BACK AND FORTH: An intergenerational conversation @ CCAS

BACK AND FORTH

AN

INTERGENERATIONAL

CONVERSATION

AN INTERGENERATIONAL CONVERSATION

Join six artists as they discuss what it takes to forge a thriving career in Kamberri/Canberra. How have the opportunities and challenges changed over time? What trends are emerging and how should artists respond?

This event is aimed at deepening dialogue and critical engagement within the Canberra arts community, demystifying career development pathways for artists, with a focus on professional development for the emerging generation of Canberra’s creatives. Facilitated by Janice Falsone (Director, CCAS) with Dr Raquel Ormella (artist, and Senior Lecturer at Australian National University School of Art & Design).

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE

The event will be held during CCAS’s Bodies Without Organs exhibition and include a live art event by Angus McGrath.

Free event Bookings required ccas.com.au

Supported by

Images: top (L-R) Alison Alder, Ham Darroch, Wendy Teakel; bottom (L-R) Dean Cross (photo by Dario Hardaker), Saskia Haalebos (photo by Georgina Holt), Zora Pang (photo by Natsuko Yonezawa)

Canberra Contemporary Art Space Board and Staff respectfully acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Canberra and the ACT region, the Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri peoples on whose unceded lands our galleries are located; their Ancestors, Elders past and present; and recognise their ongoing connections to Culture and Country. We also respectfully acknowledge all traditional custodians throughout Australia whose art we have exhibited over the past 40+ years, and upon whose unceded lands the Board and Staff travel.

Cover Top Row (L-R) ALISON ALDER

HAM DARROCH

WENDY TEAKEL

Cover Bottom Row (L-R) DEAN CROSS (photo by Dario Hardaker), SASKIA HAALEBOS (photo by Georgina Holt), ZORA/LINYI PANG (photo by Natsuko Yonezawa)

BACK AND FORTH: An intergenerational conversation

2pm Saturday 8 July 2023, Canberra Contemporary Art Space

In this free public forum, artists Alison Alder, Dean Cross, Ham Darroch, Saskia Haalebos, Zora/Linyi Pang and Wendy Teakel discussed what it takes to forge a thriving career in Kamberri/Canberra and how opportunities and challenges have changed over time. This event aimed to deepen dialogue and critical engagement within the Kamberri/Canberra arts community, demystify career development pathways for artists, and reflect on emerging treads and how artists should respond. Facilitated by Janice Falsone (Director, CCAS) with Dr Raquel Ormella (artist, and Senior Lecturer at Australian National University School of Art & Design). The forum concluded with a Q&A session, followed by networking, and was held during CCAS’s Bodies without Organs exhibition and included a live art event by Angus McGrath.

Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh

LOOK TO YOUR COMMUNITY: A summary of the BACK AND FORTH forum

In her final year as a student at the Australia National University (ANU) School of Art & Design, Saskia Haalebos interviewed emerging, mid-career and established artists, seeking their advice on how to build a successful career in the arts. Most participants unsurprisingly responded, ‘be involved, show up’. The sold-out forum Back and Forth was held at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS) in July 2023, on a day so cold and rainy that possible snow was forecast. Nevertheless, the Kamberri/Canberra arts community did exactly what they have done for decades – they got involved, they showed up.

Back and Forth was delivered in partnership with the ANU School of Art & Design, as part of the ACT Government’s inaugural Uncharted Territory arts and innovation festival, and brought together an intergenerational panel, formed with the aim of initiating a critical dialogue within the Kamberri/Canberra art scene. Engaging such a diverse community of creatives of course called for an equally eclectic panel. From Alison Alder, who reflected on four decades of social/political art practice, to the collaborative projects of early-career artist Zora/Linyi Pang, a range of professional experiences were brought to the table.

Like Haalebos’s project, the speakers were also selected to discuss and decode the elusive pathways to a thriving career. Finally, a forum to address those buzzwords which rack most arts students with terror; ‘post-graduation’, ‘professional development’ and the worst of all, ‘networking’. Yet, the ensuing discourse felt like a yarn between friends. Extrapolating the pearls of wisdom from the hilarious and at times outrageous anecdotes shared on this panel yielded important but timeless trends; interdisciplinarity, the significance of residencies and supporting your own community.

Facilitators Janice Falsone (Director, CCAS) and Dr Raquel Ormella (artist, and Senior Lecturer at ANU School of Art & Design) directed their first question to Dean Cross, asking about his transition into the visual arts from dance. ‘I felt like I wanted to leave my dance baggage behind’, Cross responded, ‘but I realised very quickly that my choreographic brain never switched off’. Indeed, within Cross’s works the viewer is often positioned as a performer inside a choreographic collision of form and ideas.

Image SASKIA HAALEBOS

Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh

Image ALISON ALDER, RAQUEL ORMELLA, JANICE FALSONE

Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh

Like Cross, Ham Darroch has nurtured a deeply material practice, and attributed this in part to his grandfather, who was an engineer. ‘I grew up in a creative household’, Darroch recalled, ‘and I made myself available to that’. Not only did this supply Darroch with skills such as welding that could financially support him through art school, but expertise that would allow him to traverse different styles of making – from painting, to sculpture, to performance. Darroch also discussed his experience installing at the Venice Biennale, as well as working for British painter Bridget Riley for the past 20 years.

Although their practices are informed by different disciplines, Darroch and Cross are both attune to creative processes outside what might be considered traditional visual arts mediums. Whether it be dance, engineering or installation, their works are truly interdisciplinary – a synthesis of knowledge and methods. There is much to learn from the careers of both artists, but it was the role of interdisciplinarity in their practice that shone through at the Back and Forth panel.

Residencies were an equally important point of discussion. When Wendy Teakel was asked to reflect on her time in Japan and Thailand, she stated boldly, ‘You need to give it about four days, because you’re just going ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’’ Joking aside, Teakel found immense value in familiarising with cultures vastly different to her own. Through a process of performing, walking, collecting and reflecting her way into these environments, Teakel continuously returned home with an experiential sense of place that thoughtfully sustained her practice (as well as some bargaining skills that were put to crafty use when sourcing materials for her works).

Alison Alder also has extensive experience working in community. As a young artist, Alder worked at Redback Graphix, a print studio that opportunely emerged during a time when community art projects were being financially supported by the Australia Council. Alder’s first job was to work in the women’s branch of the miner’s union. ‘These women were kick-ass activists’, Alder recalled. Merging punk aesthetics and international popular culture with Australian sensibilities, Redback were uniquely positioned to disseminate social and political messages with a twinge of humorous irreverence. Alder described her time there as ‘hugely educational’, and she went on to work with the traditional owners of Uluru on the Handback Poster.

Alder and Teakel are pivotal figures of the Kamberri/Canberra art scene. As Back and Forth took place, Alder had a series of newly commissioned works showing at the National Portrait Gallery, and Wendy taught at the ANU from 1985-2017, retiring as Head of Sculpture. While their residencies may have been temporary, the knowledge gained from such immersive experiences have clearly fed their practice for far longer than their time spent in community.

However, Teakel also commented on the profound feeling of returning home, not only to a familiar place, but to a feeling of belonging. The last theme that emerged from the Back and Forth panel is one which has always driven the Kamberri/Canberra community; supporting the local art scene. This has been taken up actively by the two remaining panellists, and their discussion of this at the forum not only functioned to authentically reflect upon their career trajectories, but was also a call to arms for other emerging artists.

Saskia Haalebos recalled that she didn’t really know art school existed until she was in her 20’s, ‘and I didn’t get to go until I was in my 40s’. When Haalebos conducted her series of interviews, she was ‘amazed at how all these people were so generous with their time’. So Haalebos, too, was generous with her time. She interned at CCAS and volunteered at Megalo Print Studio and the ANU School of Art & Design Gallery.

Zora/Linyi Pang contributes to various Kamberri/Canberra arts organisations and is currently Junior Creative Producer of You Are Here, and Chair of artist-run-initiative Tributary Projects. In 2021 Pang was one of the Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centres Live Art Lab artists-in-residence, a program which included a funded mentorship. Pang had always been interested in Caroline Woolard’s concept of the Solidarity Economy, but never imagined a digital stalk would lead to being mentored by the American artist. Prioritising social over financial profitability, Pang has integrated Woolard’s theory into her own practice, which is sustained in part by a number of community projects.

Of course, both artists acknowledged that you can only work so many hours for free, and creatives constantly need to financially supplement their practice with other work. Yet, in the case of both artists, it would seem that free labour is subsidised not only from a sociological perspective, but through word-of-mouth opportunities (and perhaps coveted art world gossip that you come to learn through having ears in the room).

Image ALISON ALDER, ZORA/LINYI PANG, RAQUEL ORMELLA

Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh

The Back and Forth panel itself may be considered a contribution to the solidarity economy of the Kamberri/Canberra art scene as it opened a collaborative dialogue between creatives within the structure of the institutions which represent them. Following the artistic isolation which afflicted our community during lockdown, it was auspicious timing. As gallery closures were mandated and artists left to work independently on a decreasing number of opportunities, an emerging generation of creatives were left in the lurch.

This was brought into question by an audience member studying at the School of Art & Design who felt disillusioned by her connection to her cohort. Of course, it is difficult to forge a thriving university arts scene when few current students were witness to what this entailed before Covid-19. Even prior to the financial and social effects of the pandemic, Teakel remarked that many students seemed to suffer in silence, letting their anxiety get in the way of their right to be a part of the community. All were in agreeance – as a student you have to persevere, you have to be cheeky. Knock on doors, drag your friends to openings, publicly install your art and always ask for forgiveness, never permission.

It was poetic that such anarchic advice was offered in an institution with equally rebellious origins, famously coined the ‘little punk gallery’ by the then director of the National Gallery, James Mollison. Wendy Teakel, a founding member of CCAS, recalled that an advisory paper was written about Kamberri/Canberra that said ‘nothing happens, there’s no art. Well some of us got a bit pissed off about that.’ A number of artists and arts advocates got together and formed CCAS1, an organisation that has since become an epicentre for contemporary art in Australia. As all panellists agreed, the artist working in isolation inside an ivory tower is a myth. If one lesson were to be taken from this panel, it would that when your back is to the wall, as it no doubt will be in a sector that is underfunded and often underappreciated, you should look to your community to take action. Back and Forth opened a space for discussion between creatives and arts institutions, but the themes that were critically engaged seem to be trends – strongholds of the past that will hopefully resurface amidst a new wave of young artists.

Poppy Thomson August 2023

Poppy Thomson is an early-career curator and arts writer based in Kamberri/Canberra, and is currently completing an internship placement at the National Gallery of Australia as part of her Honours year in Art History and Curatorship at the ANU.

1 In July 1987, Bitumen River Gallery (BRG) was amalgamated with the Arts Council Gallery to create the Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS). Wendy Teakel was one of CCAS’s first members. Alison Alder was the Inaugural BRG coordinator – BRG opened in 1981 on the site of the current CCAS Manuka gallery, and constitutes CCAS’s first chapter.

Image Back and Forth audience

Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh

The Back and Forth event finished with a live art event by Kamberri/Canberra-born artist Angus McGrath, as part of the exhibition Bodies without Organs. Curated by Anja Loughhead, Bodies without Organs (24 June - 12 August 2023) showcased local and interstate queer and non-binary artists whose works aim to subvert and transgress materiality and form (artists: Emma Beer, Kate Bohunnis, Annie Parnell, Louis Grant, Bryan Foong, and Lotte Frances).

Angus McGrath’s practice is focused on investigations of subcultural studies, queerness and the personal, using these various connected threads as a way of exploring the performance and construction of identities. For Eternal Strobing Death (Primordial Glory) McGrath employed noise, decay, ritual, and vacantness as ways of transforming the mundane into something capable of being influenced by extremity – the work was influenced by real crimes committed by teenagers, especially those tied to the world of extreme metal.

Image ANGUS McGRATH Eternal Strobing Death (Primordial Glory) (performance still), 10’00” duration, 8 July 2023

Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh

Image ANGUS McGRATH Eternal Strobing Death (Primordial Glory) (performance still), 10’00” duration, 8 July 2023

Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh

BACK AND FORTH

AN INTERGENERATIONAL CONVERSATION