Sunday Arts Magazine

17 Jan 2016

Carnival, Carol, All You Need Is Love, Gone, Red Meet, Quartz

Arts, Comedy, Health, Kids & Family, Performing Arts, TV & Film, Visual Arts

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It’s Brendan & Daniel on this Midsumma Carnival Day Special. David is ‘dancing on stage’ at the Carnival. Starting with films-both our hosts were not impressed with the Golden Globes (GG) with such gongs as Matt Damon winning best performance for a musical or comedy in The Martian!! Our hosts talk about the film Carol which is a lesbian love story based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel. It stars Cate Blanchett and is directed by Todd Haynes with an evocative score by Carter Burwell and a screenplay written by Phyllis Nagy 18 years ago. Both hosts thought it was an excellent film and discuss it at length. It had 6 GG nominations but no win unfortunately. Our hosts talk about the GGs and the Oscars–about their way of typically choosing winners. They then discuss Quentin Tarentino’s The Hateful Eight, a western with very flawed characters mostly set in one room. They were lukewarm towards it. Later, they talk about the launch of Quartz on 18th January a Queer Arts Zine which is free and is a contributor driven initiative to promote emerging artists of the LGBTIQ. JOY presenter Sonia Hammer is heavily involved in it.
Throughout, our hosts name new JOY members on air.

Misdumma Arts guests today are:

28:32 to 49:11 mins—Photographer Lisa White and Co-curator Jack Giles are in to talk about All You Need Is Love a Midsumma photographic exhibition on from 22 January to 15 February 2016 at the heritage-listed Incinerator Gallery in Moonee Ponds. Backgrounds– Influenced by her father, photography was always in the background for Lisa but she moved into the professional realm over time. Telling stories in photography is very important for her. Jack has no arts background but has a strong interest and passion for it. He curated a premiere Midsumma exhibition in 2015 about gay rights around the world. With this latest work he and Lisa are trying to show that love is all you need to make a family. He’d approached Midsumma for the Incinerator Gallery about the topic and they suggested Lisa as the artist. He persuaded her to go beyond marriage equality in her photos to LGBTIQ families. Lisa photographed these families in bed. Inspired by John and Yoko in bed as a peace protest, she wants to break down misconceptions and show that LGBTIQ families are like everyone else. Lisa has a website inviting interested parties to contact her if interested. It’s an ongoing project. Jack interviewed 24 of the families photographed with questions like-What do you think defines a family? There’s a balance in stories (uplifting or sad) and also in the diversity of people. The exhibition also has a short doco, a booklet with stories and a big bed with a rainbow doona.

50:26 to 1:08:09 mins—Dion Teasdale is the writer and director of a Midsumma premiere event—a queer comedy called Gone— on from 3 to 6 February,2016 at Gasworks Theatre and at the MELT Festival Brisbane from 11 to 13 February. Dion’s background is varied and eclectic learning theatre skills at school and uni and cutting his teeth in production in theatre companies including the Handspan Theatre Co. He later learnt animation at VCA and went into film, where he met many prominent people. A through-line for him has always been writing and looking for ways to tell stories in visual ways and in ways that challenge us and are more outside the box. The play Gone is about a gay erotic fiction writer who awakens on his 40th birthday to find his penis gone. It’s a comedy with a dark edge and it follows how the writer and other characters deal with this terrifying and baffling news. It explores issues of ageing, body image, effect of social media on our own identity and how we form relationships. Dion considers it easier for audiences to come on this journey if it’s in the form of a comedy. He developed the play through the Gasworks/Midsumma Playtime initiative to identify and develop new queer theatre work. Dion found this support invaluable.

1:09:40 to 1:19:35 mins—Visual artist David Lee Pereira talks about his exhibition Red Meet on from 15 to 29 January 2016 at Off the Kerb Gallery in Collingwood. David does painting and illustration and this is his 2nd exhibition at the same gallery. A self-taught artist, he finds that painting is an urge and the process of making the work is very personal. His feelings and thoughts go into the artwork and exhibiting it can be overwhelming and nerve-wracking for him but this exhibition has been really well received. It consists of portraits of people living with HIV. Meeting the people and getting to know them, their feelings/thoughts was very important to David because it’s their portrait. He works from a photo and remembers the conversations and feelings and tries to be as honest as can. This all started as a personal project a year ago when he was diagnosed with HIV. He talked to the gallery and WruffnTumble and presented the idea to Midsumma. As he introduced other people to the project it evolved into something different. The photos and conversation started with people he knew, then word of mouth and then people via Living Positive Victoria. David thinks the work can combat stigma and show that living with HIV is totally different today compared to the 80s/90s. The gallery presentation of the work is quite confronting as the space is all red, inked with vials of positive blood to show people they don’t have to be afraid.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:25 — 36.4MB)

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