Australian Indigenous Artist to Exhibit at Venice

In June this year, artist Vernon Ah Kee will be the first Indigenous Australian living
in Brisbane to exhibit his artwork at the highly prestigious 53rd Venice Biennale
International Art Exhibition. This ground-breaking experience will be recorded by
Silver Screen Pictures in association with QPIX, as part of the new documentary,
Vernon Ah Kee.
Executive Director of QPIX, Kerry O’Rourke says ‘QPIX and Silver Screen
Pictures are working together to capture Vernon Ah Kee’s incredible artistic
career culminating in the Venice Biennale. Many Australians, whether involved
with the arts or not, will appreciate what an outstanding achievement this is.’
Vernon Ah Kee says of his recent selection, 'I'm really excited to be exhibiting
in Venice. It is a major highlight of my career and I hope my work will be well
received.'
Rebecca Fawcett, Supervising Producer on the documentary, Vernon Ah Kee
says 'QPIX has sponsored the Vernon Ah Kee film crew to travel with Vernon and
his family to Venice. The crew will capture the many highlights of the Venice
Biennale including the glamorous opening events, the networking and the
acclaim on an international stage.’
‘Vernon Ah Kee will also explore the behind-the-scenes struggles and pressures
of the Biennale, from having to ship and install large artworks in a foreign
country at one of the world’s most venerated art exhibitions, to facing the
criticism of the art world’s elite. ‘ Rebecca says.
Vernon Ah Kee Director, Alex Barnes says ‘Vernon's work is highly thoughtprovoking.
His work for the Venice Biennale is a masterful interlacing of Aussie
surf and indigenous cultures. Using surfboards as canvases for his art Vernon
has collaborated with Gold Coast indigenous surfer, Dale Richards, who was
filmed surfing Vernon’s artworks. This film, along with the surfboards, are part
of Vernon’s unique exhibition piece.’
Vernon Ah Kee has been developed and produced by Silver Screen Pictures
under the Pacific Film & Television Commission’s Documentary Program, in
association with QPIX - the state screen development centre.
For interviews with Vernon Ah Kee or Alex Barnes please contact Alex on 0434
029 590 or alex@silverscreenpictures.com.au.
For interviews with Supervising Producer, Rebecca Fawcett or Executive
Director of QPIX, Kerry O’Rourke, please contact Camilla Roberts on the details
below.
QPIX
QPIX Ltd is a leading Australian centre for the development of the national
screen and media industry. The company develops and assists in the
production of film and TV content. It is focused on the development of
independent screen production and professionals. QPIX also operates the film
and television school QPIX Training. QPIX chairs the national industry network
Screen Development Australia (SDA), comprised of 6 development centres
nationally. QPIX's goal is to build an innovative and globally competitive
Australian screen industry.
Camilla Roberts, Marketing Manager, QPIX Ltd, Phone 07 3392
2633
www.qpix.org.au camilla@qpix.org.au

Stream Dreaming 2010

Stream Dreaming

January/February 2010
Call for Atrist Submissions

Stream Dreaming is a digital media arts event set in regional Western Australia. It is a showcase event for arts practitioners working in the field of digital media and exhibition.
Stream Dreaming aims to provide artists with access to a network of public screens and non-traditional audiences through-out the city, state, country (and the world through ). A continual playlist of digital art plays on a multitude of screens in and around Bridgetown in the heart of the southwest. This curated playlist is a compilation of silent, general rated visual works of animation, abstract, video art, short film, motion graphics, photography or other stills. It is user generated and curated works.

Stream Dreaming welcomes the integration of moving images into building facades as a communicative element, and its effect on Urban Space.

Submissions that can explore a rich layered fabric of ephemeral experience, intimacy, void and ecological sustainability will be favoured. Interactive and immersive narratives/ stories that reflect upon experiences in natural landscapes and told through any form of digital media will be considered.

Send a short 100 word description of your project to admin@btownfilms.com

Submissions close Friday December 4th 2009

For more info visit

visit www.btownfilms.com

Movement Lab - Circuitry - Media Jam

Circuitry

2nd Annual Bridgetown Film Festival 2009

29th, 30th, 31st and 1st February

www.btownfilms.com

presents

'Circuitry'
Life, Body & Dance Ecology
(Media Art, 60mins) Directed by Marnie Orr with Justin Morrissey
A visual exploration of the way our lives follow strict routine. Bodies fill the space with light and form. A Circuit is created where energy is transferred through the landscpae. How will the audience complete a circuit?

Venue: Blackwood River park - The Bridge, Bridgetown WA

When: Saturday 31st January 2009 from 7:30pm

Background: Throughout January/February 2009, dancer/maker/designer Marnie Orr takes up a residency in partnership with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Arts (CIA Studios) in Northbridge Perth. Largely presented as a facilitated movement research laboratory the residency engages in a site-based dance mode of inquiry. The investigation focuses on the creation of transformational space and transformational beings - or open bodies – by developing the highly engaged body through visceral experience within both city architecture and natural terrain.A group of invited performers and non-performers work together within highly defined tasks and activities focusing on sense perception within the CIA Studios and moving to outdoor locations including Perth’s inner city spaces and sanctuaries, and the stunning Kalamunda National Park in Perth’s foothills. At the core of the process is the development of shared vocabularies of spoken dialogue in parallel with physicality. The laboratory employs a Bodyweather movement training structure, embracing a philosophical foundation of the walking, working body as it is experienced in place (in country).

The training period brings together performers with other individuals from either artistic (eg. visual arts) or science-based fields of practice (eg. anthropology, permaculture, naturopathy). It is envisaged that working physically with professionals from a wide range of disciplines will inform the dialogue to encompass vocabulary applicable to a much broader scope than performance and performativity.
The residency forms the final project of a research MA Professional Practice (Middlesex University, London). Marnie will employ research processes based on principles of openness, sustainability, creativity and innovation. These processes have been developed over the past three years whilst working in collaboration with Rachel Sweeney as ROCKface performance research duo, largely based in Dartmoor National Park, Devon UK. The residency will also be directly informed by the cross-cultural work of InVivo Movement Research Collective (London), a group of four artists working across four languages investigating site-based movement to develop common understandings and definitions in the English language about the relation between body and environment.

Bodyweather process is embraced through the structure of the Laboratory. The training and philosophical basis for Bodyweather was developed on a farm in Japan by Min Tanaka and his Mai Juku Dance Company beginning in the 1980’s. Bodyweather identifies the body as a tool for movement, existing in a constant state of change. Like the weather, the body holds its own climates and atmospheres. Embracing both eastern and western philosophical views, the broad-based movement training has historically been applied to performance making. One of the aims of the Laboratory is to broaden the horizon potential of applying language-building processes as embodied philosophy within the greater scheme of fields of practice. The belief is that such processes may successfully be applied to a whole range of other fields’ core training for the purpose of developing critical thinking through embodied experience in order to develop creative, innovative people. Furthermore, this process instils sustainable, manageable, maintenance through sustainability thru dev body-place relation.
This process seeks to engage both the individual and the group as an open investigation of the environments internal and external to the body. Essentially, an aim is to describe body-place relation through shared experience, regardless of discipline or culture.

Observation and feedback processes are embedded within the laboratory both internally and with others. This includes peer view & response sessions where people from outside the process are invited to observe. In this instance feedback centres on the nature of the project rather than content or individual process.

A 2-day Media Jam at the Studios brings the movement researchers into play within an audio-visual environment, bringing together artists of sound and percussion, installation and video. The aim of the Media Jam is to push the boundaries of the prior movement improvisation work into a production setting.

More info:
http://marnieorr.blogspot.com
http://orrandsweeney.blogspot.com
Bodyweather:
http://www.bodyweather.net
Bridgetown Film Fest
http://www.btownfilms.com
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Vernon Ah Kee Doco

Brisbane indigenous artist Vernon Ah Kee has been selected as one of four Australian artists to exhibit at the Venice Bienalle in June 2009. This documentary will follow Vernon as he prepares and travels to Venice.

btownfilms

CALL FOR FILM SUBMISSIONS

The 2nd Annual Bridgetown Film Festival is calling for Films of all genres to be screened late January in the scenic South West WA.

There is no entry fee, films should be entered by sending an email to admin@btownfilms.com.
We can only accept screening format on DVD.

Everyone will have the opportunity to show their film.