hopkins Street Footscray          

 

Hours: Wed-Sat 12-5pm

Catalogue essay by Sophia Cai

 The WAR Diaries - The Women's Art Register at The Roundtable

Image by Carmel O'Connor


Please join us on Sunday, March 25th, from 1-3 pm at ACCA for a discussion at The Roundtable. Part of ACCA's Unfinished Business, the Roundtable is a participatory component of the exhibition.

WAR committee members, volunteers and friends will discuss a number of questions;

What is the Unfinished Business of the Women's Art Register?

Is WAR undervalued and under-recognised by major institutions?

How can we (re)position WAR's unique place in Australia's history as a critical force in contemporary politics and culture?

In what ways are WAR's unique open access policies and grass-roots management indicative of the collaborative and participatory nature of past and present feminist practices?

How does the cross-generational collection represented by the Women's Art Register contribute new insights into current mainstream discourses that, at times, overlook the historical record? 

This is a free event, however bookings are required here via the ACCA website.
 

Irene Pagram - Floor Talk

IRENE PAGRAM - FEBRUARY 2018

 FLOOR TALK 

WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC

79 Main Street BEEAC 

'Creating sense of place within a personal narrative'

Irene's  interest in caring for the land and her experimentation with natural colours,

textures and paper tablecloths inspired the beautifully haunting 'Cool Burn'. 

You are invited to listen to Irene speak about inspiration and process 

Saturday 17 February @ 2 pm

WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC

79 Main Street BEEAC 

Light refreshments provided

RSVP preferred
windowspacebeeac@gmail.com

All welcome

I

IRENE PAGRAM - COOL BURN

IRENE PAGRAM - FEBRUARY 2018

WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC     FEBRUARY 2018

'Cool Burn'

Irene Pagram

Cool Burn (detail) 2018

When Irene Pagram met her artist hero John Wolseley, at the arc Yinnar Drawing Award in 2016 he asked if she had a work in the show and when Pagram pointed it out and tentatively proffered her copy of the catalogue of his NGV survey show, Landmarks 111, in the hope he might autograph it, Wolseley wrote: ‘For Irene, distinguished artist’.

He confided to her – ‘You distinguished yourself by caring. By caring enough to make art, to make art about the landscape, and the environment, and about the state of things, and to put your art out into the world, that others may think and perhaps care about these things.’

_________________

 

Cool Burn, (2018), was inspired by visits to the extraordinarily beautiful remnant grassland meadows of Cobra Killuc Reserve in south west Victoria (see Flora Victoria’s facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/GrasslandsFloravic/  ).

Testament to land management techniques practised over thousands of generations, the area is park-like with stands of trees and swathes of grasses starred with myriad jewel-coloured wildflowers in late Spring. In thinking about the writings of Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage, together with such evidence of the beauty of fire-managed landscape, it seemed evident to Pagram that a mosaic of fuel-reduction cool burns are urgently required to address 200 years of land management neglect. This WINDOWSPACE work is a testament to that need.

The elements of Cool Burn depict the clean forest floor in winter where orchids will soon appear, their germination aided by components of smoke. Tree trunks show blackened evidence of a cool burn at their base, each with a hint of an understory of wildflowers, small shrubs and vines that will reappear along with the soft grasses of spring. Clean upper trunks reach skyward.

Evoking the cool burn flames

In a nod to a past life, the tree trunks have been eco-printed onto disposable paper tablecloth, turning this ephemeral product back into an artwork with something of the longevity our forests deserve. 

Forming the first tree trunks for Cool Burn

Pagram works with natural dyes on silk, wool and paper, often to make a ground for drawing, or a base for hand stitching. Having discovered India Flint’s publication Eco Colour (2008), Pagram found there was a better way to do the natural dyeing she had first learnt in the 1970s. Rather than using toxic metal powder mordants and salt fixatives of the past, Flint has pioneered a bundling method of botanical eco-printing using just water and the dye-pot as mordant. The results give substantive colours reminiscent of the landscape where the leaves are gathered. Utilising wind-falls, and a garden gathering of leaf litter are paramount. The plant material can then be returned to the earth as compost or mulch. Nothing harmful is discarded into the environment. This sustainable and eco-friendly natural dyeing method harmonises perfectly with Pagram’s life-style in the Otways hinterland. She is an eco-colour convert.

Pagram exhibits locally and further afield: hand-stitched art cloths, graphite drawings, framed textiles, eco-printed lengths of pure silk, artist’s books and mixed media artwork.

It’s all over Red Box, Baby Blue

A bright winter’s night (detail)

Irene Pagram’s exhibition month at WINDOWSPACE- BEEAC will include a discussion of eco-printing methods.

Free floor talk on Saturday 17 February at 2pm.

All welcome.

Imminent local events:

As part of the 17-18 March 2018 Colac-Otway Arts Trail  Irene Pagram will have a weekend pop-up studio at Echidna House, ​Kawarren Reserve, 2 Kawarren East Road Kawarren VIC 3249​ https://www.colacotwayartstrail.com/kawarren.html

Pagram teaches handmade recycled papermaking to small groups. The next workshop is at Gellibrand Community House 10 February 2018 –

https://www.facebook.com/events/1841906886101260/

http://artsatlassw.com.au/irene-pagram/
https://www.facebook.com/Irene-Pagram-Artist-411029172399281/

LORNE SCULPTURE BIENNALE CONFERENCE

nature+humanity+art

LANDFALL

LORNE SCULPTURE BIENNALE

17 MAR - 2 APRIL 2018

conference 2018

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CREATING UTOPIA CONFERENCE Proudly Sponsored By Deakin University 22-25th March 2018

REGISTER HERE for the conference

Please note you must register separately for the Speakers' Lunch and there are limited numbers.

Creating Utopia: Imagining and Making Futures
Art, Architecture and Sustainability

Lorne Hotel – The View Room
176 Great Ocean Rd,
Lorne, Victoria, Australia

Exploring the intersection between, art, culture and the natural environment, the conference is being presented in the coastal town of Lorne, on the Great Ocean Road, where the Otway Ranges meets the wild Bass Straight - the ideal setting to explore these themes.

This Conference is part of the Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2018 program devoted to the curatorial theme ‘Landfall,’ expressing pertinent global issues of nature and endangerment. Thirty seven artists creating forty projects have been asked to interpret the intersection of nature, humanity and art in creating sculptural work that will be featured on the 4 km trail.

The inaugural conference for the Lorne Sculpture Biennale will be an exploratory journey, bringing together a group of people investigating through research and practice the themes of ‘Landfall’ - art and environment, sustainability and impact on human and earth futures. Papers will reflect on issues of environmental decline and degradation, and the wider processes of social and environmental transformation and the regeneration of nature. Invited presenters come from a wide range of places, spaces and experiences and will convene paper sessions exploring the intersection of the physical and symbolic, the spiritual and the ephemeral, the material and immaterial.

2017 - IT"S A WRAP, AGAIN

IT'S A WRAP

It's been another great year of window installations. 

Thank you to all concerned.

This is the conclusion of the third year of the WINDOWSPACE presence on Main Street Beeac.

Notable and particularly successful this year were three workshop/talks. In April local artists joined with Bronwyn Razem to create 'bush toys' for a window entitled Menagerie. A pretty hilarious time was had by all, and together the animals made a wry and quirky window, from bird to beast each extraordinarily expressive. Huge thanks to Bron for her generosity and allowing others to share her 'WINDOWSPACE'. Razem's work is currently on show at the Warrnambool Gallery.

In July, in conjunction with the local annual Xpollination Textile event at COPAC and RRRTAG, and her own WINDOWSPACE installation, Jane Bear offered a much-appreciated felting workshop. Alchemy! Participants turned fleece into bowls. One young girl took her felt bowl to school for 'show and tell' for a whole week, she was so enamoured of the experience and outcome. Thank you so much Jane for your generous instruction! and congratulations on your winning the Scissor Award at Xpoll. Jane Bear has also had work on show at the Warrnambool Gallery recently.

In November Ramak Bamzar travelled across Victoria to introduce her installation of three images from a series entitled Iranian Weddings (2005 - 2008). Everyone was curious - the images suggested that the 'Iranian Wedding' was definitely not your 'average wedding'. Ramak demystified the phenomenon, and offered some insight into her personal photographic approach. She later talked one to one with many of the significant group of people who had come to see and hear - some interesting cultural connections were made. Thank you Ramak!

Tim Lucas's poetic image Reclaimed (2015), exhibited in WINDOWSPACE this year - a long scroll-like photograph of a fallen windmill corroding in salty Lake Beeac, has found a permanent home with the Warrion Community Hall - a very happy outcome for such an iconic local image. Thank you Tim for your generosity.

Perhaps the most effusively locally embraced installation of the year was the first, Les Futo's, Gyre Consequences, (2017), which strangely enough had only one attendee at his artist talk, despite significant spruiking. (Thank you Suz F!) Clearly Futo's intent and media hit a chord - if you are wondering about the message look up 'gyre'. All the media came from under West Gate Bridge.

In terms of community engagement it was great to work with Karen Cherry and Peter Day from Beeac Primary School to showcase the school's 'brolga project'. This installation gave the local children a chance to appreciate that being an artist is not impossible - you just need guts! As various children stood in the window they must have felt that. If WINDOWSPACE only achieves that realisation then it's done its job.

________________

In 2018 the co-ordinator role is being passed to three local artists - Sandra Batten, Viv Wheeler and Irene Pagram. Their collective intelligence and wider reach will undoubtedly  contribute to a sound and stimulating new phase of WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC. 

Next year should be very exciting: more activities allied with Birregurra Small Towns Transformation, the Lorne Biennale and the Xpollination Annual - bringing the Beeac locality into the loop with these other small towns. There is something very big on the cards in Cororooke!

_______________

Best wishes for an inspired 2018.

AS

Images above:
Kathleen Harkin - Bushtoy
Irene Pagram - Bushtoy
Sue Tate - Bushtoy
Bronwyn Razem at Warrnambool Gallery

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM ART - RAMAK BAMZAR

RAMAK BAMZAR

will talk about the Iranian wedding as it relates to her photographic practice

You are welcome

Saturday 25 NOVEMBER @ 2 pm

WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC

79 Main Street BEEAC 

Enjoy a glass of wine and speak with Ramak

THIS IS A FREE EVENT

NOT FAIR - FAIR

EMIL TOONEN et al now at

NotFair

www.notfair.com.au/

Jul 3, 2017 - notfair, the first satellite art fair in Australia returns in November 2017 in a sprawling industrial factory complex in Windsor. Founded as an alternative to the Melbourne Art Fair in 2010 with an emphasis on artists who are ...