Here’s an exciting broadcast to keep your art-loving heart warm through the cold days of winter. ‘Sydney Contemporary’ 2022 is just around the corner with Spring in its step. The program is rolling out, tickets are on sale, and children under 12 are free.
Staged at Carriageworks, and in its sixth iteration, ‘Sydney Contemporary’ will host over 90 leading galleries from Australia and New Zealand who will be presenting a wide range of artworks by more than 450 local and international artists, emerging to established, from 35 countries.
The Performance Contemporary and Kid Contemporary programs have been revealed. Curated by Performance Space’s Artistic Director, Jeff Khan with Artistic Advisor, Samantha Watson-Wood, Performance Contemporary shines the festival lights on interdisciplinary artists Salote Tawale, WeiZen Ho, Rakini Devi and Alli Sebastian Wolf whose performance-based works will bring themes of ritual, celebration, environment, and identity to the Fair across a series of activations scheduled for Opening Night, Thursday 8 September, Friday Night Art Night, 9 September, and flowing into the weekend.
Performance Space General Manager and Acting CEO, Vanessa Lloyd says, “The arts have a rich history of experimental performance in gallery spaces, which are a breeding ground for some of our most exciting interdisciplinary artists. For almost forty years, Performance Space has been a crucible for risk-taking artists, and our 2022 Performance Contemporary program reflects this, bringing a carefully crafted line-up of some of the region’s most dynamic artists working at the intersection of a range of forms and spaces. We are excited to share it with visitors across a huge four days of programming in September.”
Rakini Devi’s Reliquary Body, is an installation that portrays the artist’s body as a receptacle of sacred essence – inspired by European Marian traditions, the cult of saints and relics in Byzantium, the Medieval West, and the Islamic East. WeiZen Ho’s performative practice uses phonic-vocals and movement as an expressive form of media. In Ho’s first performance of a new ‘lifework’ series entitled The Stories from the Body #1, the artist will ‘attempt to retrace disrupted lineages, as a result of migration from the South Fujian Province of China to Java, Singapore, and Malaysia.’
Working across visual art, performance, costume, drag, playwriting, film, and theatre artist Alli Sebastian Wolf and their collective Deep Sea Astronauts will be playfully roaming the Fair under the disguise of wildly imagined hybrid creatures on Friday Night Art Night, 9 September. Fijian-Australian artist Salote Tawale’s one-off performance will draw audiences into the realms of an awkward celebration. The work originates from Tawale’s ongoing series of expanded self-portraiture and will be presented through performance, live feed video, and interventions in spaces throughout Sydney Contemporary.
In the kid’s zone Venezuelan/Australian emerging artist Nadia Hernández will engage young creators in the art of making a mobile, which will be based on healthy food using handcrafted paper cut-outs, stencils, crayons, textas, and pencils, in her workshop ‘It’s time for sancocho!’
“Sancocho is like a soup/stew/hearty broth, typical to many Latin American countries. We make it back home in Venezuela. It is so delicious and healthy, and we usually eat it on a Sunday. The stew has a lot of ingredients, including various meats, vegetables, and tubers,” Hernández explains. Through her artistic practice Hernández explores connection to sense of place reaching beyond psychic and geographic boundaries to present more complex narratives of the personal and political.
Sydney Contemporary is gearing up to deliver a spectacular program of curated exhibitions, jaw-dropping large-scale installations, energetic performance works, fun art for kids, timely conversations and panel discussions, artist studio tours, and an array of other art-inspired events at Carriageworks and in spaces across the city, that is sure to capture the interest of art lovers, collectors, and the curious across all ages. Mark it on your calendar for 8 to 11 September.
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