Installation Images – Campbelltown Arts Centre

From left: Lisa Havilah (Project Curator); Lindy Hume (Director, Sydney Festival); Michael Dagostino (Director, Campbelltown Arts Centre); and Aaron Seeto (Project Curator).

Edge of Elsewhere is pleased to present a selection of installation images from Edge of Elsewhere 2012, at Campbelltown Arts Centre. In it’s third and final year, Edge of Elsewhere presents new commissions from artists Brook Andrew, Richard Bell, Dacchi Dang, Shigeyuki Kihara, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Khaled Sabsabi and Michel Tuffery. The exhibition continues at Campbelltown Arts Centre until March 18, 2012.

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Sydney Festival TV

This piece from Sydney Festival TV followed the production of Michel Tuffery’s work O le Povi Pusa, for Edge of Elsewhere this year. It also includes interviews with artists Shigeyuki Kihara, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba and the project curators, Lisa Havilah and Aaron Seeto, and Michael Dagostino.

Artist Talks – 2012

After the success of the opening night at Campbelltown Arts Centre, the artist (and quite a big audience) returned for the 2012 Artist Talks.

Aaron Seeto, Director, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art opened the Artist Talks before handing over to Dr. Thomas Berghuis. As one of the original curators of Edge of Elsewhere, Thomas provided a valuable insight into the progress that the project has made over it’s three years. Thomas facilitated a conversation with artists Arahmaiani, Khaled Sabsabi and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, discussing the role of the artist in contemporary society.

Panel discussion featuring Arahmaiani, Khaled Sabsabi and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, facilitated by Dr. Thomas Berghuis. Photograph: Susannah Wimberley

Campbelltown Arts Centre – Exhibition Opening

Edge of Elsewhere 2012 officially opens at Campbelltown Arts Centre this evening from 7pm tonight.

Please join us for the launch of the final instalment of Edge of Elsewhere, curated by Dr. Thomas Berghuis, Lisa Havilah and
Aaron Seeto. Exhibited from tonight are new commissions by artists Brook Andrew, Richard Bell, Dacchi Dang, Shigeyuki Kihara, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Khaled Sabsabi, Phaptawan Suwannakudt and Michel Tuffery.

Shigeyuki Kihara will present a new live performance, Culture for Sale, from 8pm tonight.

Edge of Elsewhere – Install

YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES - THE SLICKEST LITTLE KOREAN SCUMBAG DOWNUNDER (2011), HD QuickTime movie with original soundtrack, installation view

Last weekend the Edge of Elsewhere team took a break to enjoy Sydney Festival First Night, which included a live performance of  Brook Andrew’s  Travelling Colony, a dizzying and hypnotic combination of the artists Wiradjuri tradition, the circus and pop culture. The following day the team headed to Carriageworks in Redfern for the launch of Black Capital, the inaugural series of performances, seminars, concerts and exhibitions that celebrate the diversity of Redfern, as the Indigenous capital of Australia.

So after an enjoyable weekend it was back into the galleries today, preparing for our own openings later this week. Remember, the openings of our new exhibitions begin this Thursday, at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art at 6pm.

 

 

 

Studio Visit – Phaptawan Suwannakudt

The Edge of Elsewhere team recently visited artist Phaptawan Suwannakudt at her studio and had a chance to preview her new commission for the 2012 exhibition. Throughout 2011, Phaptawan has worked extensively with groups and individuals in South-West Sydney and the Inner West of Sydney, looking at how individuals create or respond to a understanding of home.

In many instances, the people that Phaptawan spoke to used an object of their own – a piece of clothing, a photograph, a book – as a means of articulating these feelings.

Phaptawan has incorporated these objects into her expansive, multi-canvas mural work which will be part of the Campbelltown Arts Centre exhibition for Edge of Elsewhere 2012. The mural involves a design of canvasses of different sizes and shapes that inter-lock to produce a sculptural and multidimensional work. Read on to see a small glimpse of the work that Phaptawan is creating for the exhibition.

Artist Statement – Locution-(re)-locations

The following is the Artists Statement from Phaptawan Suwannakudt’s solo exhibition, Locution-(re)-locations, 19 May – 10 July, 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand.

The fact that I was a woman painter who rarely, from my generation, led a painting team of men, working for the Sangha community meant that I was always at odds with society. I grew up as a young child in a Buddhist temple where the majority of occupants were boy or mean, where I lived with my father who led a mural project. I later adopted the group, lived and worked with them as a team, and continued to be a painter who travelled to a series of localities which changed every year. Because of the nature of my work I always felt a stranger to places where I lived. This experience has created a sense of how to look and think through the point of view of a third person, and to relate to things always as a non-participant. I picked up the form of Thai mural painting as the means of visual language (perhaps the only means). I could use it to identify myself with a culture which I considered myself part of. This was the perfect fit for an outer skin in which I maintained myself as an individual in society.

Edge of Elsewhere 2012

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Breathing is Free: 12,756.3 – Ho Chi Minh City, 118.3 km (2007) single channel digital video, 19:10 courtesy the artist and Mizuma Art Gallery, Tokyo and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

Spanning from Campbelltown to Chinatown, and far beyond, Edge of Elsewhere is a three year long-term project engaging with the diverse cultural mix of suburban Sydney.

In its final year, Edge of Elsewhere showcases new commissions from a range of innovative and exciting contemporary artists from across Australia, Asia and the Pacific, developed in collaboration with a range of Sydney communities.

Presented across two venue, this landmark project positions a number of communities of Greater Sydney within a wider context of Asia-Pacific. Edge of Elsewhere is a bold commitment to artistic collaboration, community participation and the exploration of contemporary ideas in the suburban environment.

Artists: Brook Andrew, Arahmaiani, Richard Bell, Dacchi Dang, Newell Harry, FX Harsono, Shigeyuki Kihara, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Lisa Reihana, Khaled Sabsabi, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Michel Tuffery and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES.

Phaptawan Suwannakudt

Phaptawan Suwannakudt, The Elephant and the Journey, 2006, installation view, Acrylic on canvas, felt tip pen on Perspex, courtesy of the artist. Photography: Susannah Wimberley

Phaptawan Suwannakudt graduated from Silpakorn University, Thailand with a degree in English and German in 1980. She worked extensively as head of a team on full-scale Buddhist temple painting schemes and hotel decoration projects in Thailand in the 1980s and 1990s, and was active in the organisation of women’s art exhibitions in Bangkok. Later as a mature student she completed a Master of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney in 2005.

Stories of Co-Habitation

Phaptawan Suwannakudt's Open Studio morning tea, Artspace, August 2011

Over the course of the year, Phaptawan Suwannakudt has been developing a new community generated mural that will be presented at Campbelltown Arts Centre for Edge of Elsewhere, 2012. Through a series of interviews and workshops, the artist has worked closely alongside local residents from South-West and Inner-West Sydney to share, collect and exchange their stories of life in Sydney. Together, the group are attempting to find the common ground that exists between them, despite their different home nations, current locations, and experiences of the city.

These stories, along with physical objects, are being directly incorporated into a large-scale mural that interweaves Traditional and Iconic Thai mural styles. The result is a collage that absorbs a range of different stories and object, into a collective collage that celebrate inclusion rather than separation.

In the following text, Suwannakudt recounts the story that one project participant shared with the group.