Creative Exchanges: 2007

Johan Handianto (Indonesia) Snuff Puppets

Supported by the Ford Foundation, Jakarta

Johan Didik Handianto is a freelance stage manager, and stage & lighting designer. He has worked with several independent artists and theatre groups in Indonesia including Teater Garasi, Teater Gadjah Mada, Teater Gardanalla, Teater Koma and Durr Theatre, Tony Prabowo, Yoko Ishiguro and Das Papier Theatre; and on numerous festivals: Yogyakarta Arts Festival, International Performing Arts Festival Jogjakarta, Jogja Art Festival, Jak@rt International Festival. In 2007, he founded the Actor Institute in Jogjakarta, which presents alternative theatre performance and a program of workshops. Johan’s residency with Snuff Puppets in Melbourne offered the opportunity to gain an understanding of the company’s theatrical model, stage management and their unique form of productions. Johan also spent time researching other stage companies, performance spaces and festivals in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Julie Chou (Taiwan) Fremantle Art Centre and IASKA

Supported by Taipei Culture Foundation and The Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government

Taipei artist Julie Chou creates video and installation works concerned with the cultural and social aspects of life, often working with rural communities. Her Asialink residency was shared between Fremantle Art Centre and IASKA - International Art Space Kellerberrin where she worked closely with local residents to present new works. Too Salty used the common language of food and history to raise awareness of the salination issues in Western Australia. Chou also collaborated with fellow IASKA resident, Indonesian artist Prilla Tania, to produce video work incorporating oral histories.

Samuel Indratma (Indonesia) Artplay & Youth Programs, Melbourne

Supported by the Ford Foundation, Jakarta

Founding member of well-known Yogyakartan visual arts collective Apotik Komik, Samuel Indratma is now active in the local community arts scene, working closely with the Yogykarta City Council to deliver workshops to schoolchildren with a view to engaging a broader audience with the arts. During his residency with Artplay & Youth Programs he had the opportunity to gain an understanding of the ArtPlay model, particularly in terms of its relationship to the City of Melbourne. Indratma also developed a workshop program and fostered links between Melbourne and Yogyakarta. He then traveled to Tasmania where he ran a highly successful two-week workshop with students from local primary schools in the Launceston area.

Julien Poulson (TAS)

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Tasmania

Throughout his career, Julien Poulson has gained a wealth of experience in diverse arts positions, including implementing music industry programs, managing festivals, publishing magazines, working with boards, committees and membership-based organizations; he is currently manager of TasMusic. During his residency Poulson worked with musicians and visual artists based in a variety of arts organisations in Cambodia, utilising his experience as a producer to record oral histories, sound compositions and to produce a documentary exhibition.

Hermie Conelisse (TAS) Jingdezhen Sabao Ceramic Art Institute

Supported by Arts Tasmania and the Australia Council for the Arts

Artist Hermie Cornelisse works mainly in the area of ceramics, but her practice also extends to embroidery, painting and drawing. Cornelisse exhibits widely in Australia, notably participating in a group exhibition Design Island that toured through Australia, including to the Sydney Opera House, Object Gallery NSW, and Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, followed by a solo exhibition of ceramics and painting in 2006. During her residency at Jingdezhen Sabao Ceramic Art Institute in Jiangxi Province, she visited ceramic collections and studied and practiced ancient ceramic methods.

Kelly Gellatly (VIC)

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Kelly Gellatly is Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria where she is responsible for collection development and exhibitions of contemporary Australian and international art post-1980. She has also held curatorial positions at Heide Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Australia. During her residency in China, Gellatly developed an exhibition of Chinese new media art for the National Gallery of Victoria, scheduled for March 2008. She also investigated the contemporary art scene more broadly in order to establish professional networks that will benefit future exhibitions and collaboration.

Peter Bakowski (VIC) University of Macau

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Peter Bakowski has been writing poetry for over twenty years with publication in literary journals worldwide. He has held various national and international writers’ residencies and his first book won the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry. Based at the University of Macau Bakowski developed new poems based on his experience of the physical, intellectual, commercial and social environments of Macau and mainland China. The primary focus of the poems was to show the effects these environments have on the individual, exploring voluntary and involuntary exile, tradition and change, individual fulfillment or alienation, political and spiritual beliefs. Bakowski has since been commissioned by the State of Victoria to write a poem and be poet-in-residence at Suzhou University in celebration of the 30th anniversary of friendship status between Victoria and Jiangsu Province, China. Bakowski gave 24 poetry readings during his residency.

Robert Iolini (NSW) ACO Art and Culture Outreach

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Composer and media artist Robert Iolini accepts music, image and sound on equal terms. His works are detailed poetic narratives, stylistically diverse, and united by a philosophical approach. Iolini’s commissions include major works for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, Danish National Radio, Netherlands Program Service and Big hArt Inc. Iolini was based with ACO Art and Culture Outreach, a non-profit organisation facilitating cultural exchange between foreign artists, local artists and audiences. As artist in residence he produced a video art work focusing on Hong Kong 10 years after its reunification with China.

Sandra Parker (VIC) Victorian College of the ArtsLTDX-Beijing and Guangdong Modern Dance Company

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Since graduating from Rusden College majoring in dance and drama, Sandra Parker has pursued a career as a choreographer, performer, teacher and director. She has worked as a freelance artist, as Artistic Director of the iconic Australian company Dance Works, and now as the Director/Choreographer of Sandra Parker Dance. Parker's work has been presented in Europe and the US and she has received a Centenary Medal for Services to Australian Dance. Parker worked with two of China’s best contemporary dance companies, LTDX-Beijing and Guangdong Modern Dance Company, to create a new dance work.

Willow Neilson (VIC) JZ Club and School

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Since graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium, Willow Neilson has taken his band to win third place at the Jazz Hoelaart International Competition in Brussels and has also won third place as a soloist in both the Montreaux and London jazz festival saxophone competitions. Between 2003 and 2004 Neilson performed regularly as part of the Shanghai jazz scene alongside Chinese and international musicians. His residency enabled him to deepen his ties in through collaborating with artists associated with the JZ Club and School in Shanghai.

Xenia Hanusiak (VIC) Peking University

Supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation

Xenia Hanusiak is an award-winning writer and performer whose work spans theatre, opera, video and cultural journalism. Appearances at major international arts festivals in New York, Denmark, Canada, Singapore and Italy and all the Australian arts festivals have led to many commissions and collaborations. Collaborations include New York Young People’s Chorus, Elena Kats–Chernin, Australian String Quartet, the State Opera companies and theatre companies. During her residency at Peking University, Hanusiak developed a libretto - a new work based on a Chinese miner who arrived in the Bendigo Goldfields in 1854.

Vanessa Van Ooyen (nee McRae) (QLD) Videotage

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Vanessa McRae is Exhibitions Manager at the Institute of Modern Art where she recently curated the national touring exhibition Supercharged. Her arts management experience spans over 10 years and includes work as an Arts Coordinator in remote Aboriginal communities, manager of the National Exhibition Touring Services for the Northern Territory and Curator at Latrobe Regional Gallery. Vanessa used her residency with Videotage in Hong Kong to research alternative models for the presentation of new media art and develop exchange projects between Chinese and Australian artists.

Bryan Woltjen (WA) School of Pallikoodam and the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust

Supported by the Australia-India Council and Arts WA

A designer of stage, costume and puppetry, trained at the WA Academy of Performing Arts, with further training and experience in London and Sydney. Now Fremantle based, Bryan Woltjen has designed productions varying from local fringe to outdoor operatic promenade, from novelty giftware to four metre high multi-operator harnessed junk puppets. Infatuated by the collaborative process, Woltjen works across Australia as a multi-artform designer of theatre and spectacle, specialising in the development of new work. In India, Woltjen worked with the School of Pallikoodam in Kottayam, engaged in a spectacle based production and workshops with Dadi Pudumjee of the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust, New Delhi, and established links with contemporary and traditional puppetry.

Gwyn Hanssen-Pigott (QLD) Sanskriti Kendra

Supported by the Australia-India Council and Supported by Arts Queensland

Ceramicist Gwyn Hanssen-Pigott has been presented with a Visual Arts and Crafts Emeritus award and an Order of Australia Medal in recognition of her contribution to the visual arts. Recently honoured with a major 50-year survey exhibition, Hanssen-Pigott's works are highly acclaimed overseas and are extensively represented in collections internationally. She has also represented Australia at the Museo Internazionaledelle Ceramiche in Italy. Hanssen-Pigott travelled to Sanskriti Kendra, near New Delhi, to research India’s rich clay tradition.  She produced a new body of work for exhibition in India and Australia entitled The Hope Trail which was presented at the Terra Cotta Museum at Sanskriti Kendra.

Jennifer Pfeiffer (VIC) Teamwork

Supported by the Australia-India Council and Arts Victoria

Jennider Pfeiffer is a member of the UNIMA International Executive and President of the UNIMA Asia-Pacific Commission. An independent artist and theatre-maker, her long-term practice is located in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural arts. In India, she worked with Teamwork, an international production company, on the prestigious Indian National Theatre Awards. Through her residency she sought to increase her on-the-ground festival experience, extend networks in the region, and examine the feasibility of regional touring circuits for puppeteers.

Kirsty Murray (VIC) University of Madras

Supported by the Australia-India Council and Arts Victoria

Kirsty Murray is a prolific author of award-winning fiction for younger readers, often focusing on Australian history and identity. Murray is researching the true story of an Australian children’s theatrical troupe that toured India in 1910. When the children reached Madras (Chennai), they went on strike, abandoned their manager and appealed to the local community for support. On residency at the University of Madras, Murray developed a new historical fiction based on the experiences of an Australian child performer in India.

Rakini Devi (VIC) Adishakti

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria

Rakini Devi’s work involves hybrid theatre, dance, choreography, and spoken word texts based on her own cross-cultural identity. Born in Calcutta, her background in Indian classical dance and ritual worship of the Goddess Kali have been the subject of many of her internationally presented works. Devi was based with Adishakti in Pondicherry, where she researched contemporary art practice in the context of her Indian heritage. In this residency she took advantage of Adishakti’s many exponents with knowledge in Indian martial arts, Ayurvedic medicine and Tantric studies.

Stephen House (SA) Sanskriti Kendra

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Supported by Arts SA

Stephen House has had 14 plays and three short films professionally produced. His work has toured nationally and internationally and won awards from the Australian Writers’ Guild and Adelaide Fringe. He has held international literature residencies, and tours his self-performed monologues and offers master-classes on play writing and theatre practice. During his residency at Sanskriti Kendra, near New Delhi, House researched and developed his first novel, a significant part of which is set in India, and explores the hidden corners of life and the unique characters who inhabit them. He also worked on a new collection of poems.

William Lane (TAS) ORKA-M International Institute of Innovative Music

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Tasmania

Violist William Lane is a prize-winning solo artist, chamber musician, improviser and collaborator who has performed all over Australasia, Europe and North America. Lane has collaborated with some of the most important musicians, composers and ensembles in the field of new music, and is Artistic Director of a twenty-piece contemporary music ensemble based in New York City, Berlin and Melbourne, GRENZENLOS. In India, Lane worked on collaborative projects with Indian musicians Dhruba Ghosh and Ragesh Mehta and was in residence at the ORKA-M International Institute of Innovative Music, Mumbai.

Carlos Gomes (NSW) Komunitas CCL

Supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute and Arts NSW 

Theatre director, designer and performer Carlos Gomes trained in Brazil, the United Kingdom and Australia and has been involved in theatre for the past 15 years. Most of his work has been in visual and physical based theatre and his projects have demonstrated an interest in collaborative and hybrid forms of theatre. His residency with theatre company Komunitas CCL, consisted of working with the company, its performance students and the local community in a practical exchange of physical training, theatrical conception and performance design, resulting in the performance The Tangled Garden.

Hal Judge (ACT) Paradox Literary Centre

Supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute and Supported Arts ACT

Recently appointed Development Officer with the ACT Writers Centre, Hal Judge is a versatile creative writer of plays and screenplays and award-winning poet. Over the last decade he has produced many cabaret and poetry slams at top live entertainment venues and has featured at the Tasmanian, ACT, Northern Territory and Ubud writers' festivals. During the residency, Judge assisted the Paradox Literary Centre to become a viable resource centre for writers throughout Indonesia.

Joanna Barrkman (NT) Babaran Segaragunung Cultural House

Supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute and Arts NT

Joanna Barrkman is the Curator, Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Barrkman has specialised in the study of Asian textiles.  Her residency in Yogyakarta, hosted by Babaran Segaragunung Cultural House, allowed her to work on a cultural development project focused on the revitalisation of the ancient Giriloyo batik traditions. Through a collaborative process involving the Giriloyo batik artisans, she documented and interpreted the technical batik process, the batik motif symbolism and the artisan's histories.  This provided the basis for a public exhibition which aimed to heighten awareness of the preservation of this ancient craft.

Julie Janson (NSW) Perempuan Perkeja Theatre Company

Supported by Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Julie Janson works as a playwright, screenwriter, producer, script editor and assessor. She has worked on many cross-cultural projects enabling artists to express the connections and clashes between traditional forms and contemporary sensibilities, particularly between Asia, indigenous and non-indigenous Australia. She has received numerous grants and fellowships, has made several short films and had a number of her plays produced at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre and overseas. Janson worked with the Perempuan Perkeja theatre company toward the presentation of her play Tsunami Tsunami.

Kristin Phillips (SA) Sonobudoyo Museum

Supported by Arts SA

Kristin Phillips is a textile conservator at Artlab Australia. Artlab undertakes conservation work for the major state institutions in Adelaide including a large collection of Asian textiles at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The residency enabled Phillips to travel to Yogyakarta to visit the many textile collections in the area, in particular at Sonobudoyo Museum, allowing her to expand her knowledge of textile conservation practices in the region and to present workshops on different aspects of textile conservation.

Wanda Gillespie (VIC) Galerie Soemardja

Supported by the Australia-Indonesia Institute and the Australia Council for the Arts

Wanda Gillespie works in installation, sculpture, photography, video and sound. Her work has been exhibited widely in artist run spaces, at the Contemporary Centre for Photography and the National Gallery of Australia. Gillespie's recent exhibition, the Museum of Lost worlds and the Kingdom of Wandaland, traced findings of a lost kingdom off the coast of re-bun-to, north of Hokkaido, Japan. Artefacts retrieved from an air wreck in Wandaland confirmed its existence. Based at Bandung’s Galerie Soemardja, Gillespie created three new works including Olah Rasa – A Testing Ground for Truth - a series of performance and installation-based photographs, inspired by Javanese mysticism and local modern Indonesian culture.

Hannah Mathews (WA) Arts Initiative Tokyo and Art Front Gallery

Supported by Arts WA

With a Master of Art Curatorship from The University of Melbourne, Hannah Mathews has worked with a wide range of organisations including the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Monash University Museum of Art and the Biennale of Sydney. Currently Curator at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, she recently completed a curatorial internship with Creative Time, New York and participated in the Rapt! 20 contemporary artists from Japan project. Mathews returned to Japan to work with Arts Initiative Tokyo and Art Front Gallery to develop alternative models for presenting art projects.

James Lynch (VIC) Tokyo Wonder Site

Supported by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts

James Lynch works across various media including drawing, installation, painting and animation and is a founding member of the collaborative group Damp. He has created a series of artworks and animations, based on a collection of people's dreams in which he has appeared, which mediate our often conflicted and ambivalent relationships with the other. Lynch developed an exhibition The Drunken Soldier and Other Melodies that was exhibited at his host organisation Tokyo Wonder Site. He also participated in LIVE - the Tokyo Digital Art Festival.

Jane Hindson (VIC) Tokyo Performing Arts Market

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria

Producer/curator Jane Hindson operates across sound/media art and new music, as well as artist management, publicity/project coordination and workshop presentation. She has worked with major new music festivals within Australia and has spent much time in Japan, most recently co-curating View Masters - Remix, a hybrid sound and visual art project. Hindson’s residency saw her placed at the 2007 Tokyo Performing Arts Market where she assisted with coordination of the music/sound art program and facilitated communication between international and Japanese artists.

Kirsty Beilharz (NSW) International Shakuhachi Training Center

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts NSW

Kirsty Beilharz is a composer and interactive media designer. Her music has received international performance awards, including a Churchill Fellowship, British Council Music Scholarship, Nouvel Ensemble and Moderne Forum Lauréate. In Japan, Beilharz composed for Japanese instruments, developing her understanding of idiomatic techniques and cultural context, and furthered her studies of the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) through collaboration with Kaoru Kakizakai of the International Shakuhachi Training Center. She created a site-specific interactive responsive piece using locally collected sound and images, contemplating the intersection of traditional culture and contemporary, technological life.

Linda Luke (NSW) Body Weather Farm

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Linda Luke has been working in theatre and dance-performance since 1997. She started performing with De Quincey Co. in 2004 and from 2006 has been facilitating the company's Body Weather‚ training program. She has a wide variety of experience as a performer, dramaturge and co-director for festivals and events in Australia, Greece and the U.A.E. Her residency in Japan at the Body Weather farm, Hakushu, and in Tokyo, enabled Linda to study both the Butoh and Body Weather traditions and participate in the Hakushu Arts Festival.

Michael Farrell (VIC) Shukutoku University

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Michael Farrell has published three books of poetry, 'ode ode', 'BREAK ME OUCH,' and 'a raiders guide'. The second of these contains his own drawings and is influenced by a minimalist style of cartoon. While at Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, Farrell explored the relationship between manga and poetry. Farrell developed over 30 new poems, many including drawings and comic-style frames. He gave three readings, in Nagoya, Kyoto and Tokyo and met several Japanese poets. His work often uses pop music as a model or starting point and he is interested in karaoke.

Sarah Holland-Batt (QLD) Aichi Shukutoku University

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Queensland

Sarah Holland-Batt is currently pursuing a Master of Philosophy in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. Her poems have been published widely in Australia’s major literary journals and newspapers, she has been a regular guest at literary festivals, and she has also worked as editor-in-chief of the literary journal Vanguard and national poetry editor of Vibewire. Holland-Batt’s residency at Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, provided the opportunity to work towards the completion of a lyrical poetry manuscript, with poems that explore themes of memory, loss, desire, and the limits of language. Holland-Batt was guest speaker at several University seminars and classes at both Aichi Shukutoku University and Chukyo University.

Tobias Richardson (NT) Petronas Gallery

Supported by Arts NT, the Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur and the Australia Council for the Arts

Tobias Richardson works with broad media including installation, painting, archiving, sculpture and drawing. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and later moved to the Northern Territory to teach in indigenous communities. Exhibiting frequently, Richardson currently lectures at Charles Darwin University and holds positions on local arts boards. His current work concerns the cultural and social values of architecture. At Petronas Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Richardson developed new work on themes relating to travel and the built environment, as well as personal and cultural memory.

Alwyin Reamillo (WA) Cultural Center of the Philippines and Galleria Duemila

Supported by The Department of Culture and the Arts, WA, The Australia Council for the Arts, and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts in the Philippines.

Filipino-born Alwin Reamillo is a cross-media artist who works in mixed media painting, sculpture, sound, installation and performance and has participated in various national and international exhibitions, residencies and festivals. His projects often examine and incorporate relational/social processes, developed with individuals and communities. Reamillo's residency at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Galleria Duemila involved the restorative construction of an art case upright and grand piano in collaboration with a team of Filipino piano makers from the now defunct Javincello & Co., makers of Wittemberg Pianos in Manila. The residency culminated in a two part public exhibition with piano performances from local pianists.

John Alsop (NSW) De La Salle University

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Supported by Arts NSW

John Alsop has worked as a professional screenwriter since 1980. His credits include the landmark Australian TV mini-series Brides of Christ and recently made his debut as a director with short film Cool White. Alsop is currently adapting two major Australian novels, An Imaginary Life and Mister Darwin's Shooter as feature films, and is also writing new film and TV scripts. John's residency at De La Salle University in Manila resulted in the short film He. She. It. which premiered at the 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival, in addition to character research and story backgrounds for future projects.

Lisa Kelly (NSW) p-10

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Lisa Kelly’s practice involves art making, writing, collaboration and organisation. She has been involved in local, interstate and overseas exhibitions and projects and published critical essays and reviews in a range of arts and artist publications. Recent practice includes being a coordinating member of Loose projects and participation in the residency-driven project It's a new day. During her residency at p-10, Kelly developed a site responsive installation work – “Attention Seekers_____Drawings with Invisible Objects.” Kelly also developed a new collaborative dialogue with artist Dennis Tan of “The Other House”.

Michael Yuen (SA) Ssamzie Space

Supported by The Australia-Korea Foundation and Arts SA

Michael Yuen is an artist and curator. Formally trained as a composer, Yuen's installation-based works use a combination of abstract sound, images and experimental interactive technologies in order to create artworks grounded in perceptual experience. Yuen has exhibited nationally, including receiving commissions to work with the Adelaide Festival of Arts, the Adelaide Train Station and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. In 2006, Yuen was the Artistic Director for Project 3 at the Adelaide Festival of Arts. At Ssamzie Space, Seoul, Yuen developed a new series of sensory overload installations.

Virginia Hyam (NSW) Seoul Performing Arts Festival

Supported by The Australia-Korea Foundation

Former Melbourne Fringe Festival Director Virginia Hyam is the Executive Producer of The Studio at Sydney Opera House, curating a program of contemporary performance across the year. The Studio both produces and presents an eclectic mix of smaller scale productions, representing independent artists from across Australia and internationally. In Korea Hyam was hosted by the Seoul Performing Arts Festival and engaged with its operations and programming to build an understanding of local practice and sought out opportunities for future exchange and collaboration between Korean and Australian artists.

Penny Cain (NSW) Taipei Artist Village

Supported by Arts NSW and the Australia Council for the Arts

Penny Cain is a cross-disciplinary artist who works primarily with video, photography and installation, exhibiting widely across Australia. She is interested in the effect of contemporary culture and the built environment on the human condition. Cain has been using the ‘city' as a frame of reference and has been examining the adaptive expression of basic human instincts to contemporary life and urban environment. At the Taipei Artists Village Cain completed an installation piece for the Winter artist-in-residence exhibition “Citylogue”. She also developed new video and multimedia work reflecting on the language and environmental differences between Australia and Taiwan.

Benjamin Grant (NSW) The Art Centre Chulalongkorn University

Supported by the Australia-Thailand Institute

Benjamin Grant’s interests lie in fostering relationships with regional communities. His art practice incorporates several image-based media and in recent years his work has focused on the interpretation of documentary. During his stay in Thailand at Chulalongkorn University's Art Centre, Grant engaged in cross cultural exchange with residents of Bangkok and Kon Kean, allowing him to develop an understanding of various types of contemporary cultural practices in the Kingdom. He engaged at a community level in the Klongtoey and Petchburi districts in Bangkok with over 150 inhabitants living under a make shift shelter. The result was a body of contemporary art photography titled Make Shift – an exploration of migration in Thailand.

Chris Henschke (VIC) Chulalongkorn University

Supported by the Australia-Thailand Institute and the Australia Council for the Arts

Chris Henschke works with digital media, mainly in audio and visual explorations and hybrid art forms. His works have been shown in many Australian and international exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, & MILIA 99 (France). Henschke currently lectures at RMIT University. During his residency, Henschke worked with the Visual Art Department, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, on audiovisual pieces inspired directly from his surroundings and capturing elements of his experiences of the residency. Two of the works Henschke developed Ayutthaya Annicha and Shopping Mall Dukkha, were screened by the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival in 2008.

Xan Colman & Tamara Searle (VIC) Makhampom Theatre Group

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Xan Colman, artistic director of independent inter-arts company A is for Atlas, is a playwright and director with works performed nationally and in Germany. Tamara Searle is a freelance performer, creator and educator, who has performed with The Australian Ballet, Eleventh Hour Theatre, La Mama and in numerous Australian film and TV projects. With a focus on theatre for community cultural development, their residency took them to refugee camps on the Thai-Burma border, where they worked within Makhampom Theatre Group’s refugee project team on educational theatre projects investigating violence against women, HIV/AIDS, and social justice issues.

Thea Baumann (QLD) a little blah blah

Supported by Arts Queensland and the Australia Council for the Arts

Media artist, curator, and producer Thea Baumann has worked as Projects Coordinator for MAAP – Multimedia Art Asia Pacific, and recently curated Manhua Wonderlands, a public exhibition program and education initiative promoting and supporting cross-cultural projects between media artists and Asian-Australian communities. Through her curatorial residency at contemporary art space a little blah blah in Ho Chi Minh City, she coordinated an artist talk programme, screenings, and a multi-arts exhibition, The Last Vestige, which explored concepts of nomadic curatorship. Baumann is now Executive Producer of Aphids.

Zoe Butt (QLD) San Art

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & Arts Queensland

At the time of her residency Zoe Butt was Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery. For over 10 years she has been researching contemporary Asian art, curating exhibitions and contributing to various international art publications. Her knowledge of contemporary Asian art was drawn upon for her residency with the San Art, an independent artist run space, where she curated the exhibition Diary of a Travelling City and  organised a series of workshops by local artists, curators, writers and arts workers as part of the first large-scale contemporary art endeavor of its kind in Vietnam. Butt is now Director of International Programs for the Long March Project and based in China.