Creative Exchanges: 2011

LiChun Tseng (Taiwan) Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

LiChun Tseng was born in Taiwan and has lived and worked in the Netherlands since 2007. LiChun is a multi-disciplinary artist who works in the fields of video and installation. Her artworks have deep existential roots, reflecting LiChun’s awareness of being within and connected to the totality of life. At Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts LiChun will continue her exploration of the meaning of life and interconnectedness of all things by absorbing and partaking in an unfamiliar setting and culture.

Midori Mitamura (Japan) Monash University of Art / MUMA

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & The Australia-Japan Foundation

Midori Mitamura creates installations constructed from photographs, videos and daily objects.  She has undertaken residencies in Finland and London, and exhibited extensively throughout Europe and Asia. At Monash University Museum of Art in Melbourne, Midori will continue her Art & Breakfast project that was initiated in Stockholm and continued in Tokyo and Berlin. Midori will encourage visitors to eat breakfast with her in the gallery space, and will transform her memories, experiences and daily breakfast objects into dramatic visual narratives.

Yongseok Oh (Korea) Artspace

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

The works of Yongseok Oh seek to confuse the past and present, and question real and imagined places. He creates a visual collage of still and moving images to reconstruct reality by consciously combining both personal and found imagery. Yongseok attempts to examine the boundary where personal and collective memories collide. During his residency at Artspace, Sydney Yongseok will develop a new series of works using old photographs of Australians or stills from fundamentally Australian movies.

Lucy Treloar (VIC) Nou Hach Literary Association

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Lucy Treloar is an editor, freelance journalist and the author of three children’s books. She lived in Cambodia from 2003 - 07 where she worked on translations of Cambodian narratives. On her return to Melbourne, Lucy began her first adult novel Some Times In Life that explores themes of cultural, social and emotional dislocation in an expatriate community.  At the Nou Hach Literary Association Lucy plans to pursue research and continue work on her novel.

Paea Leach (WA) Amrita Performing Arts

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & The Department of Culture and the Arts, WA

Paea Leach is a dancer, performer, writer, teacher and choreographer who has worked both independently and with Chunky Move in Melbourne and Australian Dance Theatre, Adelaide. She has vast international experience and is currently based between Australia and Brussels where she performs and tours the work BABEL throughout Europe. At Amrita Performing Arts in Phnom Penh, Paea aims to collaborate with local dancers to create a new work that addresses issues based around a country rich with history and turmoil.

Sue McCauley (VIC) Java Arts

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia Council for the Arts

Sue McCauley is the Creative Producer of Greyspace where her most recent production The Hawker’s Song was developed with artist Keith Deverell and commissioned for the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2010. Sue was recently awarded a PhD in Creative Media for her practice-based investigation into techniques used by creative producers to manage teams. At Java Arts in Phnom Penh Susan intends to develop ways to enhance communication for artists and organisations throughout South East Asia, including artists from Australia.

Joanna Dudley (SA) Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia-China Council

Joanna Dudley works internationally as a director and performer. She demonstrates a long-term interest in Chinese arts and culture having studied Mandarin and the singing style of Chinese folk music. In 2003 she performed this singing style with the contemporary Les Ballets C de la B who toured China and Korea. During her residency at Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre Joanna hopes to inspire a new series of works for Opera Australia.

Linda Neil (QLD) Shanghai Writing Program

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & Arts NSW

Linda Neil is a writer, musician and producer with a PhD in Creative Writing. In 2009 Linda was the ABC National Radiophonic artist in residence and also released her first book Learning How to Breathe. Her work considers the significance of music across a range of contexts. Her residency project with the Shanghai Writing Program, entitled Singing Love Songs in China, will enable Linda to explore songs and music about connection, intimacy, cohesion and cooperation in both traditional and contemporary China.

Marcus Westbury (VIC) Peking University

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & Arts Victoria

Marcus Westbury is a writer, broadcaster and media maker. His writings and essays have been published in many Australian newspapers, journals and magazines and he has written and presented programs on ABC radio and television. After visiting Beijing in 2009 Marcus took a keen interest in the changing cultural dynamics of the city and he will use his residency with Peking University to explore and write about these themes.

Rebecca Allen (SA) Hong Kong Fringe Club

Supported by Arts NT & The Australia Council for the Arts

Rebecca Allen has worked with Australia’s leading performing arts companies as stage manger, company manager and producer, including the Sydney and Melbourne Theatre Companies and Sydney and Adelaide Festivals. Recently Rebecca was the Creative Producer of the Darwin Festival. A main aim of Rebecca’s residency at Hong Kong Fringe Club is to develop international networks that can be used to give exposure to Northern Australian artists. Rebecca hopes to explore bilateral exchanges between Chinese and Australian artists, specifically Indigenous artists.

Tina Gonsalves (QLD) Platform China

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & Arts Queensland

Tina Gonsalves boasts a PhD from the Creativity and Cognition Studios, the University of Sydney. She has been awarded numerous residencies in Canada, Prague, Bangkok, Thailand, Japan, London, Finland, Germany and the United States. Tina’s practice merges art, technology and science and responds to the emotional signatures of the body including pulse, sweat, voice and emotional expressions. At Platform China, Beijing Tina will observe and document the cultural nuances of Chinese emotional expression via video and audio recordings.

Joel Mu & Megan Robson (NSW) Asia Art Archive

Supported by Arts NSW & The Australia-China Council

Joel Mu is a curator and art history researcher currently researching the history of exhibitions at the Power Institute, University of Sydney. Megan Robson is currently the Curatorial Assistant, Exhibition Programming at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. During their collaborative residency at the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, Joel and Megan will develop and support the curatorial project Measure, which maps the development of Asian and Australian contemporary art through an investigation of 20 key arts projects from 1970-2010.

Lauren Ellis (SA) Sovereign Art Foundation

Supported by Arts SA

Lauren Ellis has almost 10 years experience in arts and cultural programming. She recently spent 2 years in Laos where she developed public programs for the newly established Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre. Prior to that she worked at Museums Victoria and at Artists for Kids’ Culture, a philanthropic community cultural development organisation based in Melbourne. Lauren’s residency with Sovereign Art Foundation in Hong Kong will develop her knowledge of arts philanthropy, grant making models and community cultural development programming.

Melinda Rackham (VIC) Videotage

Supported by Arts SA & The Australia Council for the Arts

Melinda Rackham is an artist, writer, arts manager, and currently Adjunct Professor at RMIT University. In 1995 she co-curated WWWO, the first exhibition of women’s art online in Australia. In 2003–04 she worked as Curator of Networked Art at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. She recently curated DreamWorlds: Australian Moving Image, an exhibition launched in Beijing. At Videotage in Hong Kong Melinda will determine suitable Chinese and Korean artists for cross a cultural exhibition in China, Korea and Australia.

Andy Jackson (VIC) University of Madras

Supported by the Australia-India Council & The Australia Council for the Arts

Andy Jackson's poetry explores identity and difference and his collection Among the regulars was recently published. He has won numerous awards including the Most Innovative Work Award at the 2009 Overload Poetry Festival. In 2010 he was an Emerging Writer in Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, Perth and is currently the Library Coordinator for Australian Poetry. At the University of Madras Andy will engage with the literary community while writing a suite of poems exploring the personal stories behind the medical tourism industry.

Angela Driver (TAS) Teamwork

Supported by Arts Tasmania

Angela Driver has worked as the Administration Manager at Tasdance for 6 years. In 2007 she completed a Churchill Fellowship researching performance events for social change, and in 2009 graduated from the Tasmanian Leaders Program. She was General Manager of the 2010 Regional Arts Australia national conference and the Junction Arts Festival. At Teamwork in India Angela will develop the skills to manage a highly versatile production house and hopes to implement this model in Tasmania on her return.

Kush Badhwar & Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad (NSW) Sarai

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & The Australia-India Council

Kush Badhwar specialises in photography and the moving image and his work investigates cultural production and reproduction. Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad has a background in product design and an interest in the role of the designer in rapidly changing urban environments. At Sarai, a program of the Centre of the Study of Developing Societies in India, Kush and Bahbak will consolidate their shared interest in the areas of cultural identity and public space through a long-standing friendship that will result in creative exchange with New Delhi.

Stephanie Bishop (WA) Himachal Pradesh University

Supported by The Department of Culture and the Arts, WA & The Australia-India Council

Stephanie Bishop’s first novel The Singing was published in 2005 and in 2006 she was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists. Stephanie is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and The Australian. At Himachal Pradesh University Stephanie will examine the complex migrational patterns of Anglo-Indians who considered themselves British, yet who appeared non-white, and emigrated to Australia during the White Australia Policy. This research will inform her second novel.

Steve Mayer-Miller (QLD) Darpana Performing Arts Academy

Supported by Arts Queensland & The Australia-Indonesia Institute

Steve Mayer-Miller is the Artistic Director/CEO of Crossroad Arts, a cultural development organisation that works across the fields of film, dance, theatre, visual arts and music. The organisation uses the concept of mapping to explore identity, belonging and dislocation across communities in North Queensland, the Asia Pacific region and Canada. At Darpana Performing Arts Academy in Ahmedabad Steve will undertake concentrated research in local innovative practices, particularly in the area of synthesising theatre and cinema.

Andrew McLellan (QLD) Performance Klub

Supported by Arts Queensland & The Australia-Indonesia Institute

Andrew McLellan is a sonic artist who creates live performances and compositions using self-made instruments and field recordings. He operates under his own name and the pseudonym Cured Pink. Site-specific performances play a key role in Andrew’s work as he utilises surrounding materials to create instruments and music. At Performance Klub Andrew will explore Jogjakarta’s unique sonic ecology. He will collaborate with artists, both in the field of traditional Javanese gamelan, and contemporary Indonesian underground and experimental music.

Gai Anderson (TAS) Lualemba

Supported by Art TAS

Gai Anderson has worked as a creative producer, performer, writer and director in theatre, festival and community cultural development contexts for 20 years. With a passion for community festivals as outpourings of creativity, and a long-term connection with Indonesia, Gai will collaborate with development organisation Lualemba on Rote in the creation of a Community Arts Festival. During Gai’s residency she will act as a mentor for local creative producers, and will facilitate the reinvigoration of traditional art forms.

Max Lane (VIC) Historia Magazine Group

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & The Australia-Indonesia Institute

Max Lane is a writer and translator with an interest in Indonesian and Southeast Asian affairs. He has translated five Pramoedya Ananta Toer novels including the Buru Tetralogy, starting with This Earth of Mankind. His latest books include Unfinished Nation: Indonesia before and after Suharto and Catastrophe in Indonesia. At Historia Magazine Group Max will write a dramatised semi-fictional tale of the conception, birth and career of Toer's This Earth of Mankind and its sequels.

Nathan Gray (VIC) Cemeti Art House

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia-Indonesia Institute

Nathan Gray is an artist and musician whose practice spans these two fields and plays with notions of composition. His work is installation-based and informed by site-specific research. In 2009 Nathan created a work titled An Infinity of Traces that focused on the gamelan. The composition of Nathan’s installation spatially recreated the clusters and timing shifts present in gamelan music. During his residency at Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta Nathan hopes to continue his fascination with Indonesian music, arts and culture.

Nicola Morton (QLD) Performance Klub

Supported by Arts Queensland & The Australia-Indonesia Institute

As a performing artist of Asian heritage Nicola Morton is motivated to focus her new works on bicultural studies, emphasising cultural displacement and the Asian supernatural. At Performance Klub Nicola will connect with Javanese village arts and urban street culture. Her residency will provide a framework of idea exchange, re-contextualisation of Asian supernatural phenomena, participatory musical performances and critical theory workshops.

Stephen Conte (NSW) Komunitas Salihara

Supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation

Steven Conte is the author of The Zookeeper's War, which in 2008 won the inaugural Prime Minister's Award for Fiction and has been published in Britain and translated into Spanish and Portuguese. Steven also holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. At Komunitas Salihara in Jakarta he aims to forge connections with authors, journalists and intellectuals, and to conduct research for a novel partly set in Indonesia.

Bianca Looney & Lucas Chirnside (VIC) 3331 Arts Chiyoda

Supported by The Australia Council for the Arts & The Australia-Japan Foundation

Collaborative duo Bianca Looney and Lucas Chirnside (aka SMLWRLD) create research-intensive art and design projects ranging from small handcrafted objects to large-scale architectural works in the urban realm. Recent projects include Polytopia, exhibited at the Design Museum London in 2010. At 3331 Arts CYD in Tokyo SMLWRLD will research patterns of urban life in Tokyo within the framework of their ongoing mapping project Geophil. Looney and Chirnside aim to support a new model of arts engagement beyond the existing gallery and museum system.

Matt Crosby (VIC) Shinjuku Ryozanpaku

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

After a childhood career in radio, TV, film and theatre, Matt graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981. For the last 20 years he has toured live performance to Europe and Asia. During his second Asialink residency Matt will return to Tokyo tent-theatre company Shinjuku Ryozanpaku to once more collaborate with Director Sujin Kim. Matt will research and develop a bilingual performed story for his performance series Stories 101 and will tour a Ryozanpaku performance to Korea.

Sarah Goffman (NSW) Tokyo Wonder Site

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts & The Australia-Japan Foundation

Sarah Goffman specialises in site-specific projects and installations using mixed media. She is the former Co-Director of Elastic Projects, founded in 2000 as well as firstdraft gallery. Sarah recently completed a residency in Tokyo where she collaborated with a group of Japanese dancers called SML. During her residency at Tokyo Wonder Site, Sarah will further her conceptual body of work that focuses on opposing subject matter including garbage and beautification.

Tanja Beer (VIC) Centre for the Study of World Civilisations, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Tanja Beer is a theatre designer, lecturer and animateur. Over the last 12 years Tanja has completed designs for major theatre companies in Australia and overseas. During her residency at the Centre for the Study of World Civilisations, Tokyo Institute of Technology Tanja will explore sustainable approaches to theatrical design, and their potential to inform new design aesthetics. Tanja will collaborate with Tokyo’s engineering and artistic communities to investigate the use of recycled materials and found objects in performance spaces.

Tom Cho (VIC) Aichi Skukutoku University

Supported by The Australia Council for the Arts & The Australia-Japan Foundation

Tom Cho is an artist whose collection of fictions Look Who’s Morphing was published in 2009 and shortlisted for various awards including the 2009 Age Fiction Book of the Year. At Aichi Shukutoku University Tom will research representations of robots, various tropes in sexually explicit anime, and other Japanese popular cultural interests. This research will enrich Tom’s use of popular culture in his creative writing practice, and inform his current project, a fictional work that explores the philosophy of religion.

Ulanda Blair (VIC) Art Front Gallery

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia-Japan Foundation

Ulanda Blair was recently appointed Assistant Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. As former Artistic Program Manager, Ulanda oversaw the development and delivery of 15 projects across 2 Next Wave Festivals. In 2010 Ulanda managed three projects at the Setouchi International Art Festival in Japan, which aimed to revitalise remote island communities through the creation of large-scale and site-specific public art projects. In 2011 Ulanda will return to Japan to help develop the 2012 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial.

Rob McHaffie (VIC) Rimbun Dahan

Supported by the Australia-Malaysia Institute

A daily practice of diary writing and collecting found and personal imagery form the basis of Rob McHaffie’s drawing, painting and sculptural practice. Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002, Rob has participated in exhibitions and residencies in Australia, New Zealand, France, and the USA. He is interested in the interconnectedness of humans with nature, and his time at Rimbun Dahan will investigate the local flora and fauna in relation to the text, The Great Tao.

Susan Gibb (NSW) Green Papaya Art Projects

Supported by Arts NSW & The Australia Council for the Arts

Susan Gibb is the Associate Curator and Project Manager at Campbelltown Arts Centre. Susan was responsible for the inclusion of two Filipino artists in the exhibition The River Project. She is interested in the under representation of Filipino arts in international surveys of art from the Asia Pacific region. During her residency at Green Papaya Art Projects, Susan will research cross-disciplinary and collaborative practices in the Philippines and the feasibility of developing artistic exchanges between the Philippines and western Sydney.

Jasmin Stephens (NSW) Singapore Biennale

Supported by the Department of Culture and the Arts, Wa & the Australia Council for the Arts

Curator Jasmin Stephens has held positions with Australian arts organisations such as the Fremantle Arts Centre, Museum of Contemporary Art, Artbank, and Art Gallery of New South Wales. During her residency with the Singapore Biennale 2011, Jasmin will learn more about the potential of recurrent exhibitions for cultural development. Jasmin will research how exhibitions are evolving to accommodate the aspirations of artists working with emerging technologies, and will foster closer links between Western Australian and Singaporean artists.

Sarah Kaur (VIC) Maya Dance Theatre

Supported Arts ACT

Sarah Kaur is a videographer, photographer and installation artist interested in intersections between visual and performing arts. In 2009 Sarah worked with emerging choreographers towards the National Gallery of Australia’s Exhibitionism, which explored responses to visual art through dance. Sarah is currently working with Opera Australia to create a series of 'mini operas' with Western Sydney communities for Internet release. At Maya Dance Theatre Sarah will create dance films that explore individuals navigating or neglecting their assigned ethnic identities.

Guy Benfield (VIC) Changdong Art Studio

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Guy Benfield is no stranger to arts residencies, having successfully undertaken residencies in Portugal, Lithuania, China and New York. His work spans the performing arts and installation genres, and recent exhibitions include Erratic Anthropologies in New York and Axis Bold As Love in France. At Changdong Art Studio in Seoul Guy will develop a new project incorporating sculpture, performance and video. He aims to facilitate new ideas by experimenting with different modes of presentation, workshops, and performance-based lectures.

Antoanetta Ivanova (VIC) Museum of Contemporary Art

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia Council for the Arts

From 2001 –10 Antoanetta Ivanova was Director of Novamedia, Australia’s first media art agency. In 2010 Antoanetta was the guest curator of the first Australian media art exhibition at Art Taipei. Her residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei will enable a deeper engagement with Taiwan’s dynamic media arts community. Antoanetta seeks to create opportunities for showcasing Australian media art overseas and realise exchange projects between Australian and international counterparts for knowledge sharing and intercultural cooperation.

Ella Barclay (NSW) AIR Taipei Culture Foundation

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Ella Barclay is concerned with the impulsive and intuitive behaviours brought about by new technologies. She is a board member at runway magazine and has recently exhibited throughout regional New South Wales. At Treasure Hill Artist Village Ella will explore the city’s complex Asian, European and Polynesian cultural and political past. She will produce a site-specific installation that employs projection, water tanks and fog, and will use the city of Taipei as her muse.