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Indigespace is an initiative to support the professional development and career pathways of mid-career Indigenous artists. Performance Space undertook two pilot residencies in 2011, playing host to artists Sarah-Jane Norman and Andrea James and their collaborators. In 2012, two NSW-based Indigenous artists were selected from an open call to lead a team through a three-week interdisciplinary arts residency at Carriageworks. Indigespace is underpinned by four principles: a focus on mid-career artists; collaboration; encouraging cross artform working; and a commitment to pay artists’ fees. Indigespace is part of a strategy to create stronger, sustainable connections between Indigenous artists and Performance Space’s presentation program.

Our 2012 Indigespace artists-in-residence are:

Sean Reid & Jorvyn Jones

SEETHrough

10 – 29 September 2012, Track 8 Carriageworks

First time collaborators Sean Reid (Colin Kinchela) and Jorvn Jones (Gavin Walters) are coming together to explore ideas of masculinity & transformation for Performance Space’s second Indigespace Residency for the year.  Building on ideas developed during IndigeLab at the Bundanon Trust in 2011, SEETHrough will dissect the intimacy and sensuality of masculine exchange, evoked by by the act of the shaving ritual, across Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic Australian experiences. Stay tuned for more news from the barber’s chair as this residency grows near.

Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor

Chicka’s Story: The Fox and the Freedom Fighters

28 June – 16 July 2012, Track 8 Carriageworks

While in residence with Performance Space, Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor is developing Chicka’s Story: The Fox and the Freedom Fighters, a multi-disciplinary performance exploring the life of the late political and human rights advocate Dr Charles “Chicka” Dixon.

By utilizing archival photography and interviews with Chicka’s family and friends, puppetry and animation from granddaughters Naryma & Wasana Dixon, music from daughter Nadeena Dixon, sound production from grandson Marley Dixon-Grovenor, and beat boxing from grandson Yarren Dixon, Rhonda will illustrate how Chicka’s legacy lives on in his children and grandchildren today. Rhonda invites you into her workroom to discuss the research and development of this new work.

Our 2011 Indigespace artists-in-residence were:

Andrea James

To Soothe the Dying Pillow

7 – 26 November 2011, Track 8 Carriageworks

During the heady days of Australia’s ‘nation building’, government authorities and church leaders were ‘protecting’ Aborigines from the ravages of colonization. Fuelled by Christian goodwill and Darwinian notions of the ‘survival of the fittest’, it was assumed that Aboriginal people were a dying race.  Our ‘protectors’ in fact were not protecting us; they were helping us to ‘die out’.  They weren’t asking themselves “What can we do to help these people survive and prosper?” They were instead, charged with the task to ‘soothe the pillow of a dying race.’ To Soothe the Dying Pillow is multi-disciplinary contemporary Aboriginal performance event by Andrea James and collaborators based on this premise, with installation by Bindi Cole.

Sarah-Jane Norman

Unsettling Suite – A cycle of performance works

15 August – 3 September 2011, Track 8 Carriageworks

From the perspective of a 20th century Australian of mixed British and Aboriginal descent, Sarah-Jane Norman considers the complex legacy of colonialism as an embodied phenomena.  A three way dialogue between body, material, and history, Unsettling Suite is a cycle of performance works, each centered around a material focus on one of seven household substances: flour, sugar, wool, tea, meat, cotton and milk. Norman seeks a vocabulary for articulating her own experience as a descendent of both coloniser and colonised. The artist considers what it means to be “mixed”: how does the so-called “half-caste” continue to destabilize the assumptions of the dominant culture?

Indigespace is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW. Performance Space is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body; the New South Wales Government through Arts NSW; and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.