PICA Guide January – July 2016
CONTENTS
2–3
Director’s Foreword 4–7
Summer Nights 8–9
The Secret Garden Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg 10 – 11
18 – 19
Hatched National Graduate Show 2016
20 – 21
Revelation Film Festival
22 – 23
Radical Ecologies
Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster Nicola Gunn / SANS Hotel
24 – 25
12 – 13
Spark_Lab Learning Program
blackmarket pvi collective 14 – 15
Drill Ahilan Ratnamohan 16 – 17
Give Me a Reason to Live Claire Cunningham
Photo: Alessandro Bianchetti
Artists in Residence
26 – 27
28 – 29
Support PICA
30 – 31
Accessibility
32
PICA Thanks
1
FOREWORD
Director’s Foreword PICA’s 2016 Artistic Program will take you from the depths of the Australian outback to the dark world of Hieronymus Bosch. It will lead you down a rabbit hole and then back up into a post-monetary economy. And that’s just the start! From January to July you will experience the re-telling of fairy-tales, consider the ethics of intervention, examine the dark recesses of the psyche and hustle for street survival skills. Artists from across the globe test physical and emotional barriers and redefine what art can be in a program that inspires empathy, personal liberation and the dissolving of existing hierarchies. They have collectively created a space of new possibilities – and invite you to join them. — Amy Barrett-Lennard Director
Nicola Gunn in Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti
3
PERFORMANCE
Summer Nights Presented by The Blue Room Theatre in association with PICA as part of FRINGE WORLD 2016
22 January – 6 February PICA Performance Space Summer Nights is the hand-crafted season of theatre, dance and performance at FRINGE WORLD 2016. This year’s program takes you on a trip around the world and inspires you to think about your own stories and myths. You’ll be faced with new and renewed tales told by exceptional artists from as far as Colombia and as near as our own backyard. These award-winning productions promise to challenge, tease and entertain in ways you’ve never quite imagined. Full program available at summernights.org.au
TICKETS $15-$30 pica.org.au or fringeworld.com.au
Photo: Tanya Voltchanskaya
5
Resort Apocalypse
MKA: Being Dead (Don Quixote)
Sit by the pool, have a cocktail. You’re at a resort now. Just don’t look at the explosions. The world can’t end when you’re this relaxed. From the team behind The Pigeons comes a dark comedy that’s a sassy, wild, and sad goodbye to civilisation as we know it.
A masterclass in literary theft, build-your-own identity and post-anarchy. Don Quixote steals from Netflix, online dating sites and instant porn. She’s the idol you deserve.
The Epic
Under This Sun
Finn O’Branagáin & Scott Sandwich 27 - 30 January, 6.30pm
The Emergence Co. 2 - 6 February, 6.15pm
A re-telling of the most badass stories from around the world! Dash back to the beginning, uncovering myths and epic tales in ways you’ve never heard before. Finn O’Branagáin and Scott Sandwich are part-time performance poets, full-time story enthusiasts and double-time friends, and they’re bringing The Epic back to the stage after a sell-out debut season in 2015.
Cooper wakes to find himself abandoned in the bush. Grace retraces her brother’s letters into the desert. Jeremy, in the spirit of Jack Kerouac, travels to the heart of Australia in search of enlightenment. Under this Sun is a visceral annihilation of the Australian outback dream.
The Big Never 22 - 25 January, 6.30pm
MKA | Theatre of New Writing 22 - 25 January, 8pm
#queer #femme #showgirl
SUMMER NIGHTS 22 JANUARY – 6 FEBRUARY | FRINGE WORLD 2016 | PICA PERFORMANCE SPACE
The Crossing
MKA: Unsex Me
Stella is a corporate fixer. She moves behind the headlines and parties of the fast-paced corporate world, making sure the right jobs are done and the wrong ones are buried so deep that no one will ever find them. A new work of noir-cabaret by indie sensations The Last Great Hunt.
Daughter of a theatre legend and a prima ballerina, award-winning actress Mark Wilson dissects her own story and her next job: being directed by her father as Lady Macbeth. Grand performances, whispered confessions, and booming self-mockery combine as she prepares, promotes and performs the role of her life.
17 Border Crossings
Sleeping Beauty
The Last Great Hunt 22 - 25 & 27 - 30 January, 9.30pm
lucidity suitcase intercontinental 2 - 6 February, 7.55pm Matinee Saturday 6 February, 4pm A trip around the world via storytelling at its most effortlessly fluent, 17 Border Crossings starts with a man at a desk on an empty stage and ends up everywhere but. The itinerary: a worse-for-wear Communist-era train, the wheel well of a transatlantic jet, and 15 other border crossings recreated with magnetic, offhanded charm.
MKA | Theatre of New Writing 27 - 30 January, 8pm
RenĂŠe Newman + Ian Sinclair 2 - 6 February, 9.30pm The old cautionary tales and warnings of our ancestors are still relevant today, far beyond the happily ever after. Sleeping Beauty playfully unpicks and de-Disney-fies the familiar fairy tale in a quest to find its contemporary relevance, revealing the story of a mass-culture asleep to our own ethical responsibilities.
TIC KETS $15 – $3 0 | BOOKIN G S PICA .ORG . AU OR FRING E WORLD.COM . AU
Image credits: See page 32
EXHIBITION
The Secret Garden Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg
Presented by PICA with Perth International Arts Festival, in association with Australian Centre for Contemporary Art with Melbourne Festival
11 February – 24 April All Galleries FREE Curated by Juliana Engberg and Louise Neri Opening Night: Thursday 11 February, 6.30pm Surreal and ultra-sensory, The Secret Garden by Swedish artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg opens up a netherworld of strange delights and encounters. In this immersive landscape, sculpture, light, sound and film combine to dazzling effect, as gallery visitors are thrust into the mysterious world of feverish dreams, psychedelic sunsets and expanding universes. This is a secret garden fit for Alice in Wonderland, filled with giant leaves, bluebells and golden-capped acorns, gelato coloured cushions and dripping ice-creams. A shaman rabbit presides over a playground of the subconscious that can only be fully activated by each audience member’s internal direction. This exhibition is the first time that Djurberg and Berg’s work has been seen in Western Australia, and also features a survey of the savagely humorous claymation films that brought these artists into the international spotlight.
Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg Installation view of The Secret Garden at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2015 Photo: Andrew Curtis
9
Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster
Nicola Gunn / SANS Hotel Presented by PICA and Mobile States as part of FRINGE WORLD 2016
13 – 19 February, 7.30pm PICA Performance Space Matinee: Sunday 14 February, 2.30pm Post-show Q&A with Nicola Gunn: Tuesday 16 February NB: No show Monday 15 February
Piece For Person and Ghetto Blaster is the story of a man, a woman and a duck. It dissects the excruciating realms of human behaviour in an attempt to navigate the moral and ethical complexities of becoming a better person. A woman sees a man throwing stones at a duck. Threaded between observations and memories of this brief encounter with a stranger are philosophical musings about peace and conflict, moral relativism, the ethics of intervention and the very function of art. In attempting to deal with these ethical dilemmas, Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster resolves through transformation from human to non-human and towards a spiritual realm. Commissioned by Mobile States, this new show from riveting, subversive creator/performer Nicola Gunn, choreographer Jo Lloyd and composer Kelly Ryall, tries to understand how we can all get along. A Performing Lines production
TICKETS $20 – $30.50 pica.org.au or fringeworld.com.au Photo: Sarah Walker
PERFORMANCE
11
Photo: James Brown
PERFORMANCE
blackmarket pvi collective
Presented by PICA, Perth International Arts Festival and City of Subiaco
16 – 27 February The Streets of Subiaco Ticket holders will be notified of their departure point 7.30pm, 7.45pm, 8.00pm, 8.15pm Perth’s own tactical media art renegades, pvi collective, have created blackmarket, a participatory site-specific work that takes place on the streets of our city at night. Part roaming artwork, part real-life video game, blackmarket invites you into a dark underworld of unlicensed street selling and entrepreneurial trading. In the fictional world of pvi’s urban role-playing game, the global financial crisis has arrived and you are forced to fight for survival as a ‘hustler’ within a black market economy. Exposed to an underground economic structure where goods and services are available but cash has no value, you must trade your possessions in return for survival skills and services. From psychological coping mechanisms to physical training, urban survival skills to weaponising garbage, pvi’s blackmarket is highly immersive, instruction based and perversely fun. Commissioned by Performance Space Sydney
TICKETS $71 – $79 perthfestival.com.au or 08 6488 5555 13
PERFORMANCE
Drill
Ahilan Ratnamohan 24 – 27 February PICA Performance Space 7.30pm Three athletes meet in a late night, never-ending training session. A strange form of non-competitive competition unfolds before the audience. Sweaty machismo gets a poetic makeover as sprinting, jumping, falling and accelerating merge in an indefinable training sequence. Drill is an exploration of the choreographic potential of athletic movement and training that revels in an exhausted euphoria. “The rigour, focus and commitment of all three performers combine to make this a stand-out performance” – ArtsHub
TICKETS $20 – $30 pica.org.au or 9228 6300 SPECIAL OFFER Early bird tickets: $20 Available until 1 February
Photo: Phillippe Smets
15
PERFORMANCE
Photo: Hugh Glenndinning
Give Me a Reason to Live Claire Cunningham
Presented by Perth International Arts Festival in association with PICA
2 – 5 March, 8pm PICA Performance Space Taking the form of a series of tests, of body and of faith, Give Me a Reason to Live is a stark solo inspired by the work and world of Medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch. As an artist with a disability, Claire Cunningham pushes her mind and body to its limit in a breathtaking, physically demanding work about stigma and faith. A study in the notion of empathy, the work explores issues of religion - in particular Western religious art, the judgement of bodies and quality of life. Set to a mesmerising sound score crafted by Zoë Irvine, Give Me a Reason to Live is choreographed and performed by Cunningham and features her own haunting version of one of J.S. Bach’s chorale cantatas. The work exists both as a live memorial to the disabled victims of the Nazi euthanasia program and to the current victims of the present UK governments so-called ‘welfare reform’.
TICKETS $25 – $36 pica.org.au or 9228 6300 perthfestival.com.au or 6488 5555
EXHIBITION
Hatched Hatched National National Graduate Graduate Show 2016 Show 2016 EXHIBITION
7 May - 10 July 14 May – 17gallery July spaces PICA – All All gallery Curated byspaces Nadia Johnson FREE Curated by Nadia Johnson Opening Night: Friday 13 May, 6.30pm The Hatched: National Graduate Show maps the The Hatched: National Graduate Show maps the trends and concerns of Australia’s next generation of trends and concerns of Australia’s next generation of emerging contemporary artists. Featuring graduates emerging contemporary artists. Featuring graduates from 23 art schools and universities nationally Hatched from 23 art schools and universities nationally is a celebration of the most exciting emerging artists Hatched is a celebration of the most exciting from across the country. Now in its 25th year, Hatched emerging artists from across the country. Now in its is an eagerly anticipated annual survey of the newest 25th year, Hatched is an eagerly anticipated annual artistic practices to keep an eye on. survey of the newest artistic practices to keep an eye on. The $35,000 Schenberg Art Fellowship is awarded to one of these emerging artists for career development. The $35,000 Schenberg Art Fellowship is awarded This is the seventh year that PICA has worked with to one of these emerging artists for career the University of Western Australia and the trustees development. This is the seventh year that PICA has of the Dr Harold Schenberg bequest to present this worked with The University of Western Australia generous cash prize to one outstanding Hatched and the trustees of the Dr Harold Schenberg Trust to artist. present this generous cash prize to one outstanding Hatched artist. Hatched National Graduate Show 2015, Featuring Stephanie Marks, Unwanted, 2014 (detail) Photo: Toni Wilkinson Audio Described
Tour Saturday 2 July, 11am See page 32 for details
Hatched National Graduate Show, 2015 Featuring Alex McGovern, don’t paint the power plugs, 2014-5 Photo: Toni Wilkinson
19
FILM
Menagerie Choir at Revelation 2015 Photo: Anthony Tran
Revelation Film Festival 7 – 17 July PICA Performance Space PICA is partnering with the Revelation Perth International Film Festival to curate and present a program focused on areas of hybrid artistic practice, digital art, and contemporary screen art. Complemented by two evening panel sessions that question and locate emergent screen practices.
TICKETS Times and prices variable See pica.org.au for more information
21
EXHIBITION
Radical Ecologies 31 July – 4 September All gallery spaces FREE A major group exhibition, Radical Ecologies features artists working at the intersection of environmental, sexual and geopolitical concerns to locate new ecologies and unravel old dystopias. Radical Ecologies brings exciting emerging voices in live art encounters together with rhizomatic visual artists. Sensorial and experimental, the artists propose alternative spaces to inhabit, exploring eco- sexual urges and creating genre and gender defying clubhouses where hierarchies dissolve and new landscapes emerge. They set olfactory challenges, go plant bombing and unlock the secret lives of bees. This exhibition creates hothouses of enquiry and invites the visitor into arousing environments that complicate gender, sexuality, and question the complex relationship between our bodies and the natural world. —
Radical Ecologies will be launched at the PICA Salon Vernissage, Saturday 30 July, 7pm. For information please contact Development Manager Jo Malone: philanthropy@pica.org.au or 9228 6306
Audio Described Tour Saturday 20 August, 11am See page 32 for details
Peter Cheng and Molly Biddle The Superior Animal (film still), 2015 © and courtesy the artist
23
STUDIO RESIDENCIES
Artists in Residence Shaun Prior (WA)
Sheyi Bankale (UK)
16 February – 24 April
29 March – 29 April
Through a humourous, mystical and confronting exploration of masculinity, sexuality and the male body, Shaun Prior believes he can find poetry and splendor in the very constructs that have long frustrated and perplexed him. Working at the intersection of poetry and visual art, Shaun plans to use the studio as a site to find exciting connections between the two disciplines and contribute his idiosyncratic voice to discussions around gender and maleness.
Curator and writer from London, Sheyi Bankale will be in residence to develop and publish a special Perth edition of UK photographic journal, Next Level. Using the studio as a primary platform for collaborating and publishing, Bankale will generate an exciting exchange between UK and Australian networks and create new cultural narratives. The Perth edition will be locally specific and globally visible, contributing to the discourse around photography today.
Ross Hamilton Frew (UK)
PRVCY - Mark Haslam (kdmindustries) (NSW)
28 February – 24 April
9 – 20 May Scottish artist Ross Hamilton Frew negotiates the territory around contemporary drawing and asks what is more important - the drawn line or the surface it adorns? The artist plans to interrogate ideas of making, drawing and recycling by searching out and collecting local phone directories to pulp. This material will be used to create a new paper stock unique to Perth.
In October 2015 a homeless woman died in a 24-hour McDonalds in Hong Kong. The moment was captured on CCTV, but her body lay in place, undisturbed, for 8 hours before being noticed. Through a detailed, multidisciplinary approach, kdmindustries will seek to explore the fragmented urban environment and the shifting nature of contemporary privacy.
Tiyan Baker (NSW) 7 March – 27 March Sydney based artist, Tiyan Baker is the winner of the 2014 Macquarie Digital Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, for her arresting video portraits of people re-enacting their memories in Beijing. The prize includes a residency at PICA during which Tiyan and her collaborator, Xanthe Dobbie, are working on One Million Views, a digital portraiture project about six Australian YouTubers, to be presented at Next Wave Festival in May 2016.
Tiyan Baker Waiting on a bridge, 2013 © and courtesy the artist
25
E D U C AT I O N
Learning Program About Spark_Lab Spark_Lab brings students, teachers and the community up close and personal with contemporary artists, dancers, theatre makers, musicians and innovators across a wide range of disciplines through an exciting program of events, activities and online resources. PICA is committed to presenting a program of art and ideas that engages, excites and educates. Its specially tailored Spark_Lab program features guided tours, artist-led activities, education kits and online resources. With a dedicated Education Studio located in PICA’s historic building in the Perth Cultural Centre, Spark_Lab introduces new ways for teachers and students to talk about and engage with the arts. Spark_Lab involves Primary and Secondary students and community groups in multi-disciplinary activities that help them think creatively, practice leadership skills and develop selfefficacy.
The Secret Garden Tours & School Workshops Tuesday 23 February – Friday 8 April School Holiday Workshops Tuesday 12 & 19 April and Thursday 14 & 21 April All day workshops | $50 Professional Learning For artists and educators Saturday 2 April
Hatched National Graduate Show 2016 Tours & School Workshops Tuesday 24 May – Friday 1 July School Holiday Workshops Tuesday 5 & 12 July and Thursday 7 & 14 July WA Day event Monday 6 June Professional Learning For artists and educators Saturday 21 May
Radical Ecologies BOOKINGS For more details see pica.org.au, email education@pica.org.au or call (08) 9228 6300
Tours & School Workshops Tuesday 9 August – Friday 26 August Special National Science Week Workshops Saturday 13 August School Holiday Workshops Saturday 20 August Professional Learning For artists and educators Saturday 27 August
Photo: Peter Cheng
SUPPORT
Take your love of art to the next level. In 2016 we invite you to explore contemporary art with PICA in radical new ways. Find out more about how you can make an investment in the creative future of your community. Visit pica.org.au/support or contact PICA’s Development Office via philanthropy@pica.org.au for more information.
Photo: Holly Jade Photography
29
ACCESSIBILITY
Accessibility Wheelchair Access All gallery spaces are wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair bookings can be made for all PICA performances. Please book over the phone or in person at PICA so that Front of House can make note of your requirements. Wheelchair accessible toilets are available. ACROD Parking General & ACROD car parking is available within the Perth Cultural Centre precinct. The closest ACROD accessible carparks with lift access to the Cultural Centre are the Cultural Centre car park, State Library car park and Citiplace car park. Companion Card The Companion Card admits carers to shows as complimentary guests. Holders of this card are welcome to attend any performance presented by PICA. All companion card bookings must be made over the phone or in person at PICA.
Audio Description PICA is partnering with DADAA to offer Audio Description services for selected exhibitions and performances through the Access All Arts program. Audio Description enhances live performance and visual art for people who are blind or vision impaired. An Audio Describer delivers a verbal description of the visual elements via a personal headset. Upcoming events Hatched: National Graduate Show Audio Described Tour Saturday 2 July, 11am | FREE Radical Ecologies Audio Described Tour Saturday 20 August, 11am | FREE Stay tuned for more Audio Description services in PICA’s July – December program. BOOKINGS pica.org.au / 9228 6300 or in person at PICA. Bookings are essential and must be made at least seven days in advance.
Hatched National Graduate Show 2015, Photo: Toni Wilkinson
31
PARTNERS
PICA Thanks Government Partners
PICA’s ongoing programs are primarily supported by an investment from the State of Western Australia through the Department of Culture and the Arts in association with Lotterywest, and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. PICA is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.
Principal Education Partner
Partner School
Education Partners
Supporting Partner
Automotive Partner
Beverage Sponsors
Presenting Partners
Acknowledgments PICA thanks its members and donors for their ongoing support. Cover image: Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, The Secret Garden, 2015. © Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg; Courtesy Lisson Gallery, London. Summer Nights is proudly supported by the City of Perth. Summer Nights Images: Resort Apocalypse, photo: Freya Pitt; MKA: Being Dead (Don Quixote), photo: MKA; The Crossing, photo: Jamie Breen; MKA: Unsex Me, =; The Epic, image designed by Desmond Tan; Under This Sun, photo: Jamie Breen; 17 Border Crossings, photo: Randall Ortega; Sleeping Beauty, photo: Julian Frichot. The Secret Garden is supported by Perth International Arts Festival Visual Arts program partner Wesfarmers Arts Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster has been commissioned by Mobile States and supported through Punctum Inc. Seedpod program, Creative Victoria and the City of Melbourne through Arts House’s CultureLAB. Tour produced by Performing Lines for Mobile States, with the support of the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, and the Besen Family Foundation. blackmarket has been supported by the Government of Western Australian through the Department of Culture and the Arts, the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Drill has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Flemish Government, PICA, FORM, De NWE Vorst and CC Berchem. The Schenberg Art Fellowship, presented during the Hatched: National Graduate Show, is made possible by the Dr Harold Schenberg Trust. Tiyan Baker’s residency is supported by the National Portrait Gallery. Ross Hamilton Frew & Sheyi Bankale’s residencies are supported by Central Institute of Technology. Sheyi Bankale’s project is also supported through public funding by Arts Council England. Audio Description services have been made available through the Access All Arts Program. Access All Arts offers Audio Description services and Access Tours for people who are blind and vision impaired to a range of Perth’s major theatre venues and outdoor festivals. Access All Arts is led by DADAA with funding from the Disability Services Commission and the Department for Culture and the Arts. VisAbility supports Access All Arts through an informal partnership that offers general advice, access to the blind and vision impaired community and communications support. Access2Arts is the program’s Audio Describer training partner. Funding for the project is administered by WALGA.
FREE ENTRY
CONNECT WITH US
Gallery & Box Office Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Stay in touch with PICA for regular updates on exhibitions, performances, public programs and events.
Sign up to our mailing list online at: www.pica.org.au Box Office opens one hour before performances Perth Cultural Centre, 51 James St, Northbridge
/PICAARTS
+61 8 9228 6300 info@pica.org.au pica.org.au
GETTING HERE PICA is easily accessed via public transport and by car. There is a pedestrian overpass from the Perth train station and PICA is a two minute walk away. Transperth’s free Blue CAT buses also provide the closest pick-up and drop-off points for PICA located on Beaufort St. General & ACROD car parking is available within the Perth Cultural Centre precinct. The closest ACROD accessible carparks with lift access to the Cultural Centre are the Cultural Centre car park, State Library car park and Citiplace car park. For more information visit the PICA website or Transperth website.
@PICA_Perth
@PICA_Perth