Sunday Arts Magazine

2 Apr 2017

Sea-change, Comedy Fest, Ballarat Foto Biennale, Soap, Tammy Law

Arts, Comedy, Dance, Music, Performing Arts, Photography, Places & Travel, TV & Film, Visual Arts

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Sea-change, Comedy Fest, Ballarat Foto Biennale, Soap, Tammy Law

Neil rejoins our hosts this week. Photography looms large in the interviews this week and the Comedy Festival is also prominent. Brendan reviews Ghost in the Shell- starring Scarlett Johannson-which is a remake of a Japanese anime film from 1995 and has caused some controversy–2.5stars. Next is Zach’s Ceremony–an important Australian doco shot over about 7 years–about an indigenous boy growing up in western Sydney who’s looking forward to his right of passage ceremony in his ancestral homeland in North Qld–3.5 to 5.0 stars.

There are 5 interviews this week and our guests talk about their own journey to where they are now as well as a current event, show or exhibition. Along with inside stories, interesting anecdotes and descriptions.

Special guests this week include:

10:15 to 19:31 mins—Artist Penelope Davis has an exhibition called Sea-change on at Mars Gallery at 7 James St Windsor on 6 April to 6 May. Her father was a famous sculptor –John Davis– and she was exposed to a lot of visual art in her childhood. She didn’t like it and resisted it for some years. She travelled a lot, studied history and worked with disabled people. Eventually she discovered she loved photography and ended up with a Masters. She later started manipulating pictures in the darkroom and also got heavily into moulding and casting! For the exhibition, Penelope’s made jellyfish-like creatures (made from semi-opaque silicon) that are suspended from the ceiling. Some have digitally programmed lights inside them. Penelope’s process of creating these was to make casts of waste from manufacturing as well as organic matter such as seaweed and vegetable matter. After casting she sewed all the components together to make the’ jellyfish’. The idea was to engage people and get them thinking about human complicity in the degradation of the marine environment. She explains why she chose jellyfish for the installation.

20:12 to 33:53 mins–Susan Provan is CEO and Festival Director of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) which has started with a bang and continuing until 23 April. Susan was working as a night manager at the famous Last Laugh venue which was where the Comedy Festival had its origins and where it had its home base for some years. She talks about the early years and some of the famous acts from then. She goes on to discuss venues, international talent agents, the ‘Class Clown’ competition for high school kids all over Australia, street performing, Galas, the ‘Road Show’, recurring subjects for many comedians and how technology has infiltrated their acts. Susan also recommends people go see comedians they’ve never heard of, as it’s not expensive and you could discover someone ‘marvellous’.

34:32 to 55:47 mins–Fiona Sweet is CEO of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB) which is on from 19 August to 17 September at a number of venues in Ballarat. Fiona has a 25 year history of working as an art and design director in photography and the arts. She’s also sat on many boards and worked with various arts organisations. The BIFB started in 2005 and the founder retired as CEO in 2015 and Fiona was appointed in 2016. The Festival takes over the town with 90 to 100 exhibitions shown at many venues all over Ballarat. Some are curated, others are fringe. There is a loose overarching theme linking the exhibitions which is ‘Performance of Identity’ which means ‘Who you are as a response to how/where you were brought up and the kind of lifestyle you live’. She feels that in today’s age of smartphones and Instagram with everyone taking photos, it’s reinforced the value of quality photography and allowed the cream to rise to the top. There is a definite difference in composition, colour, quality and aesthetic. Also, they are telling an important story via photography. She discusses the importance of the exhibition and of art generally for Ballarat as well as Ballarat’s history pre and post-gold-rush. She talks about community engagement programs through the Fringe and also hints at a significant person’s exhibition which will be on at the Ballarat Art Gallery. Also, on the website at present there are competitions that people can enter.

56:18 to 1:07:57 mins–Performers Daniel Stern and Moritz Haase are part of the troupe from Soap which is part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) on until 22 April at the Coopers Malthouse. Both performers are from overseas and have got an acrobatic and circus background. So where does the comedy come into Soap? Our guests explain that it is a circus and physical comedy show which started about 10 years ago in Berlin. It revolves around bathtubs, bathrooms and water and can be rather sexy. It’s a bit hard to encapsulate, as it’s a bit of everything–somewhat like German Varieté . It is a bit of burlesque, dance, circus and classical. They also have live music and an opera singer. There is a lot of comedy where every scene has a pun or twist that introduces something new to it. The troupe travels the world with this show and have been to Australia before. There are 8 performers on stage and each also do a small solo act.

1:08:44 to 1:32:37 mins — Brisbane Photographer Tammy Law is here to talk about her exhibition Away From Home at fortyfivedownstairs on from 4 to 13 April. Tammy has a Bachelor in Photography and is now doing a PhD at RMIT via correspondence. She also teaches photography at Qld Uni and is a freelance photographer for Fairfax and others. Her exhibition Away From Home is about the idea of transition and mobility. It’s to do with the feeling of not belonging to any particular place or space such as her ethnically Chinese family’s experience living on the Sunshine Coast, where Tammy grew up. She was born here but still felt some isolation in those days. Tammy travelled to Asia after graduation but in the last 5 years has been back and forth to Burma and the Thai/Burma border taking photos and teaching photography at the refugee camps. She was inspired to do this via a friend who comes from a persecuted Burmese ethnic minority. She knew nothing of this group and hadn’t heard of them in the media. The photos in the exhibition are a combination. There are images from the Thai/Burma border projected onto the environments of the re-settled families (in Australia, USA or along the border itself). These were re-photographed and are the images on display. Tammy discusses her experience of working with the families and how it has changed her photography.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:33:37 — 42.9MB)

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