WEEKLY REFLECTIONS (flow of consciousness thoughts written sometime after the weekly meetings.) -- WEEK TWO- Look. I forgot to do last week. I didn't think I would need to. But here we are. Archiving art practice is an important thing. It took a while to get home, but seeing everyone's faces for the first time in a week (which felt longer) was really nice. There's something about them that puts a smile on my face. Today, Justy Philips and Margaret Woodward joined us on a Zoom call (I still get a bit of anxiety when I see my face in a window). They are just amazing and wholesome, and I think their way of creating art and prose and publishing was inspiring, I'm definitely taking hints from them in my future art practice. Writing definitions in a more poetic and less scientific way really struck a chord in me, I might have to do that more often. Apple's (Claire) questions about the destruction of the sandbank and safe spaces really took a while to hit me, but when it hit me, BOOM. I was going to talk about privilege and skin colour and gender but I thought that was too pessimistic. I did talk about my fear of the ocean ab lib though, so I'm glad that's over with. Oh I'm gonna struggle in Fremantle. I also talked about archiving as safety, which I kinda wrote down, but I think that's also an interesting practice that I might explore later.
Trumpet's bell; Metallic walls, shaped and curved.The perfectly structured brass to allow sounds, thoughts and intonations of the personal to be amplified, to be accessible, to the people who listen.
Interpretation; reading between the ink of the words, the veins within the leaves, the cement between the bricks, to gather meaning and relation. -- WEEK THREE - Okay so I'm writing this on Saturday, a full six days after the meetup, HOWEVER I do have my notes and I can weirdly remember a lot. This week we met with Kynan Tan, a composer/digital artist who did the same uni course as I am currently doing. There was a lot of discussion about mental health and it's relation to creating art, burning out, and falling into depression and anxiety. There was also a small discussion about how art should be sustainable, which I think is amazing. An interesting point brought up by Kynan is that "practice" does not only refer to art, but to how you hold yourself in day to day life. The meditation was calming, and I must admit my mind wandered a lot, so I don't retain most of the words he said consciously. One big part which I enjoyed though was the exploration of yourself through the lens of other people, which is a really interesting concept to me. Apparently it was my turn to do resource share, but I've been moved to week 9 because the calendar is a bit confusing. I still have to think about my questions, what the general theme would be if there is a general theme.... I should write some soon. Ellie's questions about connection, community and communal care is interesting, and raised a point that my work (at least currently) is created for the community, possibly even to form a community, but does little to care about it. I dunno, maybe being the youngest and least experienced artist in the group impacts the amount of care I can give to the community. I really enjoyed Rosie's thoughts on introducing yourself to new land, I think it was really beautiful and something that I'm going to start doing: Pick up some sand or dirt from the new land you stand upon // Hold it in your palms, close to your heart // Under your breath, introduce yourself to the spirits around you // Politely ask for safe travels on the new land // Toss it behind your shoulders or in front of you. Thank you Rosie!
Practice; consistent acts of well-being, which then impacts your response to your surroundings.
Disconnection; a fantasy within a reality, a world of your own making within a world you do not control, a chance to discover yourself. -- WEEK FOUR - It's been a couple hours, time to reflect on the last session with Setare Arashloo. We started with artist questions, which I originally was hesitant to do first thing. Luckily for me, Rosie chose the questions that I was going to ask (goddamn it Rosie) so I was already half prepared. I don't know why, but I love talking about my practice, I think there's a lot of interesting things to explore and talking through it constantly is a good way to interrogate it. We made slogans for our practice, and mine were no training, no problem // everyone performs // skee-be-do-bop-disassemble-heirarchies-ka-pow! // traditionalist abolitionist. I might use them later. Afterwards we talked with Setare, an Iranian animator and artist, through Zoom. Though she didn't show a lot in the workshop, I had a dig around later and, as someone who's job aspiration was animator up until 5 years ago, oh boy she is amazing. She talked a lot about moving to Iran while the pandemic hit and family especially. A beautiful thing in my opinion was that when moving from New York to Iran, you can't really take plants, so she took clippings so at least a part of them can move with her, which I think is an amazing idea. One thing that stood out to me throughout her many stories and tales of small family moments was about her grandma (who has dementia) would start knitting a project, and then not complete it in time to remember what the goal of the knitting project was, get angry, and then rip it down to the yarn and start again tomorrow. I'm personally privileged to have no one I am close to get dementia, but it definitely resonated with me for some reason. Also her grandma telling the same stories over and over again, but changing small details or mixing them with other stories is very melancholic and sad, but there's a beauty to it as well. Sorry Setare, if you're reading this, for being so focused on your grandma. That's probably very weird. Then she moved to talking about Kaftaar (translates to hyena in Arabic), a collective made up of Iranian women to fight against the extremely patriarchal society in which Iran operates. It was at this point where I kind of dazed off (sorry again Setare), I just find the Zoom setup not good for long presentations, and I lose focus after a while. I tried to take in as much information as I could, but I just... couldn't. I do know oddly a lot about Iranian culture, my best friend in primary school was from Iran and one of my favourite comic books, Persepolis, is about an Iranian women moving to the US in the 90s, so there's a lot of information in my head about that topic already, although I should've listened anyway, again, sorry.
Plant clippings; plants don't often get travel. They stay solitary from their birth to their death. Although they are, in essence, alive beings, their lack of mobility traps them from truly being alive. Yet, in the most human way possible, we have found a way to give plants movement, a freedom, a purpose, but to take their life in return. Fly free, little one. Fly free.
Memory; a fickle, imperfect thing that we almost entirely rely onto hold our experiences. May be subject to change. -- WEEK FIVE - York! Only writing it now do I realise how fun of a word "York" is... anyways! I arrived with Bec and Apples, and the drive down was fascinating and lovely and wholesome, topics of conversation included "animals that live on farms only exist through the acknowledgement of people pointing them out on car trips and shouting their names", "having a romantic partner with similar morals is better than similar motivations" and "this picnic is gonna be extremely good" (we were right, but we'll get to that). When we got to York, we first realised that Chandler and Ellie both weren't able to make it, which is darned shame. Another thing that was apparent was the weather: it was sunny the day before, but the day of the trip was... not rainy, per say, but definitely drizzly. After a while, Mike Bianco, who is an artist, curator and beekeeper (which is an absolutely insane list of professions) based in York came down in his car, with other York-based artists Katie West (who is also involved with the Biennale) and Simon Charles, an experimental musician based around the same scene I am, so we're fairly familiar with each other. I got in the car with Mike, Katie and Simon, as well as Georgia, and went down into the property of Kim Hack and Penny Mossop, olive farmers who's property also contains the fabled ruined piano sanctuary, which I heard about from a lecturer of mine, but never thought I'd actually go to. On the way down to a clearing for a picnic, Mike chucked on some Vivaldi and rode down. After getting down to the clearing, setting up, and having a look at two collapsed pianos, we laid down two blankets/carpets, and set up a potluck situation. We were all told to bring a plate, and oo boy did people bring plates. A feast of tarts, salads and dip was shared around us all, as Mike introduced us into his practice, and I quickly learnt why we ventured all the way to York to see him.
Mike's practice is almost entirely based on community, care, and generosity, and what that means as an artist. Though there are many facets and angles of community and generosity that his philosophy and art practice covers, nothing stood out more to me than his recognisition, appreciation, and love for the unseen, the people who often put others in the spotlight, but are never recognised. Coming from Detroit, a city in the US that was obliterated into obscurity when labour became mechanised, he has this tendency from his upbringing to understand that people take time and effort into creating physical things, at that act should not just be recognised, but also celebrated and compensated equally. The phrase that probably stuck with a lot of us, definitely me, was: If you love food of all sorts, then you probably love udon (a type of noodle common in Japan). If you love udon, then you love the wheat-belt (turns out the specific wheat used in udon is harvested mainly in Western Australia). If you love the wheat-belt, then you love the farmers, and if you love the farmers, you love the caretakers of those farmers who look after the children, the food, the care. Another thing from Mike that really stuck with me is bees. He's a beekeeper, but I didn't think much of it before I met him, "probably just a gimmick". Oh my lord how I am so happy to be wrong. I've already written a lot so I'll keep it short, but the three things about bees that really stuck with me and what they mean to me is that (1) Western Australia is the ONLY place where bees aren't classified as endangered, which goes to show how magical Western Australia is, (2) the myth of the queen bee leading everyone and being a monarch isn't true, she just produces the offspring, and in fact the hive is more of an anarchistic/feminist run community, where everyone should do what they can to help the community, and leading from that, (3) the hive is, as it exists, a macro-organism, a collection of tiny creatures, all contributing to one big macro-being. This is the one that I've been thinking about a lot. Mike wasn't too fond of the idea of individuality and what it means for a community, and it really puts into perspective that the pursuit of "who are you" by most philosophers is useless: "who are you?" "you are a collection of muscles, bones, bacteria and many other things that work collectively to experience life". There is no singular "you".
Going back into diary mode, after a lovely lunch and only getting sparkled on by the rain, we wandered into the deep grass, where the olive trees were held, and were instructed to observe and be grateful to the olive trees. I tried to take the time to "talk" to the trees (I tend to talk with inanimate objects), and it took me a while before I realised that I was the only one out there and everyone was waiting for me. We all went back to the gates of the olive garden, said goodbye to Georgia (who had to go babysitting) and headed down to the main street of York. The cafe we wanted to go to was closed, so we instead went to the one right next to it. York really only has one street upon which it's entire shopping district lies, and I think that's the ideal situation. After perusing a shop made to sell wares of the locals around, we all hopped in cars and went to look outs (the two cars went to separate look outs, but look outs nonetheless). On the way back, topics of conversation in the car included "Halloween costumes", "favourite moments of the Biennale so far" and something else I'm sure, but I did nap for half of the car ride.
Community; a macro-organism of thought and action, of gifts and love, that walks towards a path of self-betterment.
Picnic; a gathering of gifts and generosity; the busyness of the world around becomes incorporeal. The life of the outside is only a topic of conversation. For now, you laugh, you learn, you enjoy, but most of all, you eat and are gracious that there is food in your mouth and friends around you. -- WEEK SIX - Man, this Biennale is gonna be so good. I arrived with Claire (not Apples) on the bus, on a route neither of us usually take. It turned out to be a good idea, as we got their early enough to see Kat try to get into Victoria Hall without her keys, which she left in her office. When we got in, we set up the area (I got to explore more of Victoria Hall, it's very pretty, feels like it's haunted by a bunch of theatre ghosts in the best way possible) and sat down for Rosie's resource share, which was wonderful. A map of Australia, separated not by state, but by a collage of the various "borders" of the different tribes of Aboriginal people, which made my perspective of the country that I live and create on visibly shift. We then went on a walk down to see the Biennale projects being worked on! The first one that we encountered was These Words Will Remain by Jazz Money, situated on the Fremantle Traffic Bridge. It's gorgeous in both aesthetic and meaning, and really does a lot to change the space around into an open gallery. Past the Traffic Bridge, the walkway transforms into The Orange Path by AC4CA, an eye-catching and apparently "ugly" (according to people who have too much money and too much love for the colour beige) path where most of the artworks are centered around. Moving down the path we noticed both Bruno Booth's touching and personal interactive piece Tightness Times Toughness being built and a couple jellyfish. Moving down more we stumbled into the Commonwealth of New Bayswater, a staple of the Biennale. We ventured into it's downtown district, with it's aesthetically amazing design throughout. I wish I could make something like this, it just seems so good. It feels like a cartoon, but actually structurally sound. It's very... Fremantle, but in the best way possible. We walked down the path a bit more to the other bridge, where you could see Katie Smith's Sunrise Sunset on the other side of the river. The other bridge (which I do not know the name of) will be near where Overload will be, which is, as far as I know, a half sunken boat covered in limestone. Moving off the path we went into a little dungeon-y spot (the Plympton Pumphouse) where Transitions was being held. It looks very cool, with a whole state-of-the-art robotic arm moving around and creating sound I think? It's been a while since going there and writing this, I've been falling behind, so forgive me if my memory is hazy. Either way, I'm a big fan of Matt Gingold, after seeing him perform some insane electronic music at Audible Edge. Up the uneven stairs next to the Plympton Pumphouse was the Naval Store, a place I've seen the outside a hundred times, but have never gone in. Inside, Pip Lewi and Betty Richards (along with someone else who's name I couldn't find on the site) were working on New Tides. Though what they were doing was super cool, the Commonwealth's Public Works and Embassy somewhat overshadowed the Tides for me, even if we only got to see a little bit of it. After the Naval Store, we all headed back to Victoria Hall, had some lunch, Chandler asked some questions about our practice, and the day was over. What a day...
Jellyfish; an alive umbrella, gently floating with the water currents, with it's tassel-like legs frolicking to and fro. The ideal of utopia: no problems, no stress, just gently moving with life.
Art; an object or idea that has been worked on for some amount of time. May be subject to criticism. -- WEEK SEVEN - I came to Victoria Hall late and sleepy, so that was a good start. Saw we were already on a Zoom call, sorry that I can't read time apparently. This week we met up with Fernando Do Campo, a fascinating and inspiring artist. We started talking about methodologies, and the great idea to base a project off: keywords. These words should bring out questions more than answers, which is a good idea. When I came in, I had to introduce my practice in three words on the spot, which was improvisation, fun, and awareness, which I think is fair. We continued onto talking about being an artist as a companion to the art subject, history and context. Fernando's work is heavily based on birds, which I love very much. I have a somewhat strange relation to birds: I like to talk to them, which is to say I make bird sounds at birds. I've had some intimate conversations like that. There was discussion of "pishing", the act of saying "pish" while bird-watching, which attracts birds apparently. The idea that birds carry history is an amazing insight! The fact that you can look at the history of colonisation through the locations of sparrows is insane. To quote Fernando, "animals are carried by history, and history is carried by animals." Fernando then discussed his own art practice, which he described as "abstraction in a non-European way", which is both an entertaining statement and a serious consideration on colonisation in the arts. Then there was some discussion about speculative geometry, abstraction of not only visual stimuli but story, meaning, and other facets of creativity, and I've gotta be honest: I didn't sleep a lot the night prior, which was a bad decision, so I think I just... zoned out. I need to get better sleep. During lunch, we were asked to gather data as a exercise. I wish I did this better, because I really focused on the "data" segment, that I didn't consider "gather"ing closely. I think what I gathered was a good idea, but I think that my method could've been more interesting or specific. I can't particularly remember what the others said for their data collections, but one statement stuck out in particular: Where is the art in the artwork? I really enjoy this, and should probably stick this on my wall. After Fernando left, I asked my artist questions! I asked about how to interact with audience (it's an essential part of theatre and film, while visual not so much, it's definitely an important consideration, as is the accessibility, and most commercial gigs, interacting with audience takes a step aside for interacting with the people who will help you create the project materially), if expensive equipment is a requirement for good art (on the whole, no, using expensive equipment should only be used if the project specifically demands it), enjoyable experiences making art (talking about the artwork with friends over drinks, finishing it up, getting in the zone), and what people are listening to (Lavenda - Miraud, Lover, You Should've Come Over - Jordan Rakei, surf rock and James Blake's new album).
Pish; a way of verbal communication post-language, breaking down barriers of species.
Laughing Kookaburra; a strain of kingfisher that makes an iconic "laughing" sound, and a typical emblem of Australia. Not native to Western Australia. -- WEEK EIGHT - I guess being late is the new Izzy thing. It wasn't that noticeable today though, for we were all listening in to the radio! Particularly the Seydisfjordur community radio (FM107.1), based in the small eponymous town of Seydisfjordur, and run by the nicest sounding people in the world: Lasse Høgenhof and Jonatan Spejlborg. I was running 30 minutes late, and by that I mean I got my phone, my headphones, sat in bed and fell back asleep. Sadly, when I came to (about 30 minutes after they started broadcast) I struggled to stay awake, mainly due to the softness of the words that come out of Lasse's and Jonatan's mouth. Their words are like honey in a wooden pot laced with horse tranquiliser, it was smooth, delicious (a word they also use to describe good things, which is great), and could put me to sleep in an instant. Their conversation was insightful and a work of art itself. I wish I was writing stuff down, but from what I can recall, the main points were about memory, and memorial services, and how what we now know as memorial services aren't particularly artful with the services they are doing memory of the subject, and that memorial services can be for a lot of different things. There was a lot of introspection, and if I wasn't so busy, I would check out the archived conversation on soundcloud, but I have exams tomorrow. Either way, at the end of the broadcast, we were told to do a piece for the radio, so I got to work on that, and at 6:10pm (a little bit after the deadline but oh well), I sent it in, and then (at 7pm) it was broadcast! You can read about that here, but there is definitely something to say about the estranged but warm feeling of community, listening to radio while knowing there's other people tuning in. Everyone else's pieces were so good, just so so good, to a point were I grew so anxious of my own art and it's horribleness.
Memorial Service; an act of kindness and of service dedicated to memory, a thought, that lives still in your brain.
Radio; though they don't talk to you, you still listen. Though they might be on the other side of the world, you still feel near them. Though you may not see them, other people are listening with you. All of you, just listening. Focusing. Their words feel safe, comforting. Someone named Jerry won a car. And you were there, though not physically, right next to him.