Performing Democracies is a curatorial, performance and discussion series. The series explores the ways that power and relations are performed through the fabric of bodies, the built world and landscape, and the systems that structure our space and time. Between the poetic and political, the artistic and philosophical, the playful and engaged. From criticism to critique to criticality ; from finding fault, to examining the underlying assumptions that might allow something to appear, to operating with focus from an uncertain ground…
From Thursday 15th October to Friday 6th November Performing Democracies with the Site and Situation group will transform the Ivan Dougherty Gallery at UNSW Art & Design into a Curatorium.
Programme of events
Thursday 15th October, 11.30-1pm Guest presentation, Eva Rodriguez Riestra, Public Art Program Manager, City of Sydney.
Thursday 22nd October, 11.30-1pm Guest presentation/workshop with artist Kelly Doley.
Thursday 22nd October, 2-5pm Performance workshop.
Performing Democracies culminates in an exciting gallery and site-specific event, produced with Site and Situation, on Friday 6th November:
Embassy for Water: Paddington Reservoir, 7.30-9pm 251-255 Oxford Street
& Ivan Dougherty Gallery, UNSW Art & Design, 6-8pm Cnr Oxford St and Greens Rd, Paddington
Embassy for Water: Paddington Reservoir, 251-255 Oxford Street
& Ivan Dougherty Gallery, UNSW Art & Design, Cnr Oxford St and Greens Rd
Friday 6th November
City of Sydney’s iconic former Reservoir becomes the latest iteration of Embassy for Water, the first embassy for a shared global entity, beyond the nation state. This collaborative conceptual art project appropriates the embassy model and transforms its function. The project was founded in 2012 by artist James Geurts as a collaboration with artist and curator Julie Louise Bacon.
The term embassy was first given to a group of people representing territorial interests. In the modern era the embassy network became a global bureaucratic and political infrastructure reinforcing the concept of nation. In contrast, Embassy for Water does not observe boundaries, instead like water the project emphasizes movement, porosities and connectivity. Here the varied presence and symbolism of water become a space for exploring aesthetic and social interests. To date, Embassy has resulted in residencies and events in the Middle East, Australia, Canada and Europe, where it formed part of the core programme that saw the Dutch city Leeuwarden named European Capital of Culture 2018.
From 7.30-9pm Embassy at the Reservoir will feature a video installation of work by artists from Australia and overseas, including Geurts, Ynin Shillo, Craig Walsh, David Bowen, Nevile Gabie, Taegon Kim and Josh Wodak. From 6-8pm at UNSW’s Ivan Dougherty Gallery, just 5 minutes walk along Oxford St, Embassy will feature Alternative Futures, Past and Present by Kelly Doley. This is a participatory performance from an ongoing series that invites us to think about the shape of the future, including our vision of water. Also in the Gallery, is Bacon’s Water Archive and The Swing, a kinetic sculpture by Bruce Mowson that invites audience members to experiment with the relationship of forces between their body and water.
Free, all welcome.
The event is part of First Fridays.https://www.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/unsw-galleries/first-friday-over-view
http://www.embassyforwater.com
info@embassyforwater.com
SITE & SITUATION 