Creative Exchanges: 2012

Chen Chun-Ming (Taiwan) Fremantle Arts Centre

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Taiwanese artist Chun-ming Chen began his artistic career as a painter. For two decades Chun-ming lived and worked in New York, and this new setting steered his direction to multimedia and conceptual art. He exhibits regularly in Taiwan’s alternative art spaces and devotes the remainder of his time to curating digital and interdisciplinary arts festivals such as New Field Arts Festival, Taipei. He currently teaches at the National Taipei University of Education and has established Jelly Fish Block, an art organisation that develops collaborative shows and festivals. At the Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC), Chun-ming will explore the relationship of ‘in-between’ cultures through his multimedia installation Where are you?

Haiminsun Lee (Korea) Artspace, Sydney

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Seoul artist Leehaiminsun comes to us with a MA Fine Art (Painting) from Yongin University. She has held several solo exhibitions including at Dr. Park Gallery and Alternative Space HUE, Seoul. Her works form part of important corporate and public collections including HANA Bank, the Korean folk museum and Ssamzie. Lee’s first trip to Australia will provide her first opportunity to create a body of work outside her home country. Leehaiminsun will divide her residency time by observing nature in different settings around Sydney. From the botanical gardens to private backyards, the artist will use her studies to develop a series of works on paper and installations that will culminate in an Open Studio at Artspace.

Kosuke Ikeda (Japan) RMIT University, International Artist in Residence Program

Supported by RMIT and The Australia Council for the Arts

For the first time Asialink is partnering with RMIT’s International Artist in Residence program to continue our annual reciprocal residency with Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan. Kosuke Ikeda will begin his three-month residency at RMIT, Melbourne from 14 May. Ikeda is interested in the relationship between energy and the natural environment, and his thinking has been significantly influenced by the recent Fukashima disaster and the aftermath of 3.11. Ikeda will collaborate with artists and engineers to realise a ‘Melbourne Art-Power Plant’ that explores alternate micro power generation. His project can be seen in RMIT’s Project Space / Spare Room Gallery from 20 July – 16 August.

Nikhil Chopra (India) Carriageworks, Asialink & Fremantle Arts Centre

Supported by the Department of Culture and the Arts, WA; Australia-India Council & Australia-India Institute.

To celebrate the “Year of India”, Asialink presents a collaborative residency model that brings together host organisations working in Australia-India exchange. Part of Asialink’s new ‘Residency Laboratory’, the inaugural Roving Residency recipient is Goa-based artist Nikhil Chopra. Nikhil will begin his residency at Carriageworks in Sydney, then will “rove” down to Melbourne to be hosted by Asialink, and on to the Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia.  Nikhil Chopra’s artistic practice ranges between live art, theatre, painting, photography, sculpture and installations.

Ninian Donald (SA) Sunrise Children's Village

Supported by Arts SA & The Australia Council for the Arts

Ninian has performed and directed dance, street, puppetry, circus, and theatre internationally for over 17 years, dedicating most of the last decade to early childhood and family performance. He has worked with such companies and individuals as Meryl Tankard’s Australian Dance Theatre, Leigh Warren and Dancers, Windmill Performing Arts, Patch Theatre Company, Slack Taxi, Knee High Puppeteers, and Cate Fowler. At Sunrise Children’s Village he will share classes and performing arts workshops with the young artists, working alongside traditional Khmer performance teachers to develop a cross-cultural family performance looking at Cambodian children and family.

Roger Nelson (VIC) Meta House

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia Council for the Arts

Roger Nelson is a Melbourne curator with a particular interest in facilitating interdisciplinary connections with emerging and experimental artists.  In early 2010 he founded the non-profit No No Gallery, operated on a flexible project by project model under his sole curatorial direction.  Roger is also a writer who has published widely on arts and culture in both conventional and non-traditional forms.  During his residency at Meta House in Phnom Penh, Roger will work with both emerging and established visual artists, consolidating his understanding of Southeast Asian creative practice with a special focus on the newest developments in Cambodia’s fledgling contemporary art community.

Ryan Paine (SA) Nou Hach Literary Association

Supported by Arts SA & The Australia Council for the Arts

Ryan Paine, a former editor of Voiceworks, has worked as a book editor at Wakefield Press, was Director of Format Festival’s Academy of Words, and has had book reviews published in The Big Issue, Australian Book Review and on Radio National's The Book Show. He has published in various Australian journals and was co-blogger of Socratic Ignorance is Bliss, a respected industry blog for two years. At Nou Hach Literary Association in Cambodia Ryan will help coordinate their June Writers’ Conference while developing a novel manuscript about East–West relations and the dangers of too rapid internet-technology advancements.

Stephen Eastaugh (WA) 24HR Art International Residency Program, Huantei Art City

Supported by DCA, WA & The Australia-China Council

As a nomadic artist who has spent 3 decades travelling, Eastaugh will use the Beijing Huantei Art City studio as a base for his 2012 ventures. The aims of his residency range from researching new landscape work to revitalising contacts in Asia. ‘Shan shui’ or ‘Mountains-water’ is the working title of the artwork to be produced in China. This is a direct translation of the Chinese term for landscape, a topic that has continually stimulated his work.  What type of landscape and what manner of artwork to be produced will all be decided in the rapidly changing city of Beijing.

Toni Jordan (VIC) Peking University

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

Toni Jordan is the author of Fall Girl and Addition, which was longlisted for the Miles Franklin award and has been published in 16 countries and 12 languages. Toni teaches in RMIT’s acclaimed Professional Writing and Editing program. During her residency at Peking University, Beijing she will research and begin a novel that focuses on non-verbal communication and cultural differences; and collect images, impulses and connections that explore the limitations of language as a vehicle for communication to broaden her future work.

Janet Meaney (ACT) 1.Shanthiroad

Supported by Arts ACT

Janet Meaney lives and works in Canberra and holds a PhD in performance art from the Australian National University. As the locus of her performance art practice, Janet’s body and experiences reflect aspects of the human condition in order to engage her audience in the process of self-reflection. At 1. Shanthiroad in Bangalore, Janet will explore contemporary developments in street performance as a tool for social reform and the ways in which this is incorporated into current trends in performance art. Her long history of teaching art to community-based groups will aid in breaking down social barriers by narrowing the gap between life and art.

Jesse Sullivan (QLD) Darpana Academy of Performing Arts

Supported by Arts QLD & The Australia Council for the Arts

Jesse Sullivan is a musician and cultural producer from Brisbane, working internationally as a radio content creator and producer of electronic music. He is best known for his music project, Suckafish P Jones, which explores a diverse cultural palette of sounds within the context of contemporary bass music, as well as his work with Forcefed Fistfuls, a program dedicated to global nascent trends in electronic and club music. Jesse's work collaborating with the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts will be realised through collaboration with local multi-arts practitioners; investigation and recording into local sonic cultures; and eventual presentation and performance of a collaborative work with the Academy.

Margie Medlin (NSW) Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts

Supported by Arts NSW & The Australia Council for the Arts

Working as a scenographer and media artist Margie combines dance with the moving image for performance and installations. Recent credits include SWIFT and Monumental developed in collaboration with Choreographer Ros Warby, as well as Morphing Physiology, a documentary of the Quartet Project funded by a Science and Art production award from the Wellcome Trust, London. In 2007 Margie became the Director of Critical Path, Sydney, a unique organisation offering research opportunities for choreographers. The focus of Margie’s residency at Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts, Bangalore will be to contribute to the themes of the 2013 Biennial of Dance and Digital Arts. Margie will also mentor choreographers participating in the Mobile Theater project leading up to the Biennial.

Sandra Bowkett (VIC) South Asia Foundation

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia-Inda Council

In the potters’ colony of Kumhaargram on the outskirts of New Delhi, potter Sandra Bowkett plans to explore the intersection of her ceramic practice with that of the traditional Indian potters who she has come to know over the last decade. By returning to the potters’ wheel under the instruction of her Indian counterparts, Sandra will learn their throwing technique of massed small vessels. Sandra aims to free her work from the restraint of 30 years of a particular throwing technique and develop a range of drinking vessels and bowls. On her return to Australia, she intends to translate these investigations into a range of high-fired objects.

Virginia Jealous (WA) Himachal Pradesh University

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

Virginia Jealous's poetry collection, Things Turned Upside Down, was accepted by Picaro Press in 2011. As a poet, freelance travel writer (with Lonely Planet Publications and the Weekend Australian) and former emergency relief worker (with Australian Red Cross and Oxfam), Virginia is preoccupied with how 'outsiders' continue to shape the world of others. At Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, with its particular Raj connections and other colonial-era endeavours — like the region's apple industry, started by American Quaker Samuel Evans Stokes — she will explore the blurred boundaries between poetry, travel writing and creative non-fiction.

Ade Suharto (SA) Mugi Dance

Supported by Arts SA & The Australia-Indonesia Institute

Ade Suharto is an independent choreographer and performer. A graduate of the University of Adelaide, Ade also studied classical Javanese dance with Sri Sutjiati Djoko Suhardjo and Theresa Sri Kurniati in Solo. Ade’s performance career includes Gumarang Sakti Dance Company in Indonesia and Lemi Ponifasio’s MAU Dance Company, New Zealand. She has performed in Indonesia, the United States, France, Belgium, Spain, Denmark and Germany. Her collaboration In Lieu with composer David Kotlowy was commissioned for the Adelaide Festival Centre’s OzAsia Festival 2011. During her residency at Mugi Dance, Ade will continue to recontextualise traditional forms such as wayang and classical Javanese dance for contemporary performance.

Alex Cuffe (QLD) Cemeti Art House

Supported by Arts QLD and The Australia-Indonesia Institute

Alex Cuffe is a Queensland artist working across interdisciplinary platforms. He explores phenomenon around sound, light, image and construction, often blending these concepts with obtuse humour. He is also an instrument builder and videographer. He is currently developing work for the 2012 Next Wave Festival with Ben Kolaitis under the nameCreo Novaand recently received the Jeremy Hynes Award from the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. During his residency at Cemeti Art House Alex will be engaging in several collaborations with local Indonesian and international artists, including Wukir Suryadi who is a well known traditional and experimental instrument builder.

Ali Donnelan (QLD) Ubud Writers and Readers Festival

Supported by Arts QLD and The Australia-Indonesia Institute

Ali Donnellan is the Cultural Partnerships Manager of Brisbane Powerhouse where she is creating new models of cultural engagement, particularly in the areas of partnerships and collaboration. Ali has worked in the community, arts, and cultural development sectors both in Australia and the Asia Pacific region. Her most recent role was working as Managing Director of an annual three day music, arts and cultural festival where she established an arts and cultural exchange program with the local community. During her residency with the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Ali will support the development of international networks, partnerships, cultural exchange programs and organisational capacity building.

Bambang Nurchayadi (NSW) Insist

Supported by Arts NSW & The Australia Council for the Arts

Bambang is a media artist who has worked primarily with digital media for over 12 years. Bambang seeks to explore the boundaries of the digital medium by combining live performance and the realm of digital technology through his favourite themes of identity, women, and the human struggle. As part of his Asialink residency, Bambang will work with INSIST organisation in Yogyakarta to explore interdisciplinary approaches to art making through community participation processes that examine social issues.

Lisa Dempster (VIC) Ubud Writers and Readers Festival

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia Council for the Arts

Lisa Dempster is the Director of the Emerging Writers' Festival. In 2011 Lisa participated in The Australia Council for the Arts Emerging Leaders Development Program, and was shortlisted for the British Council Realise Your Dream Award for outstanding creative achievement. Lisa is a professional writer and editor with 5 book titles including travel narrative Neon Pilgrim and The Melbourne Veg Food Guide. In Indonesia Lisa will share her knowledge of managing writing festivals with the staff of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. In exchange Lisa will gain valuable skills to use towards the Emerging Writers’ Festival in the future.

Alicia King (TAS) Tokyo Wonder Site

Supported by Arts Tasmania & The Australia Council for the Arts

Alicia King is an interdisciplinary artist exploring biological relationships between humans, animals, and that which generally lies outside the everyday category of the ‘living’. Recent works explore relationships between biotech practices and the physical, ethical and ritual body. Alicia has exhibited throughout Australia and beyond, most recently in VISCERAL at Science Gallery, Dublin. Alicia has undertaken various International residencies including Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; Foundation BAD, Rotterdam; SymbioticA; and in the Galapagos Islands. At Tokyo Wonder Site Alicia will develop a new visual and conceptual mythology for technologically mediated and transformed flesh, drawing from historic and contemporary Japanese animism.

Gretchen Shirm (NSW) Aichi Skukutoku University, Nagoya

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

Gretchen Shirm's first collection of interwoven short stories Having Cried Wolf was published in 2010, for which she was named one of the 2011 Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelists. Her stories have been published in Best Australian Stories, Southerly, Wet Ink and heard on ABC Radio National. She is currently completing her first novel The Forgetting Curve. She will use her residency at Aichi Shukutoku University, Japan to work on the first draft of her second novel that is partly set in Japan, and to research restraint in Japanese fiction.

Pia Van-Gelder (NSW) Super Deluxe

Supported by Arts NSW & The Australia Council for the Arts

Pia is an electronic media performance artist, Dorkbot Sydney Overlord and Director of Serial Space, an artist run initiative for hybrid and interdisciplinary art. Pia works predominantly developing what she calls ‘performing machines’. She investigates her connection to technology by hacking pre-existing media-machines to expose their internal nature and language. At SuperDeluxe, Tokyo Pia aims to collaborate with local electronic artists and musicians and to investigate the unique space that exists between Japanese people and their technologies in performance. She will also work with her host organisation to implement some programming surrounding these investigations.

Bec Stephens (TAS) Rimbun Dahan

Supported by Arts Tasmania & The Australia-Malaysia Institute

Bec Stevens is a Hobart based visual artist whose work is underpinned by studies in architecture and horticulture. Recent exhibitions include Vigorous everfrost at Contemporary Art Spaces Tasmania; Faster Stronger Greener at the Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania, which she co-curated; and LOOKOUT at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Her practice is site-responsive; using photography, drawing, object assemblage and plant matter as a means of engaging with the social and historical nuances of constructed environments. She intends to work directly with the plant inventories maintained at the Garden of Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia and engage with local residents, to build an intimate and idiosyncratic inventory during her time there.

Kath Papas (VIC) Malaka Arts and Performance Festival

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

Kath Papas is a creative producer and consultant specialising in dance. Kath is producer of Tony Yap Company (TYC), and works with independent artists. She is consultant producer with Artistic Merit for VicHealth's Arts About Us program, which aims to address race-based discrimination. Kath is passionate about creating opportunities for artists, fostering diversity, and contributing to the development of the sector. Her residency with Melaka Arts and Performance Festival, Malaysia and In the Arts Island Festival, Indonesia will allow her to build on her relationship with both festivals, while also deepening her understanding of these two cultures.

Gorkem Acaroglu (VIC) Blackbox Theatre

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia Council for the Arts

Görkem Acaroğlu is a theatre director, writer and dramaturge focusing on reality trend theatre. For the past 14 years her work has experimented with digital performance and subjects not often examined theatrically. During her time with The Blackbox Theatre and International Theatre Institute in Mongolia, Görkem will collaborate with local actors, directors and traditional performers to create a fusion work constructed from documentary materials. The residency will also include workshops with local artists, developing a process for generating documentary theatre. This collaboration will investigate the fusion of traditional Mongolian throat singing with digital performance.

Stuart Cooke (NSW) Bieinenido N. Santos Creative Writing Centre,  De La Salle University

Supported by Arts NSW & The Australia Council for the Arts

Stuart Cooke is a poet, translator and literary critic. He has published 2 collections of poetry, Edge Music in 2011 and Corrosions in 2010, as well as a work of translation. His book about Australian and Chilean postcolonial poetics, Speaking the Earth’s Languages is forthcoming. At De La Salle University Stuart will research a number of features of major importance to Filipino literature, including colonisation, linguistic hybridity and biological diversity. This research will inform Stuart’s current project, a new book of poems that explores relationships between colonisation, environmental destruction and Spanish and English languages around the Pacific Rim.

Cyrus (Wai-Kuen) Tang (VIC) Goyang Art Studio, The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

Supported by Arts Victoria & The Australia Council for the Arts

Cyrus (Wai-kuen) Tang was born in Hong Kong and has lived and worked in Australia since 2003. Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2004, she has participated in exhibitions and residencies in Australia, Canada, Paris, Korea and Shanghai. She is a multi-disciplinary artist who works in the fields of video and installation. Cyrus is interested in the contradiction between the ephemeral and the permanent. During her residency in Korea, she will further her conceptual body of work that focuses on objects, materials, memory and disappearance.

Andrea Tu (VIC) AIR Taipei Culture Foundation

Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts

Different forms of representation, and their juxtaposition, is the primary focus of Andrea Tu’s practice. She currently lectures in Drawing at the Victorian College of Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne. During her residency at Treasure Hill Artists Village, Andrea will utilise Taiwan’s cultural archives to examine how various symbolic languages influence and play off one another. The imagery sourced from art history and the local environment will be used to generate a series of works that extends or activates the originals in new and dynamic ways.

Christopher Cobilis (WA) M.O.V.E. Theatre

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

Chris Cobilis is a composer/improviser living and working in Perth, Western Australia. In addition to working in numerous bands including The Tigers and smRts, Cobilis has contributed original music to film, dance and theatre. As an improviser he has performed internationally, including tours of Taiwan in 2009 and 2010. His return to Taiwan will see a pairing with hosts MOVE Theatre Company as they develop new work in 2012. Cobilis will introduce sound recording and improvisation to MOVE's production process via workshops, field missions and writing sessions. The resulting collaboration will be performed in Taiwan in 2012 in the final weeks of his residency.

Alex Ben-Mayor (NT) Creative Activities Unit, Office of the President

Supported by Arts NT and The Australia Council for the Arts

Alex Ben Mayor is a producer, playwright, director and dramaturge focused on international performance exchange. As a Creative Producer based in the Northern Territory he helped to establish Brown’s Mart Arts and recently worked as Producer with the Darwin Festival. Over the past two years he has been involved in developing the first cross-cultural contemporary theatre project in Timor-Leste. During his residency with the Creative Activities Unit of the Office of the President of Timor-Leste, Alex will develop the framework for an international arts festival to promote cultural development by supporting the cultivation and showcasing of local and international work.

James Laidler (VIC) Arte Moris

Supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation & The Australia Council for the Arts

James Laidler is an award winning emerging writer, poet and spoken word performer. His first novel, The Taste of Apple won the 2010 IP Picks Award for Best First Book and was published by Interactive Publications. In 2009 the Australian Poetry Centre selected Laidler’s After the Fall for their Poetic Monologue Series, which was later adapted for the stage and performed at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival in 2010. In Timor- Leste James will develop his artistic practice and skills as a writer by immersing himself in Timorese culture, giving him the insight to write about Timorese issues with conviction.

Louise Partos (NT) Afalyca Arts

Supported by The Australia Council for the Arts

Louise Partos is the Executive Officer of Artback NT: Arts Development and Touring, Darwin. Louise has an extensive background in the not for profit arts and culture sector including project management and cross cultural development. She has worked for many years within communities, particularly Australian Aboriginal. Through her residency, Louise wishes to create a series of strong partnerships and robust working networks in the arts between Australia and Timor Leste; test and strengthen her framework for ethical community engagement, capacity building and decision making; and work with the arts community of Baucau in order to produce a community festival.