Were not dead yet symposium
The We're not dead yet Symposium explored a gap in dialogue around older women artists and intergenerational exchange facilitating a national exploration of gender and age dynamics within contemporary art practices. The symposium was held on Saturday 6 February 2016 at Notre Dame University in Fremantle, WA.
Facilitated by Frances Barrett, the symposium consisted of presentations by Megan Monte and Polixeni Papapetrou, a discussion with the curator, Anna Louise Richardson and a panel discussion with Dunja Rmandic, Jo Pollitt, Valerie Sparks, Megan Monte and Polixeni Papapetrou.
The symposium was followed by a High Tea in the Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery amongst the exhibition.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE RECORDING
Facilitated by Frances Barrett, the symposium consisted of presentations by Megan Monte and Polixeni Papapetrou, a discussion with the curator, Anna Louise Richardson and a panel discussion with Dunja Rmandic, Jo Pollitt, Valerie Sparks, Megan Monte and Polixeni Papapetrou.
The symposium was followed by a High Tea in the Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery amongst the exhibition.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE RECORDING
POLIXENI PAPAPETROU
Polixeni Papapetrou is a photographic artist who explores the relationship between history, contemporary culture, identity and being. Her subject matter has included Elvis Presley fans, Marilyn Monroe impersonators, circus performers and body builders. Since 2002 Papapetrou has been exploring the cultural positioning of childhood. Creating images that feature her children, transformed with masks and costumes and set against both real and imagined backdrops, the characters in her images inhabit other times and places. By focusing on the theatricality and face of childhood, she explores an unconscious realm between the real and the imaginary, archetype and free play, child and adult and photography’s capacity to bridge truth and fiction. Papapetrou has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria and photographic awards. Her work has featured in over 50 solo exhibitions, and over 90 group exhibitions in Australia, the United States, Asia and Europe. Recent survey exhibitions were held at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne and the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney She has exhibited in major international photography festivals including ‘Dong Gang International Photo Festival’, Korea 2014; ‘Fotografica Bogota’, Colombia (2013); ‘Photofestival Noorderlicht’, The Netherlands (2012); ‘3rd Biennale Photoquai’, Le musée du quai Branly, Paris (2011); ‘The Month of Photography’, Bratislava (2010); Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, Shanxi, China (2010); ‘Athens Festival of Photography’, Athens (2010); Fotofreo, Fremantle Festival of Photography, Perth (2008); ‘Seoul International Photography Festival’, Seoul (2008); ‘Le Mois de la Photo’, Montreal (2005). Her work is held in institutional, corporate and private collections in Australia and internationally.
MEGAN MONTE
Megan Monte is a curator based in Sydney. She holds a Bachelor Visual Arts from SCA, Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education from UNE and Masters in Arts Administration from UNSW Art & Design. Her curatorial approach is engagement driven, she is interested in artistic process and creating new experiences. Megan is the Curator Contemporary Art at Campbelltown Arts Centre and some of her recent projects at the centre include Winter Wonderland (June 2015), co-curated with Zanny Begg, Strangers: A Retrospective of Joan Brassil (June 2015), The List (August 2014) and Transforma (2014) with Michel Tuffery, a collaborative project with C3West, MCA. In 2015, she attended the Venice Biennale Vernissage as the NSW Emerging Curator with Auatralia Council for the Arts. Megan is currently working on a major new commission project called Video Video in 2016.
FRANCES BARRETT
Frances Barrett is an artist, curator, and broadcaster whose work takes the form of live actions, collaborative projects, and curatorial projects. Her practice is informed by queer and feminist methodologies and the histories of performance art practice. She is currently Curator of Contemporary Performance at Campbelltown Arts Centre, host of FBI Radio arts show, Canvas, and member of art collaboration, Brown Council (with Kate Blackmore, Kelly Doley and Diana Smith).
DUNJA RMANDIC
Dunja Rmandić is a curator, currently working as the Associate Curator Projects at Art Gallery of Western Australia. She has worked in public and private galleries, most recently as Curator of Collections at Devonport Regional Gallery in Tasmania .and has been on the board of Kings Artist-Run Initiative in Melbourne.
VALERIE SPARKS
Valerie Sparks is a Melbourne based photo-media artist. In 2015 she completed a Masters of Fine Art at Monash University. She also has a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Anthropology and Pacific Studies, Honours in Anthropology, and a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Drawing. Valerie has undertaken number of self organised research projects in a variety of locations including; the Vienna and La Rochelle Natural History Museums, the Musueè du Papier Peint in Rixheim, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Whitworth Gallery of Art, the Royal Institute of British Architects. Valerie has exhibited extensively both in Australia and overseas. She been the recipient of an Australia Council Residency in London, a French Embassy Cite International des Arts Residency in Paris, Australia Council New Work funding, Art Victoria International Program funding. Valerie has been a finalist in a number of awards including Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, Hutchins Art Prize, the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award and the Bowness Photography Prize. Her work is held in a number of private and institutional collections. Valerie is currently working on a commission for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and is about to commence working with the CSIRO on a 3D scanning project. Valerie Sparks is Represented by this is no fantasy + Dianne Tanzer Gallery.
JO POLLITT
Jo Pollitt is a choreographer and writer whose practice is grounded in performance improvisation and creative arts research. As the director of the response project - initiated in 2000, Jo works with dancers/ performers as authorities in revealing traces of lived experience and physical imagination. Jo holds an MA in Creative Arts and has worked with various companies and artists including Tasdance, STRUT, Chrissie Parrott, Jennifer Monson (Sydney, Melbourne, New York) and Rosalind Crisp (Perth, Berlin, Sydney). Jo was Co-director of the 1999 Hobart Fringe Festival and the 1998 Tasmanian Poetry and Dance Festival, and an active Artrage board member. She has created work by commission for PICA, LINK dance company and KATH - The Sydney Opera House. She has been published in journals and magazines, teaches workshops on writing for dancers, and written several dance scripts. Jo lectures at WAAPA, works as a dramaturg and mentor, fronts the writing/dancing project co-works.co with Paea Leach, and is the co-Creative Director of BIG Kids Magazine and the Mother Artist Network with Sydney based visual artist Lilly Blue. 2016 sees her in the thick of her PhD– “Attention, Momentum and Compression: A danced document of embodied fiction”.
Polixeni Papapetrou is a photographic artist who explores the relationship between history, contemporary culture, identity and being. Her subject matter has included Elvis Presley fans, Marilyn Monroe impersonators, circus performers and body builders. Since 2002 Papapetrou has been exploring the cultural positioning of childhood. Creating images that feature her children, transformed with masks and costumes and set against both real and imagined backdrops, the characters in her images inhabit other times and places. By focusing on the theatricality and face of childhood, she explores an unconscious realm between the real and the imaginary, archetype and free play, child and adult and photography’s capacity to bridge truth and fiction. Papapetrou has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Victoria and photographic awards. Her work has featured in over 50 solo exhibitions, and over 90 group exhibitions in Australia, the United States, Asia and Europe. Recent survey exhibitions were held at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne and the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney She has exhibited in major international photography festivals including ‘Dong Gang International Photo Festival’, Korea 2014; ‘Fotografica Bogota’, Colombia (2013); ‘Photofestival Noorderlicht’, The Netherlands (2012); ‘3rd Biennale Photoquai’, Le musée du quai Branly, Paris (2011); ‘The Month of Photography’, Bratislava (2010); Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, Shanxi, China (2010); ‘Athens Festival of Photography’, Athens (2010); Fotofreo, Fremantle Festival of Photography, Perth (2008); ‘Seoul International Photography Festival’, Seoul (2008); ‘Le Mois de la Photo’, Montreal (2005). Her work is held in institutional, corporate and private collections in Australia and internationally.
MEGAN MONTE
Megan Monte is a curator based in Sydney. She holds a Bachelor Visual Arts from SCA, Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education from UNE and Masters in Arts Administration from UNSW Art & Design. Her curatorial approach is engagement driven, she is interested in artistic process and creating new experiences. Megan is the Curator Contemporary Art at Campbelltown Arts Centre and some of her recent projects at the centre include Winter Wonderland (June 2015), co-curated with Zanny Begg, Strangers: A Retrospective of Joan Brassil (June 2015), The List (August 2014) and Transforma (2014) with Michel Tuffery, a collaborative project with C3West, MCA. In 2015, she attended the Venice Biennale Vernissage as the NSW Emerging Curator with Auatralia Council for the Arts. Megan is currently working on a major new commission project called Video Video in 2016.
FRANCES BARRETT
Frances Barrett is an artist, curator, and broadcaster whose work takes the form of live actions, collaborative projects, and curatorial projects. Her practice is informed by queer and feminist methodologies and the histories of performance art practice. She is currently Curator of Contemporary Performance at Campbelltown Arts Centre, host of FBI Radio arts show, Canvas, and member of art collaboration, Brown Council (with Kate Blackmore, Kelly Doley and Diana Smith).
DUNJA RMANDIC
Dunja Rmandić is a curator, currently working as the Associate Curator Projects at Art Gallery of Western Australia. She has worked in public and private galleries, most recently as Curator of Collections at Devonport Regional Gallery in Tasmania .and has been on the board of Kings Artist-Run Initiative in Melbourne.
VALERIE SPARKS
Valerie Sparks is a Melbourne based photo-media artist. In 2015 she completed a Masters of Fine Art at Monash University. She also has a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Anthropology and Pacific Studies, Honours in Anthropology, and a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Drawing. Valerie has undertaken number of self organised research projects in a variety of locations including; the Vienna and La Rochelle Natural History Museums, the Musueè du Papier Peint in Rixheim, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Whitworth Gallery of Art, the Royal Institute of British Architects. Valerie has exhibited extensively both in Australia and overseas. She been the recipient of an Australia Council Residency in London, a French Embassy Cite International des Arts Residency in Paris, Australia Council New Work funding, Art Victoria International Program funding. Valerie has been a finalist in a number of awards including Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, Hutchins Art Prize, the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award and the Bowness Photography Prize. Her work is held in a number of private and institutional collections. Valerie is currently working on a commission for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and is about to commence working with the CSIRO on a 3D scanning project. Valerie Sparks is Represented by this is no fantasy + Dianne Tanzer Gallery.
JO POLLITT
Jo Pollitt is a choreographer and writer whose practice is grounded in performance improvisation and creative arts research. As the director of the response project - initiated in 2000, Jo works with dancers/ performers as authorities in revealing traces of lived experience and physical imagination. Jo holds an MA in Creative Arts and has worked with various companies and artists including Tasdance, STRUT, Chrissie Parrott, Jennifer Monson (Sydney, Melbourne, New York) and Rosalind Crisp (Perth, Berlin, Sydney). Jo was Co-director of the 1999 Hobart Fringe Festival and the 1998 Tasmanian Poetry and Dance Festival, and an active Artrage board member. She has created work by commission for PICA, LINK dance company and KATH - The Sydney Opera House. She has been published in journals and magazines, teaches workshops on writing for dancers, and written several dance scripts. Jo lectures at WAAPA, works as a dramaturg and mentor, fronts the writing/dancing project co-works.co with Paea Leach, and is the co-Creative Director of BIG Kids Magazine and the Mother Artist Network with Sydney based visual artist Lilly Blue. 2016 sees her in the thick of her PhD– “Attention, Momentum and Compression: A danced document of embodied fiction”.