Darwin Festival 2007
02:30hrs, Sunday,19th August 2007,
Interpositions, Performance Art Festival,
Darwin, Australia.
When Steve Eland the director of 24hr (A contemporary art space in Darwin), invited me for this event, I really did not know what to expect. I was curious about Darwin, I knew once the Singapore National Soccer Team trained here in the 90s.
Thank God, Mr Robert Guth decided to be part of the event, volunteering himself as the official/unofficial photographer/chef for Interpositions.
Steve picked us up from the small little airport at about 2 in the morning last saturday, where I got stopped at the customs for taking photos of the baggage clearance space (stupid me).
The weather is warm, with low humidity, its just like in Singapore except that when you sweat you don’t stink. We stayed at Steve’s place that looks like a house in Tropical Heat (if you can remember Lorenzo Lamas).
This event is interesting because of how it is being curated, Steve curated the show in such a way that the artist will have to find a space to perform and when he or she wants to perform, the tagline for the show is ‘ You don’t find us, we find you.’
The market in Darwin is a cultural/lifestyle event, they have like market or pasar malam/funfair thing going on 3 times a week. As you know there are only 100 000 plus population in Darwin, it seems like the only leisure here is to go to the market and see the sunset.
This is the Australian culture that I did not get to experience when I was in Brisbane or Melbourne 3 years ago. The past couple of days, the list of activities were structured/improvised/flexible, in the morning all the artists will be at Steve’s place for breakfast, then probably there’s a performance in the afternoon or in the evening, the artists will prepare props or such. Set the time, and Steve will mobilize everyone, and we will hit the spot, perform and back to Steve’s place, chill and talk about the work or whatever we want to talk about.
The inter cultural exchange has been good, in the line up there is Jill Orr, a legendary performance artist based in Melbourne who was Stelarc’s side kick in the 70s, and she is about my mum’s age. She is such a ball of energy, only untill the middle of the week she got pneumonia and she got slightly mellowed.
Most of the performance artists are based in Melbourne except for Hayley, who is based in Darwin.
Singapore is represented by regular performers in the circuit Khai Hori, Juliana Yasin, Lynn Lu and myself. Jason could not make it due to unforeseen circumstances.
As usual, the first thing that Singaporeans will talk about is the food. Steve brought us to one of the markets near 24hr Art, there were so many Asian cuisine, but they were pretty greasy, bad and overpriced. I had a small Tupperware of fried rice, chicken satay and Coke, altogether was about 10 bucks.
Surprisingly, people actually ate this stuff, and I saw an old Chang Kee type of curry puff selling at 3 bucks each.
I realized people really take their time here, and we are not used to being so laid back, this is when art and leisure melt together into one, and you absorb art on a natural level, instead of having to force them in like what you do unknowingly. Steve said, this event is a shook up, a good mould for future happenings, perhaps.
I was blessed to meet emerging young artists from Melbourne such as Ash Keating (The Rubbish Man), Danielle Freakley (The Quote Generator), of course the hilarious Jason Keats who never failed to amuse everyone with his silly Australian humour. I like their spirit of working without any government funding in Australia, like Jason he runs an art space in Melbourne called Carni, where they have events almost every weekend. Of course not forgetting, Ann the Samoan/Melbourne artist who deals with ghost and hair in her work.
Interpositions, Performance Art Festival,
Darwin, Australia.
When Steve Eland the director of 24hr (A contemporary art space in Darwin), invited me for this event, I really did not know what to expect. I was curious about Darwin, I knew once the Singapore National Soccer Team trained here in the 90s.
Thank God, Mr Robert Guth decided to be part of the event, volunteering himself as the official/unofficial photographer/chef for Interpositions.
Steve picked us up from the small little airport at about 2 in the morning last saturday, where I got stopped at the customs for taking photos of the baggage clearance space (stupid me).
The weather is warm, with low humidity, its just like in Singapore except that when you sweat you don’t stink. We stayed at Steve’s place that looks like a house in Tropical Heat (if you can remember Lorenzo Lamas).
This event is interesting because of how it is being curated, Steve curated the show in such a way that the artist will have to find a space to perform and when he or she wants to perform, the tagline for the show is ‘ You don’t find us, we find you.’
The market in Darwin is a cultural/lifestyle event, they have like market or pasar malam/funfair thing going on 3 times a week. As you know there are only 100 000 plus population in Darwin, it seems like the only leisure here is to go to the market and see the sunset.
This is the Australian culture that I did not get to experience when I was in Brisbane or Melbourne 3 years ago. The past couple of days, the list of activities were structured/improvised/flexible, in the morning all the artists will be at Steve’s place for breakfast, then probably there’s a performance in the afternoon or in the evening, the artists will prepare props or such. Set the time, and Steve will mobilize everyone, and we will hit the spot, perform and back to Steve’s place, chill and talk about the work or whatever we want to talk about.
The inter cultural exchange has been good, in the line up there is Jill Orr, a legendary performance artist based in Melbourne who was Stelarc’s side kick in the 70s, and she is about my mum’s age. She is such a ball of energy, only untill the middle of the week she got pneumonia and she got slightly mellowed.
Most of the performance artists are based in Melbourne except for Hayley, who is based in Darwin.
Singapore is represented by regular performers in the circuit Khai Hori, Juliana Yasin, Lynn Lu and myself. Jason could not make it due to unforeseen circumstances.
As usual, the first thing that Singaporeans will talk about is the food. Steve brought us to one of the markets near 24hr Art, there were so many Asian cuisine, but they were pretty greasy, bad and overpriced. I had a small Tupperware of fried rice, chicken satay and Coke, altogether was about 10 bucks.
Surprisingly, people actually ate this stuff, and I saw an old Chang Kee type of curry puff selling at 3 bucks each.
I realized people really take their time here, and we are not used to being so laid back, this is when art and leisure melt together into one, and you absorb art on a natural level, instead of having to force them in like what you do unknowingly. Steve said, this event is a shook up, a good mould for future happenings, perhaps.
I was blessed to meet emerging young artists from Melbourne such as Ash Keating (The Rubbish Man), Danielle Freakley (The Quote Generator), of course the hilarious Jason Keats who never failed to amuse everyone with his silly Australian humour. I like their spirit of working without any government funding in Australia, like Jason he runs an art space in Melbourne called Carni, where they have events almost every weekend. Of course not forgetting, Ann the Samoan/Melbourne artist who deals with ghost and hair in her work.
posted by TIRAMISU at
10:54 AM
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