_this breath: Burn Your Ideas

Burn Your Ideas

Burn Your Ideas is a sculpture intervention, with artist talks and edible art workshop. Artists and community participants are invited to bring ideas for change, make up new tactics and destroy our work in a closing ceremony where we ritually smash supremacy thinking, eat our accountability and burn with curiosity.

This is not a cage, at Nexus Arts Gallery Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

THIS IS NOT A CAGE

This is not a cage, 2020, is a human-sized cage, handcrafted from steel, a quintessential Bunker Essential, the Shrine to Transcendence. Door ajar, a void, the incubator of fear, distrust and systemic violence awaits. Enter at your own risk, this social blueprint has entrapped entire cultures and portends the eradication of all life forms.

We are all imprisoned as long as any living being is locked behind bars.

In our dreams of liberation, will we dismantle the cages or carry them with us?

Sculptor: Felix Weber

Bunker Essential concept: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell

Burn Your Ideas sugar art. Photo Change Media.

Bunker Rulz 9: Promise liberation. Technology drives our myths of immortality drives technology. The Colony insists our minds are separate from the world – this delusion of immortality hides the moral impact of creating technologies that further injustice.

Liberation and freedom appear to have two directions. A radical demand: Freedom from oppression, from slavery, incarceration, abuse - freedom from violence. And a social-Darwinist libertarian, privileged entitlement: Freedom to choose, gated communities, schools, hospitals, holidays. Freedom to escape the responsibility of negotiating power and sharing equitably.

As gated AI, big data and bio-technology corporations attempt to enact our stories of immortality, collectively we have handed power to corrupt politicians and a greedy concept that the ‘free market’ will protect us.

Liberation becomes a commodity for sale, alt-facts and spiraling conspiracies confuse collective discussions. Decisions that are impacting everyone and everything on the planet are being made by a few privileged people who believe their wealth grants them the right to choose for all of us.

Here Lies Humanity, Nexus Arts Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

How do we support each other to regularly challenge our thinking?

How can individual solutions address collective needs? How can liberation be a joyful struggle? Caught in the headlights, how do we support each other while the train of progress is coming straight for all of us?

What is a life well lived?

Burn Your Ideas sugar art. Photo Change Media.

Provocateurs corner: We fear that our separate struggles will be futile if we don’t recognize the unity of oppression and act on our intersectionality. How do we frame reciprocity as part of a mindful, respectful process that challenges and devolves our power and privilege? Or do we risk to get picked off, one by one? Part intervention, part revolutionary symposium, part candy installation, Burn Your Ideas explores how we can challenge our personal and collective assumptions. In the words of Aboriginal women activists around Lilla Watson: How is your liberation bound up with mine?

Burn Your Ideas sugar art. Photo Change Media.

Credits

Creative concept, development and curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Installation: In collaboration with participating artists

Bio art: Jen Lyons-Reid

Concrete and metal sculptures: Felix Weber

Text: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Poetry: Poets tba

Photos: Change Media

Venues: Our _this breath symposium has been postponed due to COVID-19. Date to be announced in early 2021.

Sugar sculpture in self portrait SCOBY, Coral St Artspace Oct 2020. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

_this breath: self portrait

Self Portrait

Like aliens perched on an enchanted tree, Jen Lyons-Reid crafted sugar sculptures and wild fermented bio-art in her likeness and collaborated with Carl Kuddell and Felix Weber to create a DNA spiral staircase to display ten life vessels. At war with life itself we are but bacteria.

Installed opposite Emilija Kasumovic’ Air Matter, a mixed-media kinetic lung installation, the works are using plastics, bio-art, slime and digital projections. self portrait plays with our intimate connection to everything and challenges the belief we can plunder and control the universe. How do we experience that everything is connected?

Artists: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber

self portrait at Coral St Artspace. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid

Bunker Rulz 8: Restrict acceptance. The Cartesian myth of being separate from the world isolates us. The Colony engineers byzantine bureaucratic systems to separate, control and exploit everything.

Acceptance is a risky business, it can be marshaled to let go of the consequences of our actions. Most beliefs offer care, protection and certainty in a perceived chaos - in exchange for acceptance - as an uncritical submission to a restrictive, torturous bureaucratic process repeated endlessly from cradle to grave. Follow the rules or else… - usually with special clauses for the rich and noble. This acceptance is the playground of supremacist fear-mongers spruiking exceptionalism, risk avoidance and redemption: You are special, but don’t rock the boat, join the flock and accept your lot.

Against the desire to catalogue the universe, we are challenged to embrace chaos and overcome our fear of complexity. Breathe out, and experience the existential joy of not making sense: I am the universe and the universe is me. What if we are all timeless universes? We frame acceptance as an existentialist, absurdist and expansive image of ourselves as infinitely fallible, small specks of dust swirling shortly through a universe brimming with possibilities of love and hate, and we are that universe without time. So where’s the justice? It exists in our stories. We only live NOW and craft stories of past and present that inform how we live NOW.

self portrait with artist Jen Lyons-Reid. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid

What is the impact of trying to segregate and control everything?

Where are we in this mind-body illogic? Where do my lungs end and the ‘outside’ world begin? How can we create a risk free universe? How do we embrace and avoid chaos, the unknown, the unknowable? How can we acknowledge our embodiment? How can we use breathing, crying, laughing for change? What do we have to lose?

Justice is what we make of it, so how can we let go and share?

Air Matter at Coral St Artspace Oct 2020. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid

Air Matter

Through almost invisible, but deeply sensory and affective materials (non-Newtonian fluid), Emilija Kasumovic’s Air Matter searches for a potential where energy, space and matter become one with our bodies, thus connecting us to each other and the world.

Is This Enough? at Coral St Arts. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid

Enough
Enough is a detail from a larger textile work by Helen Kelly, which she is working on with her 90-year old mother, Clare Kelly, exploring concepts of ‘enough’ through embroidery and poetry. Is it enough to collaborate, to make, to be, to acknowledge ones privilege?

self portrait at Signal Point Gallery Goolwa, Jan 2021. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Provocateurs corner: Asking foolishly big and absurd questions and combining elements across the work, _this breath is not mine to keep is still an enigma to us, a riddled work in progress, a mesmerizing bubble of balloons, gloves, paint and silicon, exploring the fullness of the air we breath and the airiness of our lung tissue. Take a breath to contemplate our intimate connection to everything.

self portrait (detail). Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid

Credits

Creative concept, development and curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Installations: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Emilijia Kasumovic, Felix Weber, Helen Kelly

Text and video: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Poetry: Poets tba

Photos: Change Media

Venues: Coral St Art Space Victor Harbor. You can spot some of the works across all our venues.

_this breath: Marking Time

Marking Time

Marking Time, 2020, is an illustrated paper ‘victory’ spiral of colonisation, checking off promises of humanity’s success while delivering sustained inhumanity and authoritarian cruelty. The march of progress, begins as an oversized toilet roll, for your convenience.

How do we reframe success and a life well lived?

Artists: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell

Solastalgia TV, Nexus Arts Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

SOLASTALGIA TV

Solastalgia TV, 2020, is a Shrine to Civilization, an invitation to meditate on nostalgia, when media was still full of promise and progress was worth bargaining for.

Go on, you know the jingles.

How do we live without dead time?

Concept: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber

Sculptor: Felix Weber

Bunker Rulz 6: The myth of inevitable progress underpins colonizing domination and theft. The Colony proports that injustice - slavery, invasion, extraction, profiteering - is essential for the progress of civilization.

When confronted with the inevitability of our global situation we can either come to terms with our loss and our involvement, or double down on excusing our denial. Bargaining becomes an avoidance to face justice, reality, death. We beg, we doubt, we petition higher forces, appeal to our superstitious selves, offer deals to our demons, ask for redemption if we promise to behave… Imagined as rational, linear, enlightened thoughts these thinly disguised blame narratives are sticky: Why me, pick on someone else, it is not my fault, I have done so much good, we’d be living in caves without progress, at least we brought civilization… And there it is, survival of the normalised supremacist thinking, no mention of the damage, no curiosity for the incredible wisdom of other cultures, a lineal jump to the thought ship that is sinking us all.

Marking Time, Fabrik Arts Lobethal, Nov 2020. Photo Sam Roberts.

How do we represent our bargains with power and privilege?

What does the past, present and future look like when we define time as a linear force of nature, the harbinger of inevitable progress? What is time? Why do we imagine it runs in a straight line, when it is a fickle experience, that warps with our emotions? What stories do we share about the success of civilization? Whose stories do we omit? Who benefits from maintaining domination?

How do we reframe success and a life well lived?

Solastalgia TV. Photo Felix Weber.

Provocateurs corner: In the name of inevitable progress we trade in poisoned comfort, claiming civilization’s achievement as leverage against the mountainous pile of corpses, the escalating true costs of enlightenment: Slavery, genocide, plunder, rape and destruction on a planetary scale, offering the wonders of civilization to the very few.

this is not a cage and Solastalgia TV at Nexus Arts Gallery. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

Credits

Creative concept, development and curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Installation: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber

Text: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr

Cartoons: Jen Lyons-Reid

Poetry: Poets tba

Photos: Change Media

Venues: Signal Point Gallery Goolwa. You can spot a sneal preview of Marking Time at Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor.

_this breath: Bunker Essentials

Bunker Essentials

Globally we are witnessing the extinction of our world, and yet we continue to fuel our demise, so how do we notice our involvement, disrupt the stasis and rewrite the rules?

Across several venues ‘Bunker Essentials’, mixed media concrete installations, explore notions of revolution in ‘The Bunker Age’ of entombment and nostalgia.

Nexus virtual gallery video documentation shot and edit by Aaron Schuppan, music courtesy of Nexus Arts - artist: Tagore (feat. The Three Seas), by voiceROM, from the album Nexus Album: https://voicerom.bandcamp.com/album/nexus-album

The Sound of Annihilation, Nexus Arts Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

The Sound of Annihilation

Listen to an inaudible sound installation of canned rage: The Sound of Annihilation stacks wistfully labelled food cans full of silent memories hoarding our nostalgia and suppressed desires. In its whimsy, it challenges us to consider what we lose when we let the bullies take over.

Conserve your memories, your suppressed rage and surrendered futures, before it’s too late, then label and order your soon-to-be-lost freedoms to curate a joyful user experience.

How do we disrupt the threats of physical, mental and structural violence?

Artists: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell

The Sound of Annihilation, Coral St Artspace, Oct 2020. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

F.A.D. at Nexus Arts Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

FAD (Fully Assured Destruction)

FAD, 2020, forms a mighty Shrine to Brutality, the ultimate Bunker Essential. In times of escalating crises, who wouldn’t want a handful of grenades and rocket launchers handy for self-protection… The future is here, be prepared for war and stay safe.

How do we use our rage to de-power systemic violence?

Artists: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber

F.A.D. at Nexus Arts Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

Bunker Rulz 5: Threaten anger. Fascism feeds on our desire to have control. The Colony offers protection by wielding the ultimate power of the bully – violence and war. 

Daily we witness the brutal and insidious force of the bully, patriarchal power that cannot tolerate any challenges, no talk back, soft, assertive, aggressive or otherwise.

We are warned anger, rage, outrage are aggressive emotions that we must suppress, at the expense of our autonomy, our rights, our liberties.

It is a classic double-bind, a sublime con: With the threat of violence comes the slippery offer of protection, straight from the racketeer’s tool kit, Daddy knows best, leave it to the more powerful, we will come to collect later - never mention it, not a word. Silence is violence.

F.A.D. at Nexus Arts Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

And ultimately, the fascist’s desire to control everything, using threats of glorious annihilation, endless, purifying, profitable war that will unite us under a strong leader. So we bottle up our anger, can our rage and endure safely confected anonymous outrage. For how long? What are we afraid of?

Who benefits from suppressed rage?

Why do we fear vulnerability? How can we acknowledge our anger without being controlled and consumed by it? How do we use threats of violence in our daily lives to get what we want? What brutality do we outsource to keep our privilege? How do we challenge our ability to destroy everything? How do we redirect our rage to create change?

Can we use art to disrupt the threats of physical, mental and structural violence?

The Sound of Annihilation can design. Artwork Change Media

Provocateurs corner: We conceived of The Sound of Annihilation as a musical score of the atom bomb formula, performed by an orchestra of household items, pipes, chip bags, bottles, car keys, nostalgic moments and canned feelings. Canned grief of burned, wasted lives. A reminder that we can destroy it all when we avoid solidarity, which in turn allows fascism to claim respectable spaces in our societies. Anger is essential for liberation. May be art does save lives after all….

Send us your nostalgic moments, sounds and memories to be canned for future use: Click here: contact.

The Sound of Annihilation at Nexus Arts Nov 2020. Photo Aaron Schuppan.

Credits

Creative concept, development and curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Sculptures, text, design and installation: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber

Provocations, text and cartoons: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Poetry: Poets tba

Photos: Change Media, Aaron Schuppan, Sam Roberts, Johanis Lyons-Reid

Venues: Nexus Arts, Nov 12 - Dec 11. You can find some of the Bunker Essentials at Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor.

Bunker Essentials at Fabrik Arts Lobethal, Nov 2020. Photo Sam Roberts.

_this breath: Fabricated Emotions

Fabricated Emotions

Fabricated Emotions are emotional beings crafted from concrete, textiles, blankets and discarded clothing to explore how we really feel. Curated as a series of sculptural installations, Fabricated Emotions are made with artists and communities in response to despair and anger arising from climate crises, inter-sectional violence and systemic injustice.

Fabricated Emotions: Lost Connection, Coral St Artspace Oct 2020. Photo: Johanis Lyons-Reid.

LOST CONNECTION

lost connection, 2020, concrete communication artefacts depict the deification of our thoughts. All hail our networked isolation. We are the gods of landfills and the high priests of hope. Stay positive, subscribe and like your own reflection, corporations care for us.

How do we disconnect from the empire of illusion?

Artists: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber

Fabricated Emotions: Lost Connection, Nexus Art Gallery Nov 2020. Photo: Aaron Schuppan.

LULLABY

Lullaby, 2020, is a Shrine to Comfort, an altar to the desire for shelter, care and harmonic entombment.

A child-centered bunker projects a bright and caring future. Enduring education toys and confectionary rewards help enrich and pacify our future generations. Stocks are limited.

How do we embrace our despair and practice playful solidarity?

Artists: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber

Fabricated Emotions: Lullaby, Nexus Art Gallery Nov 2020. Photo: Aaron Schuppan.

Bunker Rulz 4: Pacify despair. The desire for comfort diminishes our ability to feel for others and act in solidarity. The Colony needs us to lack empathy for the people and things it exploits, and offers comfort and pain relief to ensure our compliance in the face of ongoing injustice.

Despair is frowned upon, taboo, don’t talk about it. Depression is often seen as contagious, something to hide and to lift yourself out of, a personal responsibility, a shameful trait, a human defect, not the symptom of a societal root cause. We medicate despair, opt for comfort to smother it. But comfort is corrosive, it eats away at our ability to feel empathy when we pacify our deeper, less comfortable emotions.

How do we smother our grief?

What happens to our empathy when we pacify our emotions? How do we debunk the myth that comfort is safe? Who benefits from collective hopelessness? How do we embrace despair?

What can't we afford to feel, think or say?

Fabricated Emotions: Lost Flock, Fabrik Arts Lobethal. Photo: Sam Roberts

Lost Flock (On the Consequences of Comfort)
Lost Flock is a work by textile artist Deborah Prior to be launched at Fabrik Arts & Heritage Lobethal. Collaborating with Jen and Carl on Fabricated Emotions, the woollen shelter installation explores the suppression of despair, the numbing of pain and avoidance of feelings in the name of comfort. How do we celebrate comfort as quicksilver?

Fabricated Emotions: Can You See Me Now? Coral St Artspace, Victor Harbor. Photo: Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Can you see me now?
Can you see me now? is an update on the 2018-19 collaboration between Ngarrindjeri poet Clyde Rigney Jnr, Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell. The sculpture uses poetry and Ngarrindjeri archival images of Clyde’s ancestors Grace and Daniel Gollan, printed on mirrors, to explore despair, identity and numbness. How do we embrace our despair in solidarity?

Fabricated Emotions: Concrete Prayer, Coral St Artspace, Victor Harbor. Photo: Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Provocateurs corner: The installations explore the suppression of despair, the numbing of pain and avoidance of feelings in the name of comfort. Comfort for whom? How comfortable are we with injustice, with the ongoing deaths in custody, the over-representation of Aboriginal people in our prisons, with refugees rotting in offshore camps? We can be comfortable because our privilege protects us, but this desire for comfort diminishes all our experiences and our willingness to fight selflessly for the rights of everyone to live a dignified life.

Lost Flock, Fabrik Lobthal. Photo: Sam Roberts.

Credits

Curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Creative development, creation and sculpture/ installations: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, Deborah Prior, Cedric Varcoe, Felix Weber

Projection art: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr

Provocations, text and cartoons: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Poetry: Poets tba

Photos: Change Media, Sam Roberts, Aaron Schuppan, Johanis Lyons-Reid

Venues: FabriK Arts Lobethal, Nov 7 - Dec 6 - and you can find some of the works across all our venues.

_this breath: trending

Trending

A tsunami wish-fulfillment sculpture of plastic bags embossed with faces challenges us to re-imagine the addictive quality and true cost of rampant consumerism.

DREAMCATCHER

dreamcatcher is part of Trending, 2020, a tsunami of plastic bags embossed with faces exploring the addictive quality and true cost of rampant consumerism. Plastic bags caught in flight, sport the Eternity emblem, and are embedded in resin for future use.

How do we debunk the delusional stories that more is better and celebrate de-growth?

Artists: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell

Trending: dreamcatcher, Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor. Photo: Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Bunker Rulz 3: Convert shock. Convenience is addictive. The Colony preaches TINA, there is no alternative to capitalism, and offers 24/7 distractions from creating sustainable, just social systems.

The supremacy of TINA has trapped us in a cocoon of instant consumption, convenient filter bubbles, disinformation and manufactured consent. When that bubble burst, how do we respond to the shock that our actions are destroying our world, causing oppression, extinction events, pandemics and climate catastrophes?

Shock is the sudden recognition that this is really happening. Shock brings disbelief and can make you question the nature of your reality. A shock to the system, a traumatic event, a face in the mirror that recognizes convenience got us hooked, that ignorance is not bliss.

How do we debunk the delusional stories that more is better? How is our privileged ignorance shaping our values and actions? How are our desires being manipulated? How do we speak back to these toxic trends, that zealously spread dis-information and alt-facts in the name of convenience?

How do we celebrate de-growth?

Trending, Lobethal Bushfire zone. Photo: Change Media

dreamcatchers
dreamcatchers are part of the Trending installation by Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell. Fossilized plastic bags captured in resin are testaments to our addiction to fossil fuels. How do we debunk more is better and celebrate de-growth?

Trending. Bushfire zone. Photo: Change Media

Provocateurs corner: We want Trending to represent our tsunami of excess, the debris of our memories enshrined in plastic left behind by the coming storm. We increasingly live in a virtual world, yet every click, every view requires real bricks, mortar, energy, rare earth, plastic reality - a location on earth or in orbit. We need to see ourselves in the terrifying disasters of our making.

Trending: dreamcatcher and Lost Connection, Signal Point Gallery Goolwa, Jan 2021. Photo: Johanis Lyons-Reid

Credits

Creative concept, development and curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Sculpture: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell and Felix Weber

Provocations, text and cartoons: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Poetry: Poets tba

Photos: Change Media

Venues: Signal Point Gallery Goolwa. You can spot three of the fossilized dreamcatcher plastic bags on display at Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor until Nov 21, 2020.

_this breath: roll call

Roll Call

ROLL CALL, 2019-2021, is a collaborative lament exploring how our desire to win is fueling our demise. It is a poetry multi-media installation that reveals how supremacy thinking manipulates our grief and colonizes our minds. This multi-media eulogy offers keys to global solidarity and climate justice.

Find a free e-book at www.thisbreath.space/poetry and videos below.

How do we reveal that our self-interests continue to trump collective well-being and embrace our sorrows to re-imagine life?

Roll Call at Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor Oct 2020. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Poets: Geoffrey Aitken, Nick Carroll, David Cookson, Donna Edwards, Nigel Ford, Rory Harris, Kym Holly, Stephen House, In Her Interior, Emilijia Kasumovic, Helen Kelly, Carl Kuddell , Niyati Libotte, Jen Lyons-Reid, Johanis Lyons-Reid, Wallace McKitrick, Kathryn Pentecost, Avalanche, Mike Riddle, Clyde Rigney Jnr, Heather Taylor-Johnson, Cedric Varcoe, Doll Yoko.

Find the _this breath poetry anthology and video performances here: https://www.thisbreath.space/poetry

Bunker Rulz 2: Battle sorrow. Our addiction to competition ignores the true cost of modern life. The Colony demands we must compete with everything to survive.

In the race to survive and succeed we believe we can’t afford to experience sorrow, to feel collective pain, to imagine the screams of burning koalas, the muffled despair of people trapped in abuse, locked up, homeless, worked to the bone in meaningless jobs. We fear we will break down, give up, go mad.

Who defines insanity in a culture that fears sorrow? 

Who benefits from a competitive culture? How do we reveal that our self-interests continue to trump collective well-being? How do we avoid competitive grieving? How do we acknowledge our sorrows and re-imagine life?

How do we re-enchant our shared existence?

Roll Call screen installation at Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor Oct 2020. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Provocateurs corner: We see poets as the witch-philosophers of our world, who weave spells that move beyond guilt and blame, howling against the extermination of life due to the wonders of civilization. As our competitive culture keeps us on track to maintain ecological collapse, we suppress the sorrow for our collective failure to protect the well-being and interdependence of all living things. And yet, as long as we still breathe it is never too late to sing.

Join the resistance: Notice your compliance. Disrupt our status quo. Rewrite the rules. And click here to submit your poetry.

Roll call live poetry performance at Coral St Artspace. Photo Carl Kuddell.

Credits

Creative concept, development and curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Facilitators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Mike Riddle and Nigel Ford

Poets: Find the anthology of 50 selected poems from 23 poets here.

Geoffrey Aitken

Nick Carroll

David Cookson

Donna Edwards

Nigel Ford

Rory Harris

Kym Holly

Stephen House

In Her Interior

Emilijia Kasumovic

Helen Kelly

Carl Kuddell

Niyati Libotte

Lyn Lovegrove Niemz


Jen Lyons-Reid

Johanis Lyons-Reid

Wallace McKitrick

Kathryn Pentecost

Avalanche Rehorek

Mike Riddle

Clyde Rigney Jnr

Heather Taylor-Johnson

Cedric Varcoe

Doll Yoko

Provocations, text and cartoons: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Video and photos: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Johanis Lyons-Reid

self portrait and Roll Call installations at Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor Oct 2020. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Venues: Coral St Art Space Victor Harbor. You can spot some of the poetry across all our venues. Selected poems are published in the _this breath anthology and on this site.

Roll Call live performance Oct 2020, Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor. Photo Carl Kuddell

_this breath: terracotta worriers

Terracotta Worriers

Terracotta Worriers, 2020, are a doomed army of un-fired clay effigies charged with our collective fear. 120 worriers appear in sacrificial wastelands, march into a gallery, caught in their individual distractions, denials and delusions, to finally dissolve in gardens threatened environs. How are we all in this together?

Why do the privileged few shuffle on in denial, as communities in the sacrificial zones shout angrily that we need to take action?

Concept & development: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell

Sculptor: Lyn Lovegrove Niemz (with Ngarrindjeri community members)

Photos: Change Media and various participants

Video: Change Media (Johanis Lyons-Reid (camera), Piri Eddy (sound)

Terracotta Worriers at Signal Point Gallery Goolwa Jan 2021. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

BUNKER RULZ 1: Obey denial. Fear can immobilize us. The Colony keeps us in fear to stifle our courage.

Why do the privileged few shuffle on in denial, as communities in the sacrificial zones shout angrily that we need to take action?

What are we scared of? How do we use daily distractions to deny what is happening globally? Who benefits from collective denial? How can we find courage to resist climate apartheid?

What risks are we willing to take?

Terracotta Worriers at Signal Point Gallery Goolwa Jan 2021. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Lyn Lovegrove Niemz collaborated with Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell to sculpt Terracotta Worriers, an army of 120 unfired clay effigies carrying our collective denial and inertia. The full work was revealed at Signal Point Gallery Goolwa on Dec 11th.
How can we nurture courage to resist privileged ignorance?

Terracotta Worrier in sacrificial zone May 2020. Photo Change Media

Provocateurs corner: We conceived of Terracotta Worriers as a denialist army of exquisite pottery effigies adorned with daily distractions; clay phones, tablets, shopping trolleys. Essentially co-opted to become our tour guides, the ‘Worriers’ appear in all venues and across different media of the work, they march over and under dry river-beds, abandoned car parks, fire-ravaged bush and are left to decay in sacrificial zones.

Their goal is to remind us that we are bound together on this planet and to challenge the privileged ‘status quo’ myth that separates us. They are the guardians of our ignorance amidst complex crises and consumerist globalisation, and their myriad of emotions a crumbling reminder where avoidance, cowardice and fear can lead us.

Terracotta Worriers at Signal Point Gallery Goolwa Jan 2021. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Credits

Creative concept and curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Development: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Lyn Lovegrove Niemz

Sculpture: Lyn Lovegrove Niemz

Provocations, text and cartoons: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Poetry: Find our selection of 50 poems by 23 Australian poets here.

Photos: Change Media

Terracotta Worriers at Signal Point Gallery Goolwa Jan 2021. Photo Johanis Lyons-Reid.

Venues:

120 Terracotta Worriers at Signal Point Gallery Goolwa, Dec 11 2020 - Jan 27 2021

Coral St Artspace Victor Harbor with 10 Worriers - Oct 9 - Nov 21, 2020

Fabrik Arts Lobethal with 10 Worriers - Nov 7 - Dec 6, 2020

Many sculptures have been adopted by participants in various locations across metropolitan and regional South Australia throughout 2021.

Website: https://www.thisbreath.space/

_this breath: Contested Space

Contested Space, 2020, demands we bear witness and consider how we will commemorate genocide in Australia. 500 painted concrete shrouds hover in silence, futures erased by colonisation, past relationships etched inside, to instigate a dialogue. The physical absence signifies our collective loss and a hollowness of humanity, as the majority of Australians appear to be comfortable with these ongoing deaths on our watch.

What do we need to do to ensure this systemic violence and societal silence stops now?

Concept & sculpture: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell

Painting: Cedric Varcoe

Cultural Advise & Essay: Clyde Rigney Jnr

Screengrab from SBS article

Click here or on the photo above to for the SBS article about the work.

And here is the SBS News segment about Contested Space:

Contested Space is a collaboration between Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Ngarrindjeri artist Cedric Varcoe and Ngarrindjeri cultural advisor and writer Clyde Rigney Jnr, that focuses on visualizing the attempted erasure of Indigenous Australians.

500 painted concrete shrouds hover in silence, futures erased by colonialization, past, present and future relationships etched inside, to instigate a dialogue between the dead and the living. The assembly floats like a fleet of sails, evoking the nightmare of invasion. A heavy presence stranded in time, the concrete death masks demand we bear witness and consider how we will commemorate genocide in Australia.

Contested Space at Fabrik Arts Lobethal, Nov 2020. Photo Sam Roberts

Walk among the 500 and acknowledge the 438 recorded Aboriginal deaths in custody since 1989. This is a large gathering of people deemed expendable, killed by the ongoing colonial ‘duty of care’ that created ‘The Aboriginal problem’. Engage with each mask and contemplate they also represents the deaths and killings not ‘recorded’, and imagine the unfathomable grief of genocide.

Cedric Varcoe has painted cultural patterns, designs and prison-wall etchings inside, sharing his personal story of imprisonment, the incarceration and deaths of his brothers, intergenerational absence and belonging. Some masks have strong connections, others have vanished, assimilated, targeted daily, some scream ‘I can’t breathe’, here, now, in this contested space.

The physical absence signifies our collective loss and a hollowness of humanity, as the majority of Australians appear to be comfortable with these ongoing deaths on our watch.

What do we need to do to ensure this systemic violence and societal silence stops now?

Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell with Contested Space. Photo Peta Doherty / SBS

Bunker Rulz 7: Normalize blame. Our shared stories define our past, present and future. The Colony propagates cultural norms and offers belonging as a reward if you fit in and threatens brutal exclusion if you don’t.

Blame is a tricky concept, we use it as a tool that might help clarify a situation, but mostly it is an excuse to transfer responsibility or guilt, individually and collectively. Who to blame next?

In a social frame, blaming or scapegoating others requires seductive stories about belonging, We are the Chosen Ones; a decree by DNA, wealth, race, gender, ability, nation, belief. The repetition of these fabricated stories reinforce the notion of normality, a very narrow set of cultural rules, ways to be and act. And voila, the chosen one’s can now offer a binary, fake choice: In or out, Us vs Them, be with or against us, you decide, we react. We have a sanctioned and repeatable blame frame.

Normality is a construct that rewards the privileged and oppresses the rest. Oppression (racism, sexism, ableism etc) has a purpose, the ongoing privileging of the few. Our cultural stories hide this inequality as normality. If we fit in, we belong, we are rewarded, we deserve it, we have the right to decide who comes and who stays. They just need to do what we do, or they brought it on themselves…

Belonging becomes a competitive process, earned by compliance to its norms, with super-power-unfair-advantage rigged access - and relies entirely on our silence and complicity about the use of brutal oppression. Ironically, human rights only were legislated once privileged white folk reacted to the genocide of people they related to. But since their universal declaration in 1948, global inhumanity, slavery and colonial destruction continues. Does mob might make right?

How do we resist scapegoating?  

If our shared stories define our past, present and future, who decides who is included or excluded? How do we blame the targeted for being excluded? Who benefits from silencing diversity? How do we erase the 99% in our cultural stories? How do we value diversity? What can't we afford to imagine?

How do we come to terms?



_this breath is not mine to keep: Contested Space

Contested Space is a collaboration between Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Ngarrindjeri artist Cedric Varcoe and Ngarrindjeri cultural advisor and writer Clyde Rigney Jnr, that focuses on visualizing the attempted erasure of Indigenous Australians.
500 painted concrete shrouds hover in silence, futures erased by colonialization, past relationships etched inside, to instigate a dialogue between the dead and the living. The assembly floats like a fleet of sails, evoking the nightmare of invasion. A heavy presence stranded in time, the concrete death masks demand we bear witness and consider how we will commemorate genocide in Australia.

Provocateurs corner: Walk among the 500 and acknowledge the 438 recorded Aboriginal deaths in custody since 1989. This is a large gathering of people deemed expendable, killed by the ongoing colonial ‘duty of care’ that created ‘The Aboriginal problem’. Engage with each mask and contemplate they also represents the deaths and killings not ‘recorded’, and imagine the unfathomable grief of genocide.
Cedric Varcoe has painted cultural patterns, designs and prison-wall etchings inside, sharing his personal story of imprisonment, the incarceration and deaths of his brothers, intergenerational absence and belonging. Some masks have strong connections, others have vanished, assimilated, targeted daily, some scream ‘I can’t breathe’, here, now, in this contested space.
The physical absence signifies our collective loss and a hollowness of humanity, as the majority of Australians appear to be comfortable with these ongoing deaths on our watch.
What do we need to do to ensure this systemic violence and societal silence stops now?

Credits

Curators: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Creative concept and development: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Cedric Varcoe, Clyde Rigney Jnr

Installation: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell, Cedric Varcoe, Clyde Rigney Jnr, Felix Weber

Sculpture: Jen Lyons-Reid & Carl Kuddell

Painting: Cedric Varcoe

Essay + Cultural advice: Clyde Rigney Jnr, Ngarrindjeri Namawi Co

Photos: Change Media, Peta Doherty and Sam Roberts

Video: SBS and Change Media

Venues: Fabrik Arts + Heritage Lobethal, Nov 6 - Dec 5 2020, and Signal Point Gallery Goolwa, Dec 11 - January 26 2021.

_this breath is not mine to keep

_this breath is not mine to keep is a provocative CACD multi-art experiment linking climate crisis, delusions of supremacy and the existential joy of life. 

Visit www.thisbreath.space to get involved.

We are witnessing the extinction of our world, yet we continue to fuel our demise. What is the sound of annihilation, how do we enshrine memories, dissolve our delusions, what gift can sorrow bring? Collectively how can we reframe our addiction to a 5-planet culture?

During 50 workshops, co-led by 26 artists and over 100 participants from Ngarrindjeri, diverse and regional communities, we create evocative sculptures, performances, bio-art, poetry, soundscapes and digital projections, to explore 10 stages of grief. Audiences choose their own journey on an arts trail linking four regional and metropolitan SA exhibitions with online and print publications.

Find out more at www.thisbreath.space/

Poet responds to The Colony

Mike Riddle sent us his poetry half way through our exhibition in Goolwa - it blew us away. He gave us permission to publish his responses to ‘The Colony - dare to stop us’ online and so we added a few images to clarify what his poems are referring to. And we invited Mike to participate in next years collaboration for ‘_this breath is not mine to keep’.

Please contact us for the original PDF of Mike Riddle’s anthology.

Dusty Feet Mob - This Story's True

Advice: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website and videos links contains images and voices of people who have died.

From the sand hills of Port Augusta to the bustling streets of Adelaide, Dusty Feet Mob’s young Aboriginal performers dance their way into the hearts and minds of their enraptured audiences, using the power of song and dance to tell stories of the Stolen Generation and help heal the pain of the past. As they prepare to perform their signature song, Archie Roach’s iconic ‘Took the Children Away,’ the dancers and their dedicated supporters offer creative, intergenerational and deeply emotional insights into the story of the Stolen Generation, determined to carry on Uncle Archie’s legacy – the past will not be forgotten.

Dusty Feet Mob – This Story’s True was created by Aboriginal community members in Port Augusta, in collaboration with award-winning production company Change Media, through an initiative of the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC), Country Arts SA and the City of Port Augusta.

For Archie Roach, it’s the children carrying on the legacy of healing that makes him especially proud and grateful. Archie said: “In our First People’s culture we have story, song and dance. The story of the Stolen Generations is the story we hear and take in with our minds and the song enters our spirit. But dance helps us to move and weave that story and song through our body.  Dusty Feet Mob help us heal holistically; through our mind -  the story; through our spirit - the song and through our body – the dance.”

Dusty Feet Mob – This Story’s True is one of two documentaries, alongside The Mulka Man, created through the Port Augusta Emerging Film Development Program, a series of development and production workshops for emerging Aboriginal screen creatives held from July to October in 2019, funded and presented by the SAFC through its Aboriginal Screen Strategy, along with Country Arts SA with support from the City of Port Augusta, delivered by Change Media with additional support from the Australia Council for the Arts.

We are presenting the finished documentary to broadcasters and festivals in 2020. Find the full Media Release here.

The film has won Best Documentary at the 2020 SASA Awards. Congratulations to all involved!

The film also won Best Documentary at the 2020 International My Hero Film Festival in Los Angeles. Congratulations all around!

Dusty Feet Mob are more than just an Aboriginal dance group. They are a community that nurtures strength, confidence and dignity. They are a community that builds connection to culture, community and country. They know that storytelling through dance and song is their culture, it’s a powerful way of entering into past hurts and injustices experienced by Aboriginal families in a way that allows both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to grow in acceptance, understanding and empathy together. 

An essential make-up of the group is the strong support provided by parents, grandparents and the Port Augusta Community, who take seriously the role of passing knowledge and stories down to the younger generations. Dusty Feet Mob is a powerful expression of the old and the new: Young people are not just "the leaders of tomorrow", they are leaders of today. Dusty Feet Mob provides opportunities for young people to learn about themselves and develop leadership skills for life. 

SAFC Associate Executive, Production and Development Nara Wilson, who facilitated the program, said: “Through the SAFC’s regular workshops and initiatives over the last few years, Port Augusta has become a real hub of activity in SA for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander filmmakers, with practitioners coming from all over the state to learn new skills and develop their craft. We are proud to highlight Indigenous voices, and facilitate Indigenous storytelling through these programs.”

SAFC CEO Kate Croser said: “These documentaries not only show what incredible emerging screen talent there is in South Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, but they highlight the importance of the SAFC’s Aboriginal Screen Strategy in developing and supporting Indigenous screen practitioners, and bringing their stories and voices to the fore. I congratulate the filmmakers on their success.”

Samantha Yates, Country Arts SA’s Cultural Programming Manager, Aboriginal and Reconciliation Programs said: “Opportunities for professional Aboriginal film development in regional areas are essential. Having a platform to share and broaden awareness gives  voice to many untold stories. Dusty Feet Mob – This Story’s True is an incredible example of how a short film can educate the general public and create deeper compassion for the stolen generations.”

Change Media acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land in Australia on which this program was filmed.

Credits:

Production Company: Tallstoreez Productionz Pty Ltd t/as Change Media

Writers: Paul Tanner, Piri Eddy, Johanis Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Steven Fatt-Lang, Marika Davies, Lyall Campbell-Ware, Bonita Leahy, Bessy-May Taylor-Haseldine, Denise Champion, Donny McKenzie, Roxanne Lawrie

Directors: Johanis Lyons-Reid and Paul Tanner

Producers/ mentor: Carl Kuddell and Jen Lyons-Reid

Associate Producer: Paul Tanner

Director of Photography/ mentor: Johanis Lyons-Reid

Camera Operators: Steven Fatt-Lang, Marika Davies, Lyall Campbell-Ware, Paul Tanner

Sound Recordist/ mentor: Piri Eddy

Sound operators: Steven Fatt-Lang, Marika Davies, Lyall Campbell-Ware

Editor: Johanis Lyons-Reid

Composer and Sound Mix: Justin Pounsett

Original song: Archie Roach ‘Took The Children Away’

BTS Stills Photographer: Carl Kuddell

Archival Stills: Paul Tanner

Dusty Feet Mob interviews:

Wanita Calyun – Artistic Director/ Choreographer, Dusty Feet Mob

Paul Tanner – Manager, Dusty Feet Mob

Maria Anderson  – Chairperson Dusty Feet Mob, Wanita’s mother

Justin Mogridge – Wanita’s father

Archie Roach – Singer, ‘Took The Children Away’

Sarcha Taylor - Dusty Feet Mob member

Tyeisha Taylor  - Dusty Feet Mob member

Micah Buckskin  - Dusty Feet Mob member

Marika Garlett  - Dusty Feet Mob member

Josh Saunders  - Dusty Feet Mob member

Dusty Feet Mob dancers:

Wanita Calyun, Tyrone Taylor, Sarcha Taylor, Tyeisha Taylor, Josh Saunders, Shalana Cox, Jakeem Cox , Tyree Cox, Tia Buckskin, Laila Buckskin, Micah Buckskin, Mareeka Garlett, Twyla Stuart, Rikki-Lee Bodger

Thanks to:

Archie Roach and Jill Shelton

Dusty Feet Mob crew and supporters

Mii Pudanthi festival - Angelena Harradine

Mushroom Music – Lisa Businovski

Warner Music Australia – Rose Sejean

Port Augusta Car Club - Mark Taylor

City of Port Augusta – Maria Anderson

Country Arts SA – Sam Yates and Josh Barbo

South Australian Film Corporation – Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin and Nara Wilson

DEVELOPED AND FINANCED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN FILM CORPORATION

and

Country Arts SA

The City of Port Augusta

Australia Council for the Arts

©2019 Change Media, Dusty Feet Mob and the City of Port Augusta

The Mulka Man

Advice: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that this website and videos links contains images and voices of people who have died.

Adnyamathanha Elder Roy Coulthard is The Mulka Man, the last wood carver of the Flinders Ranges. With time against him, Uncle Roy is determined to see his tradition live on. From the rich ochre sands outside Port Augusta in search of the perfect Mulka tree to a firelit camp back-dropped by the stunning Flinders Ranges, Uncle Roy passes his expert carving knowledge to the next generation. But to do so, he must bravely cross traditional conventions and gender lines, teaching women the art of Mulka wood carving in order to keep Adnyamathanha culture alive.

Change Media partnered with the City of Port Augusta to deliver a series of media literacy workshops with First Peoples participants from a wide range of communities in and around Port Augusta.

The first production resulting from the workshops is ‘The Mulka Man’, a short documentary following Adnyamathanha Elder Roy Coulthard, the last wood carver of the Flinders Ranger, as he passes on his skills to a new generation of Mulka carvers, crossing traditional conventions and gender lines in the process.

We worked with Wangkangurru woman Marika Davies as the co-director/ co-producer and mentored participants across all stages of production.

Festival updates: The Mulka Man has been invited to screen at The Heart of Gold International Short Film Festival in Queensland, Oct 2021. In 2021 The Mulka Man was selected to screen at Koori Mail’s/ First Nations Media’s Blak Cinema Festival in Lismore, NSW. And in 2020 the Nunga Screen film festival toured the film throughout regional locations in South Australia.

The project has been funded by the Port Augusta City through the Regional Arts Fund and Country Arts SA and the South Australian Film Corporation grants for an Aboriginal screen initiative, with additional support from the Australia Council for the Arts through Change Media’s What Privilege initiative 2019.

Change Media acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land in Australia on which this program was filmed.

Credits:

Writers: Marika Davies, Piri Eddy, Johanis Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Steven Fatt-Lang, Paul Tanner, Lyall Campbell-Ware, Bonita Leahy, Bessy-May Taylor-Haseldine, Denise Champion, Donny McKenzie, Roxanne Lawrie

Directors: Johanis Lyons-Reid and Marika Davies

Producers / mentor: Carl Kuddell and Jen Lyons-Reid

Associate Producer: Marika Davies

Director of Photography / mentor: Johanis Lyons-Reid

Camera Operators: Steven Fatt-Lang, Marika Davies, Paul Tanner

Sound Recordist / mentor: Piri Eddy

Sound operators: Steven Fatt-Lang, Marika Davies

Editor: Johanis Lyons-Reid

Composer and Sound Mix: Justin Pounsett

BTS Stills Photographer: Carl Kuddell

Mulka Arts interviews:

Uncle Roy Coulthard – Adnyamathanha Elder

Marika Davies – Wangkangurru woman

Mulka Arts participants:

Roy Coulthard, Marika Davies, Matthew Davies, John Davies, Phillip Naylor

Colleen Naylor, Anisha Davies, Flynn Spencer, Lahni Von Senden, Kellie Von Senden, Tweedy Martinot, Maya Fettke, Jakai Page, Georgia Keenan, Shayleigh Cooper, Casey Green

Thanks to:

Mulka Arts crew and their supporters

Stirling North Primary School

City of Port Augusta – Maria Anderson

Country Arts SA – Sam Yates and Josh Barbo

South Australian Film Corporation – Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin and Nara Wilson

DEVELOPED AND FINANCED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF:

THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN FILM CORPORATION

Country Arts SA

The City of Port Augusta

Australia Council for the Arts

©2019 Change Media, Mulka Arts and the City of Port Augusta

Deadly Family Portraits - ABC

South Australia, 2018-2019

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that the following program may contain images and voices of deceased persons.

Change Media supported three emerging Aboriginal producer and director teams to create a three part mini series for ABC iView. Carl Kuddell worked with the teams as a consultant producer across the series, and Change Media offered its services as a post production house.

Electric Mimili. Screenshot from the documentary. ©2019 Sequioa Productions

Deadly Family Portraits, a new production initiative to celebrate and showcase the depth of artistic talent among Aboriginal families and emerging Aboriginal filmmakers was launched today by the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC), ABC Arts iView and Arts South Australia.

The Deadly Family Portraits series presents the compelling stories of three outstanding Aboriginal families, the Sansburys, the Crombies and the Fieldings, where artistic talent continues across the generations. Each episode have been produced by an Aboriginal filmmaking team to create an intriguing conversation between artist and filmmaker; as they reflect upon identity, culture, life, art, country and family. Each film premiered on ABC iView Arts in 2019.

Crombie Crew. Screenshot from the documentary. ©2019 Gina Rings

Credits

Directors - Pearl Berry, Isaac Wilson, Edoardo Crismani

Producers - Lilla Berry, Sierra Schrader, Gina Rings

Consultant Series Producer - Carl Kuddell

Editors - Emma McGavisk and Johanis Lyons-Reid

Colorist - David Tang

DOPs - Johanis Lyons-Reid, Allan Collins, David Roberts

Sound mix - Carlos Manrique Clavijo

SAFC - Nara Wilson and Amanda Duthie

ABC Executive Producers - Lin Jie Kong and Sally Chesher

Partners:

Deadly Family Portraits is an initiative of South Australian Film Corporation, Arts South Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Supported by TARNANTHI Art Gallery of South Australia, Mimili Maku Arts, Tandanya Arts Centre, Electric Fields

The Colony - Murray Bridge Regional Gallery

The Colony - Who Comes to Visit? Exhibition, June 2018: Murray Bridge, SA.

This work-in-progress with Ngarrindjeri explores assimilation, treaty and bureaucracy as the logistics of empire.

What is your experience of whiteness and identity in the context of Treaty and colonization? How do we want to share our limited time on this planet? How do we come to terms?

The Colony is a dynamic, experimental installation, combining projection work, sculpture, line art and poetic audio-visual provocations. Opening Sunday June 17 at 2.30pm, with a Welcome to Country by Ngarrindjeri Elder Rose Rigney (find her speech below), speeches by the lead artists and drinks and nibbles. The installation will be shown from June 15 to July 22 2018.

Click here for useful links and background info about Treaty, Uluru Statement, Letters Patent and Native Title.

This cross-cultural collaboration was created by Jen Lyons-Reid [concept, line art, text], Carl Kuddell [concept, sculpture, text], Ngarrindjeri man Clyde Rigney Jnr [concept, text, audio], Felix Weber [sculptures, installation] and Johanis Lyons-Reid [video].

Wo is coming to visit? The Collector

Welcome to the Colony

When you enter the Colony, who comes to visit? Navigate a bivouac of menacing, invasive colonies and colonial beliefs, to experience how Ngarrindjeri continue to maintain and share their cultural values in the tension between assimilation and treaty. “Nukkan Nganawi Ngarrindjeri Kringkari Ngoppen? Can you see my walk in your white world?”

Suspended in a surreal, timeless now, tinged with past, present and future colonial ventures, an array of cargo crates form a mobile bureaucratic envoy, dispatched to colonize this space.

HQ spews data, assessing and assimilating Ngarrindjeri values and dictating the terms of ‘settlement’. From its crates spill the colonizers cargo, flotsam, tools and toys, casting menacing shadows of invasion. Absurd technology prints and projects evaluation protocols and Colonizer roles, rendered as friendly, garish cartoons. A never-ending negotiation emanates from a makeshift tent. “Are you still here? Are you listening? Do I scare you? I am assimilated, I speak fluent Grey. We need to come to terms.”

Navigating this bivouac, audiences are invited to decipher the impact of colonial beliefs: What does assimilation mean to you? Which of the colonizers do you know? What is your experience of treaty and colonization? Who do you see when you look into the mirror? How do we want to share our limited time on this planet? How do we come to terms?

When you exit back into the colony through the Welcome gate, please take some information from the Community Notice Board. 

Who is coming to visit? The Critic

What Privilege - The Colony [stage 1] - exhibition is one of the 2017-18 outcomes of our cross-cultural collaboration during Creating Together - what can possibly go wrong?, alongside What Privilege - Unity of Oppression show at Nexus Arts, Adelaide.

What Privilege- The Colony [stage 2] - exhibition and games, 2018-19: We plan to create an interactive game world, run by a colonial bureaucracy, ‘Grey Matters Inc’, with a diverse range of artists, partners and communities. This intersectional project and participatory game will explore concepts of intersectionality, insurrection and solidarity. and Goolwa South Coast Arts Centre in August 2019 during SALA Festival.

What Privilege - this breath is not mine to keep [stage 3] - arts trail, 2019-21: In the third stage we will present the work to regional arts venues, festivals and other events, further develop interactive and mobile elements of the work and tour the game, performance and exhibition nationally.

View fullsize

Ngarrindjeri Elder Rose Rigney's Welcome to Country speech for The Colony

Floor sheet info clockwise from Gallery entrance:

Entrance: ‘Community Notice Board’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, lamp-post ads featuring What Privilege’s 50 colonizers and their 10 gangs, mixed media, 2018

Left-hand wall 1: ‘Can you see me?’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, sculpture, Ngarrindjeri archival images of Clyde's ancestors Grace and Daniel Gollan, mirror-glass, metal, LED, mixed media, 3x 55cm x 45cm, 2018

Centre: ‘The Colony Cargo’ - Felix Weber, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, sculpture, 5x 90cm x 90cm x 180cm, mixed media, 2018

‘You didn’t see me coming’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, mixed media, digital photo-frame, 2018

‘Mission protocol’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber, Clyde Rigney Jnr, kinetic sculpture, wooden printer with endless canvas loop, mixed media, 2018

Left-hand wall 2: ‘This is not a toy’ – Felix Weber, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, sculpture + shadow projection, wood, torch, 2018

Back wall: ‘Surveillance / Protection’ - Johanis Lyons-Reid, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, video projection, featuring videos created in collaboration with Ngarrindjeri, 2018

Right-hand wall: ‘Three Cheers for Civilization’ - Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, dual channel video projection, line art, poetry, 2018

Right-hand wall/ entry wall right corner: ‘We meet again (are you still listening?)’ - Clyde Rigney Jnr, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Felix Weber, sculpture, metal/ canvas tent, audio-video projection, 1.7mx 2.5m, 2018

Entry/ Exit wall: ‘Story Theft’ – Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr, video projection, Ngarrindjeri values, line art, poetry, 2018

Exit: ‘Welcome to the Colony’ – Felix Weber, Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, sculpture, 4.5mx 3m, wood, mixed media, LED-neon, 2018

Credits:

Artistic concept / co-curators: Clyde Rigney Jnr, Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell

Sculptures and installations: Felix Weber, Carl Kuddell, Jen Lyons-Reid

Video / FX: Johanis Lyons-Reid

Cartoons and line art: Jen Lyons-Reid

Poetry/ text: Jen Lyons-Reid, Carl Kuddell, Clyde Rigney Jnr

Spoken word performance: Clyde Rigney Jnr

Editing (slide projections and audio): Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell

Seamstress extraordinaire: Jemima Thompson

Printing: PrintsAlive (Thanks Warren and Trevor)

Bump-in support: Melinda Rankin and her lovely team, Det, Don, Trevor and all the other volunteers and tech support at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery and city council

Welcome to Country: Ngarrindjeri Elder Rose Rigney

Photo and video documentation: Johanis Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell

Ngarrindjeri Catering: Little Catering Co

And a big shout out to all our community participants, funders and supporters.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, and by the South Australian Government through Arts SA.

The project has been supported by the Regional Gallery Murray Bridge.

What Privilege - Mars looks nice...

Within this strand of What Priviliege we are looking at digital futures:

Who owns our imagination?

What futures, fears and opportunities are arising in times of near total commodification in the burgeoning empire of illusion?

We are working with Feral Arts and Darwin Community Arts on this project, with some crossover with our public art game development with Act Now Theatre and Fire Hazard Australia.

In November 2017 we worked with Feral Arts developing and scrutinizing ideas for Arts Front's digital futures campaigns.

We came up with a few funky concepts, a trailer for a web-based mini-series and a meme campaign concept.

Now we are working towards a presentation for ANAT's Digital Futures symposium.