2012

Jitish Kallat: Circa is Kallat’s first solo exhibition in an Australian museum. Following the reflective nature of his recent projects, this exhibition is conceived as an evolving narrative; an experiment of multiple interventions across several spaces within the Ian Potter Museum of Art. During the course of six months from October 2012 to April 2013, some works will appear for a few days, while others will remain on display until the end of the exhibition. Still others await conception when the departure of interventions makes space for them as part of an evolving entry and exit of ideas. Chance, contingency and contagion each play a key role in the development of this shape-shifting project. One utterance infects another so that procreating possibilities give rise to a tentative, evolving, dispersed and inconclusive oration in several parts of the museum.

Kallat’s works are set in playful and poetic conversation with the Ian Potter Museum of Art’s atypical architecture and the broad time-scale of the exhibition program, which simultaneously presents art from the Neolithic period to the present day. With the concept of ‘time’ and ‘recursion’ at the heart of the project, Kallat’s interventions include a 120-part sculpture titled Circa, which evokes bamboo scaffolding; two interventions using mirrors titled, Footnote (mirror 1) and Footnote (mirror 2); drawings on the glass of museum vitrines; a video projection on the Potter’s facade; and sound and inscriptions of found text on the walls of the gallery. Kallat’s interventions in the Classics and Archaeology Gallery are installed in relation to a display of ancient Indian carved stone sculptures and colonial-era maps from the University of Melbourne as well as private collections.

Presented in partnership with The Ian Potter Museum, in association with The Melbourne Festival.

Artist: Jitish Kallat

Curators: Natalie King, Andrew Jamieson and Bala Starr

Dates and venue: The Ian Potter Museum, Saturday 13 Oct 2012 to Sunday 7 Apr 2013

Catalogue

Jitish Kallat: Circa

Interview

Key Images

Asialink Arts and the Bendigo Art Gallery present Shadowlife, an exhibition of works by nine internationally renowned contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists (and one non-Indigenous collaborator) engaged in photo-based practices.

Wungguli, an Arnhem Land Djambarrpuyngu word, means spirit and shadow and came to describe photographic image. Dreaming tells us that the shadow is your soul. Shadowlife embraces moving image and photography with all its directness, theatricality and immediacy by confronting stereotypes and acting out scenarios.

Curators: Djon Mundine OAM and Natalie King

Artists: Vernon Ah Kee, Bindi Cole, Brenda L. Croft, Destiny Deacon & Virginia Fraser, Fiona Foley, Gary Lee, Michael Riley, Ivan Sen and Christian Thompson

Itinerary

Exhibition dates and venues:

Thailand: 1 March – 29 April 2012, Bangkok Arts & Cultural Centre, Bangkok

Taiwan: 16 June – 12 August 2012, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung

Singapore: 25 August – 30 September 2012, Nanyang Academy of Fine Art

Australia: 13 April - 28 July 2013, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, Victoria

Shadowlife: moving image-

India Art Fair: 25-29 January 2012 and Melbourne Indigenous Festival: 10–12 February 2012

Catalogue

Shadowlife Catalogue

Shadowlife: Moving Image

Key images

The Bookwallah: five writers. A Popup Library. 2000 km by train.

The Bookwallah took five writers and an ingenious travelling library across India by train. Three Indian and two Australian writers journeyed through the cities and towns of modern India in search of stories, conversations and connections.

Poet Sudeep Sen, novelist and critic Chandrahas Choudhury, and journalist and fiction writer Annie Zaidi joined young adult author Kirsty Murray, and non-fiction writer Benjamin Law.

The tour began at the Mumbai LitFest, paused in Goa at Literati bookshop, joined forces with the Bangalore Literature Festival, headed west to Chennai, then finished more than 2000 km away on the coast in Pondicherry.

The writers were accompanied by unique luggage: a portable, pop-up library. Veteran Indian designer Soumitri Varadarajan and Australian designer Georgia Hutchinson created a series of exquisite custom-made suitcases that opened and transformed into bookcases, filled with hundreds of new Australian books. Part library, part art installation, visitors could browse, sit and read, or take part in intimate library events. Books from the library were donated to universities and local libraries along the way.

Key Details

Australian Writers: Benjamin Law, Kirsty Murray

Indian Writers: Chandrahas Choundhury, Sudeep Sen, Annie Zaidi

Designers: Soumitri Varadarajan, Georgia Hutchinson

Organisers: Nic Low and Catriona Mitchell

Tour dates: 31 October 2012 – 21 November 2012

Exhibition: 29 July 2013 - 1 September 2013, Cowen Gallery, State Library of Victoria

Australian Journey: Melbourne Writers Festival 26- 29 August 2013

The Writers

Chandrahas Choudhury is a novelist and literary critic based in Delhi. He is the author of the novel Arzee the Dwarf, published in German and Spanish under the title The Little King of Bombay. He is also the editor of an introduction to Indian fiction, India: A Traveller’s Literary Companion. He reviews books for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He writes a literary weblog at The Middle Stage.

Benjamin Law is a Brisbane-based writer and journalist. He has been published in over 50 magazines, websites and journals in Australia and worldwide, and his debut book The Family Law (2010) was shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs). His second book Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East is released in September 2012. He holds a doctorate in creative writing and cultural studies from the Queensland University of Technology.

Kirsty Murray is an award-winning author of fiction for children and young adults. Her nine novels plus numerous works of non-fiction and junior fiction are widely studied in schools in Australia as well as in Germany, the UK and the USA. She has been an Asialink Literature Resident at the University of Madras and a Creative Fellow of the State Library of Victoria. Her most recent novel, The Lilliputians (released in the UK and Australia as India Dark), is based on the true story of a theatrical troupe of Australian children that toured India in 1910.

Sudeep Sen is ‘one of the finest younger English-language poets in the international literary scene’ (BBC Radio). Sen’s books include: Prayer Flag, Rain, Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Ladakh, Letters of Glass, and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (editor). Blue Nude: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1979-2014 (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) is forthcoming. His poems, translated into twenty-five languages, have featured in major international anthologies. His words have appeared in the TLS, Newsweek, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph, Herald, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Outlook, India Today, and broadcast widely on television. He is the editorial director of AARK ARTS and the editor of Atlas. www.sudeepsen.net

Annie Zaidi is the author of ‘Known Turf’, a collection of essays that was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword book awards (non-fiction, 2011), and the co-author of ‘The Bad Boy’s Guide to the Good Indian Girl’. Her work has appeared in various anthologies including Mumbai Noir; Women Changing India; India Shining, India Changing; and literary journals including Pratilipi, and Desilit. Her first Hindi play ‘Jaal’ opened in 2012 as part of Writers Bloc, in Mumbai. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and a new manuscript of poems.

The Bookwallah Journey

The Film

Crossing south India by train, the two Australian and three Indian writers risked personality clashes, sleep deprivation, health challenges, unforeseen obstacles and the inevitable mayhem of India, all while delivering some 31 public events in five cities, complete with a travelling pop-up library of Australian books weighing just under 300 kilos!

This is no formal account of the Bookwallah tour. It’s the behind-the-scenes story. Shot en-route with a hand-held camera, it’s a spontaneous, gritty, up-close-and-personal insight into all that unfolded: the highs and the lows, the relationships that formed, and the inevitable fusion of two cultures brought about by the extraordinary circumstances the writers found themselves in.

– Catriona Mitchell (filmmaker)

The Exhibition

The Bookwallah exhibition charts the epic literary adventure of five writers and their ingenious luggage – a travelling library housed in kangaroo-leather suitcases – on a month-long quest to explore Indian writing and culture. 

A free exhibition at the Cowen Gallery, State Library of Victoria from 24 July 2013 – 1 September 2013.

2013 Melbourne Writers Festival

Melbourne Writers Festival is pleased to be bringing the Bookwallah tour to Australia, bringing India's vibrant contemporary literary and publishing culture to audiences right across the east coast.

The travelling authors are Annie Zaidi, Chandrahas Choudhury, Benjamin Law and Kirsty Murray, who will be involved in several Bookwallah events across the Melbourne Writers Festival. Then they will pack their suitcases and jump on a train, heading north to meet audiences at the University of Western Sydney and Brisbane Writers Festival. They will also enjoy a writing residency along the way at the National Trust's Mooramong Homestead.

The Melbourne Writers Festival will run from 22 August – 1 September 2013.

Media

6 September 2013 Bookwallah tour hosts Indian authors in Australia, Radio Australia

18 August 2013 Have books, will travel, Thuy On, Sydney Morning Herald

26 July 2013 Seeing India by rail with library in tow, Dewi Cooke, The Age

25 July 2013 A tale of two countries writes its way across Australia, Matt Millikan, ArtsHub

February 2013  Mind the gap, Nic Low, The Monthly.

4 November 2012 Only books, no baggage, Anjana Vaswani, News, Mid Day (Mumbai edition)

3 November 2012 Hit the road with this Bookwallah, Lifestyle, Mid Day (Mumbai edition)

1 November 2012 Writers’ pit-stop, Keerthi Basavarajaiah, Lounge, Bangalore Mirror

31 October 2012  The Bookwallah: A unique train journey for Australian and Indian authors, The Siasat Daily

19 October 2012 Six Writers in 2,000-km roving lit fest rail journey, newkerela.com

Supporters

In 2012 interdisciplinary artist Nikhil Chopra became the inaugural recipient of Asialink’s ‘Roving Residency’ which unfolded across three Australian locations: Carriageworks, Sydney; Asialink, Melbourne; and the Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia. Chopra’s residency launched Asialink’s new ‘Arts Residency Laboratory’, a platform for testing new models of residencies that are responsive to international developments in the field.

As Chopra ‘roved’ between locations he was introduced to diverse networks and settings, which resulted in different outcomes. In Sydney the artist delivered a 36-hour endurance performance commissioned by Carriageworks, which played with the architecture and history of the site as an old rail yard. In Melbourne Chopra delivered a performance lecture at the Victorian College of the Arts and participated in the forum Lemuria: Cultural Entanglements between Australia and India presented by Utopia@Asialink and the Ian Potter Museum of Art as part of the 2012 Melbourne Festival. In Western Australia Chopra took time out for reflection and summed up his roving residency experience through a thoughtful performance lecture at the Fremantle Arts Centre that moved his audience to tears.

Dates and venues

24 September – 4 October: Nikhil Chopra residency, Carriageworks, Sydney (2 weeks)

28 – 30 September: Nikhil Chopra performance, BLACKENING IV: BAY 19, Carriageworks, Sydney (three-day, 36 hour endurance performance)

4 – 18 October:  Nikhil Chopra residency, Asialink, Melbourne (2 weeks)

9 October: Nikhil Chopra, Performance Lecture, Federation Hall, Victorian College of the Arts (VCA)

15 October: Nikhil Chopra guest speaker in Melbourne Festival forum,Lemuria: Cultural entanglements between Australia and India, Yasuko Hiraoka Myer room, The University of Melbourne

18 – 31 October: Nikhil Chopra residency, Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia (2 weeks)

30 October: Nikhil Chopra, Performance Lecture, Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia

Publication

Nikhil Chopra: Roving Residency Publication

Home-Gwangju is an Asialink partnership between the Gwangju Biennale, curator Alia Swastika and the artists.

Artists: Hiromi Tango and Craig Walsh

Curator: Alia Swastika

Residency: 10 August – 10 September 2012
Workshops: 11 August – 6 September 2012
Biennale: 7 September – 11 November 2012

Hiromi Tango and Craig Walsh began working collaboratively on Home, 2010 – 2011, as part of Digital Odyssey, a Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) touring Project that took place in regional locations across Australia. Engaging with people from diverse backgrounds and situations, Craig made video portraits of people talking about how their personal histories and experiences have shaped their perceptions of home, while Hiromi invited people to bring items that symbolize home with them to workshops, which they collectively stitched with textiles and objects to make projection screens that provided a charged backdrop for Walsh’s video recordings.

Parts of the screens and recordings created through the regional tour will become interwoven in the Home - Gwangju for the Gwangju Biennale, along with new content created on-site during a four week residency in Gwangju. As Hiromi began preparing the screens from regional installations for shipping – repairing ephemeral materials damaged by weather, wear and tear, as well as removing unprocessed plant and animal materials that can not be shipped across borders, she reflected on the instability and uncertainty of home for many, including herself and Craig through their nomadic existence as artists.

The idea of home was once synonymous with security and familiarity. While for many this may still be the case, it may equally call to mind a sense of sadness, loss, dislocation or anxiety. Together, Tango & Walsh, use contrasting media and methods to investigate their shared concerns. Home - Gwangju poses many questions around the fragility and instability of contemporary existence, as well as our assumptions about the universal nature of this ideal.

Catalogue

Home - Gwangju was an Asialink partnership with the 9th Gwangju Biennale: Roundtable. The project was generously supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australia Korea Foundation.

Asialink presents Pip & Pop at the 3rd Kuandu Biennale in Taipei this September. This is the first time an Australian artist has been invited to participate in what is a regional curatorium made of 10 artists and 10 curators from the Asian region. Asialink’s Sarah Bond is one of the 10 curators and is working with Pip & Pop.

The diminutive world of Pip & Pop is vivid. It is strange, unknown and impermanent. Satiated with coloured sugary mountains, crystalline valleys and meandering glittery pathways, this world draws you in and transports you to whimsical paradise, a temporary pleasure zone inspired by the ancient craft of storytelling sourced from an eclectic mix of children’s literature, local folklore, video games, Buddhism, kawaii (cute) childlike aesthetic of excess and bright packaging materials and the aesthetics of Japanese pop culture.

Born in Perth (Australia) in 1972, Pip & Pop is the pseudonym for the artist Tanya Schultz, a multi-disciplinary producer. Tanya's practice embodies both independent and collaborative processes across varying disciplines including installation, painting, wall-works and sculpture. Many of these works examine ideas of abundance, temporary pleasure and utopian dreams that arise from within a contemporary culture of mass consumption.

Pip & Pop’s candied coloured installations have been assembled in Australia, Japan and Europe. For the 3rd Kuandu Biennale, Pip & Pop examine stories from traditional and indigenous Taiwanese culture, as well as contemporary references such as animations and video games. Exploring the origins of Taiwanese folktales such as Little Frog in the Well and Ban Pin Shan, has provided Pip & Pop with a platform for exploring the idea of imaginary lands, other worlds, and tales of promise as expressed through Taiwan’s multi-faceted culture.

Artist: Tanya Schultz

Curator: Sarah Bond

Dates and venue: Kuandu Biennale 2012 is based at the Taipei National University of the Arts opening 28 September until 16 December 2012

Curatorial Essay

Fantasy. A necessary ingredient in living.

Key Images

Selectively Revealed investigates the blurry line between the public and the private in artistic practice. The artist is presented as voyeur, muse, subject, performer and social commentator. Using a variety of screen based practices, each artist pushes and pulls at the notion of what is private and what is public, choosing precisely what, when, how or when not to reveal their subjects or themselves. Ultimately, everything is presented for scrutiny; an innermost feeling, a personal moment, a fear or failure, an everyday encounter, an experience of rapture, a banal endeavour. Much is revealed, celebrated and critiqued.

Curators: Sarah Bond (Asialink Arts) and Clare Needham (Experimenta)

Artists: Peter Alwast (QLD), Catherine Bell (VIC), Julia Burns (NSW), Penelope Cain (NSW), Christopher Fulham (ACT), Isobel Knowles & Van Sowerwine (VIC), Anastasia Klose (VIC), Jess MacNeil (NSW), Angelica Mesiti (NSW), Ms&Mr (NSW), Anne Scott Wilson (VIC) and Michael Zavros (QLD).

Itinerary

Exhibition dates and venue:

Korea: 26 October – 11 December 2011 - Aram Art Gallery, Seoul
Taichung, Taiwan: 18 February – 13 May 2012 - National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung
Thailand: 4 June – 21 July 2012 – Chulalongkorn University Art Space, Bangkok

Catalogue

Selectively Revealed Catalogue

Key Images