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public programs

public programs

Firstdraft Public Programs run alongside the application-based exhibition program and are focused on critical discourse, performance and collaboration. Consisting of a program of live art and events that engage with critical ideas around creative practice, Firstdraft’s public programs augment the exhibition program and allow the organisation to generate and support innovative cultural practice. A diverse mix of curators, artists, writers, and performers are engaged annually.

Firstdraft has also supported other innovative artist-led initiatives, such as Serial Space and Peloton, with space and funding to realise their own programs after they closed their doors and will continue to support and encourage other leading artist-led initiatives.

Extending across art forms and with a focus on diversity, Firstdraft’s Public Programs engage and support experimental practice and practitioners and work to foster a vibrant arts community and discourse.

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proposals

firstdraft is now taking proposals for our exhibition and curatorial programs.

In this round of applications we will be programming for the July 2015 – February 2016 exhibition calendar. The following proposal guidelines (including gallery floorplans) formulated to clarify the proposal process to potential applicants. Please ensure that you read the proposal guidelines prior to submitting your
application.

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firstdraft Thank You & Farewell to the 2013-14 Firstdraft Directorate

Thank You & Farewell to the 2013-14 Firstdraft Directorate

Posted on: February 16th, 2015 by firstdraftadmin No Comments

  • Thank You & Farewell to the 2013-14 Firstdraft Directorate

    The 2014-15 Firstdraft Directorate would like to acknowledge the hard work, dedication and passion of the outgoing Directorate of 2013-14 – Wilna Fourie, Andrew Moran, Vaughan O’Connor and JD Reforma.

    It is fitting that we thank and farewell this exceptional group with our first News post of our new website, given the firsts that our shared year (2014) saw. 2013-2014 will be remembered as a period of dramatic change for Firstdraft. We were able to offer rent-free shows to artists for the first time, thanks to the tireless efforts of our Grants Committee, Vaughan O’Connor and Wilna Fourie from the 2013-14 Board.

    We moved from our Chalmers St home of 19 years to build a new gallery space in the Firstdraft Depot on Riley St. The new galleries boast four distinct spaces, two studio spaces, a new office facility and a large outdoor courtyard. The relocation and renovation was a huge undertaking, with directors playing a hands-on (and at times very dirty!) role in the creation of our new space. Although this was a group effort, particular acknowledgement must be given to Andrew and Vaughan for their knowledge, perseverance and patience with those of us lesser handy-men and women. Both were incredibly generous with their time and knowledge, and together were responsible for much of the design and execution of the space you see today.

    2014 also saw the conception, design and content generation for this website. We hoped to deliver a website that was image-led, easy-to-navigate and a point of access for artists, curators, writers and audiences across Australia and internationally. In seeing this vision come to fruition, we must acknowledge the inimitable JD, who went above and beyond the call of duty. His sharp eye, strong aesthetic sense and unwavering commitment were the (sometimes sole) driving force behind the product you are using right now! In his role as Media Liaison, JD also worked tirelessly to build Firstdraft’s profile and strengthen our communications, creating a strong and successful following across a number of platforms.

    Our new space also saw a re-commitment to dynamic critical thinking and one-off events. In driving the regeneration of the Firstdraft Writers Program, launched at last year’s Writers Forum, Wilna was pivotal. Her passion for text, critical discussion and forums to bring these things to life has ensured a strong legacy of these public programs at the gallery. Wilna was also responsible for building our volunteer program into a thriving and sustainable community, with numbers and retention at an all-time high at the time of her departure.

    2014 was successful in many ways. Our fundraising auction was the best to date, largely thanks to the efforts of directors in reaching out to artists, promoting to wide networks and hanging a beautiful show. 2014 was led by the tireless Andrew, supported by the whole team. Our program was strengthened by an increased volume of applications and the improved facilities. The new spaces afford us increased opportunity to program sound work and other mediums. The outgoing board played a major role in shaping and supporting this diverse and exciting program, setting a high benchmark for us going forward.

    Wilna, Andrew, Vaughan and JD together ushered in this new era for Firstdraft, which looks both back on our almost 30 year history and forward to a long and bright future. We could not have hoped for a better group to guide us in our first year. We’ll miss your passion, humour, energy, and most of all your dancing.

    Firstdraft’s back, alright!

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michaela davies 04.03.2015 – 27.03.2015

YAWNING ROOM

Yawning Room is a participatory audio/video installation aiming to induce involuntary yawning responses in the viewer upon exposure to the work, thus contributing, in real time, to the environment created by the multiple yawners in the installation.

The work comprises three channel video, projecting six subjects at a time, accompanied by a six channel audio track. The 23 subjects in Yawning Room were filmed as they watched videos of people yawning, and, in turn, provide yawning stimuli for the viewer. The accompanying six channel composition was created from dry and processed recordings of yawns.

Yawning Room is a continuation of Davies’ interest in using involuntary mechanisms of the body as a tool for composition, and participatory art as performative research. An experiment in the induction of involuntary audience participation, the viewer creates an additional layer to the installation.

While the causes of contagious yawning are still unknown, the relationship between yawn contagion and empathy is strongly supported. The hypothesised behavioural response in the viewer is an embodied realization of connectedness- a shared moment of art viewing lassitude.

biography

Michaela is a cross-disciplinary artist whose practice is informed by an interest in the role of psychological and physical agency in creative processes and performance. Her recent work has used electric muscle stimulation to both obstruct and extend human capabilities through the elicitation of involuntary movement in performers.

 

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anna pogossova 04.03.2015 – 27.03.2015

XV

XV features a new body of photomedia work, by Anna Pogossova, which charts the logic of imaginary environments, across science fiction, computer gaming, and Renaissance art, via digital composites of real-life studio sets and computer-generated imagery.

Anna’s practice is concerned with the experience of familiarity in fictional imagery. It explores the way cultural references can validate belief, trigger interpretations, and habituated ways of seeing.

The exhibition observes this phenomenon throughout the invention and reading of images, and universally shared narratives of the otherworldly and unreal.

biography

Anna Pogossova is a Moscow born, Sydney based photomedia artist, who primarily works with still life. Since graduating from College of Fine Arts with a BFA (Hons) Degree in 2007, she has exhibited as part of Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award in 2011, was the recipient of the Illford Photography Prize in 2005, as well as the Lucy Aspinall Photography Prize in 2007, and a finalist in the Head On Portrait Prize of the same year.

Instagram #fdannapogossova

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curated by consuelo cavaniglia 03.03.2015 – 27.03.2015

chromatic syncopation

With:

Rebecca Baumann, Ross Manning and Reko Rennie

Whirring of fans, rotation of mechanised signs, repetition of patterns – the work of Rebecca Baumann, Ross Manning and Reko Rennie shares an attitude towards mechanisation and the processes of reproduction. Their works prioritise colour and make distinctive use of it in considerations on the state of contemporary life. This exhibition brings together their works for the first time to explore points of connection and departure in a series of installation and wall-based works.

biographies

REKO RENNIE (VIC)

Reko Rennie is an interdisciplinary artist who explores his Aboriginal identity through contemporary mediums. Rennie’s art incorporates his association to the Kamilaroi people, using traditional geometric patterning that represents his community. Through his art, Rennie provokes discussion surrounding Indigenous culture and identity in contemporary urban environments.

REBECCA BAUMANN (WA)

Rebecca Baumann is an interdisciplinary artist working predominantly in kinetic sculpture and installation. Through a formal and conceptual exploration of materials, Baumann’s recent works have critically interrogated ideas of colour, happiness, and emotion. Often kinetic and ephemeral in nature, her works seek to affect the audience through their experiential, momentary and emotive qualities.

ROSS MANNING (QLD)

Ross Manning is an interdisciplinary artist working with installation, technology, kinetics and sound. Ross creates phenomenological works using old and new technology combined with common, ubiquitous objects from everyday life. Reinterpreted and disconnected from the objects’ intended use, these works operate in a semi-autonomous state of logic that investigates the materials themselves with an experimental agenda.

CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA (NSW)

Working across mediums Consuelo Cavaniglia develops installation and wall-based works that focus on how we look at and understand the spaces we inhabit. Her practice is flanked by independent curatorial projects often developed outside of traditional exhibition venues.

This exhibition has been supported through the Firstdraft Emerging Curators Program.

Instagram #fdchromaticsyncopation

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siân mcintyre 04.02.2015 – 27.02.2015

circular settlements

Circular Settlements represents the output of a three year research project spanning across Australia and Scotland.

An installation incorporating sound, turf, video and print, Circular Settlements reflects on dislocation and loss. In each medium a range of actions typically associated with the claiming of cultures or sites is repeated. These actions are attempts to access a connection to place by referencing colonial land clearing, cultural appropriation and performance. The result is a collection of surreal and at times humorous attempts to claim place and culture, creating an awkward space of displacement and vulnerability.

(Title Circular Settlements is borrowed from Isobel Parker Phillip’s review of Exile’s Lament for The Art Life)

 

biography

Siân McIntyre is a Sydney based artist and curator and a current Masters candidate and APA recipient at UNSW Art and Design. In 2013 she undertook a practicum exchange placement at Glasgow School of Arts and completed a residency in Olofström Sweden. Siân has exhibited in Sydney, New York, Glasgow, San Francisco, Sweden and is currently working on a creative project in Darwin. Her practice is influenced by intermittent work at Papunya Tjupi Arts, NT as a casual art consultant over the past 7 years. Siân was one of four founding Directors of The Paper Mill and is currently the curator/manager at Verge Gallery Sydney.

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alex pye 04.02.2015 – 27.02.2015

cumnock: the musical!

Times are tough in Cumnock.

Unemployment is high, the cafe’s closed up, you can’t drink the tap water, there was no rugby team this year and the population is in flux. From December onwards the heat causes the oldies to drop like flies, and the youngsters either try and find some farm work or leave for the mines. It’s quiet enough out here so you either make your own fun or bloody die of boredom.

For this exhibition I am using sculpture, found object and video to reflect the social issues that I have experienced from living in a rural backwater for three years.

 

biography

Alex lives alone in a farming village in regional NSW where she bases her studio practice from the shed in her backyard. Since relocating to the bush she has enjoyed drinking rum and coke and shooting her father’s guns. Basing her work in performance, video, sculpture and found objects, she is a current MFA candidate at Sydney College of the arts and is a self described ‘Sick cunt’.

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laura moore 04.02.2015 – 27.02.2015

framed

‘Framed’ examines the nature of photography itself, experimenting with the capacity of the photographic portrait to represent complex meanings about identity.

I built glass cubicles in varying sizes then asked artists to become subjects themselves. Presenting the glass cubicle as the physical incarnation of the final image, I asked the subjects to pose nude inside the cubicle. The constructed space of the glass cubicles represented what the final image would be while exposing the normally hidden exploitative element in the relationship between artist and subject. The final image is the life-size print of that constructed space, holding and confining the exposed subject. Through printing the portraits life-size, the viewer is confronted with a life-size body easily relatable and comparable to their own. Exaggerating the constructed and exploitative capacity of the photographic portrait, this work asks us to recognise the voyeuristic desires and scrutinizing gaze that the photographic portrait invites.

 

biography

Laura Moore is an emerging artist based is Sydney. A recent graduate of Sydney College of the Arts, her work examines the nature of photography itself, experimenting with the capacity of the photographic portrait to represent complex meanings about identity and human relationships. Often inspired and informed by her everyday life, observations and memory, Moore’s work actively inviting speculation and projection.

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christopher handran artist talks 26.02.2015

aqueous humour

The exhibition Aqueous Humour engages with the experiential logics of immersion, sensation and spectacle, to create a playfully contemplative space.

The works in the exhibition continue an exploration of the mediation of lived experience, and the losses and gains that are incurred in this process of translation.

The exhibition features video works centred around ideas of immersion, submersion and quotidian experience, presented via viewing devices constructed using everyday materials and a diy methodology. These devices relate to both contemporary and historical technologies of vision, including 3D cinema, virtual reality, scientific devices and ‘philosophical toys’ such as the kaleidoscope, the zoetrope and anamorphic mirrors. The works both subvert and are informed by the intertwined histories of art, cinema, and the sciences of illusion and perception.

These technologies are foregrounded in the work, both as objects and as mediators and generators of experience. This involves constructing devices and modifications that literally intervene in the workings of these media, dividing the spectator’s attention between the object and its operations.  By foregrounding the mediating apparatus in the spectator’s experience, the works seek to create a spectacle that playfully subverts its own spectacular nature.

 

biography

Christopher Handran has exhibited widely nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at Blindside (Melbourne), Feltspace (Adelaide), SkulpturenMuseum Glaskasten Marl (Germany) and The Block (Brisbane). In 2007 he was awarded the Australia Council London Studio, and in 2015 will undertake a residency at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles.

 

Image credit: Zan Wimberley

Instagram #fdaqueoushumour