Check out my guest blog posts on 3things.org.au!

A couple of posts from this blog have been reposted by 3things.org.au

You can check them out here - Silk - what you don't know probably won't upset you and H'mong Bracelets and Fair Trade.

Just changing the world 3 things at a time. Actually, while I've got you here, please do me a favour and go to this site: http://www.thehungersite.com Click a button on all the pages to donate to charity - it's free. For me? Please? (it takes like... 30 seconds)

*Image from 3things.org.au

City of Sydney Cultural & Creative Sector Forum

*Image is mine from Instagram

I just thought I'd do a quick post on this. Last Wednesday I attended the City of Sydney's Cultural and Creative Sector Forum representing the Big Fag Press. I thought it was a really interesting couple of hours, and I was inspired to know how invested the council is in listening to the thoughts and ideas of people who work in creative fields, in order to see how best to help them be able to use the city as a canvas for their creative endeavours.

Furthermore, it couldn't have been a better place for networking - my table had a guy who works for the City of Sydney outdoor event management, a woman from ArtsHub, a woman from the Red Room Company, a guy who works in the youth music industry, one of the founders of the College of Event Management, and a woman from Waverley Council.

At the beginning I wasn't really sure I would have anything to contribute, but the discussion led to many things I had ideas about. Our table came up with a few collective agreements. One was that Sydney is very much a lively place in terms of art and culture. "Top down" events like Vivid Sydney, the Biennale, Chinese New Year and the NYE fireworks are very successful. We also agreed on the fact that the government does a lot to support smaller initiatives, but that maybe these efforts could be slightly better directed. In terms of "grassroots" initiatives, there was much talk on making it more accessible to individual young artists or smaller collectives wanting to just get out there and express creativity. I spoke of how, last year with my Ivory Tower posters, there was just no place to go out and put them. The dedicated City of Sydney poles for posters just get covered by advertising, and anywhere else they got ripped down. It would be so great if there was just spaces around for spontaneous public art. Places where you don't need to be a verified "emerging creative" to use. The Guerilla Photography project on Elizabeth St by Fairfax photographers was something that was brought up - but nobody really knows if doing something like that is okay. Is it considered defacing public property? If Clover Moore hadn't particularly liked those photographs installed in that place, would they have received fines for doing it?

Another thing I brought up was along the same lines - to me, at least when I'm walking around the streets instagramming things, it's the oddities, the interesting graffiti, the chic little cafes, and the funny coloured walls that get my attention. I like things that are different, and provide an alternate to a cookie cutter town of gloria jeans, lowes and perfectly arranged front gardens. A point was brought up about spaces being unused at certain times - there are many places that, for example, are in use Monday to Friday 9-5pm, but completely useless at other times. So here is where my idea comes through - why can't artists be the ones to decorate the city - to make the boring interesting. Why can't we designate it a business carpark by day and a pop-up art gallery by night? Why does a wall have to be a brick wall - getting a company building wall graffitied by local artists could attract valid attention to your business.

And thus brings up another point. About legal, OH&S, and regulatory council hoops to jump through. I remember when I was doing my Open House project in Foley St in 2010, we had a lot of forms to fill out and information to gather, like making sure people had their RSA's and everything. I know it's a lot to do with people's safety, which definitely should be put above all else. But getting through all that bureaucracy is a major hurdle for an artist or a small collective wanting to set up a guerilla pop-up gallery.

Much of our other discussion was about live music venues and making sure under drinking age teenagers also have access to entertainment, which I think is equally important.

Many of the other tables came up with similar points about reducing the "red tape" for artists and giving more opportunities to "grassroots" programs. Overall I found the forum had a very positive outcome, especially if some of these ideas are taken on by the City of Sydney. They could even have a direct impact on ARI's like the Big Fag Press, like Runway, like Firstdraft. Very exciting!

Go Green over Jellies

Most little girls have a pair of jelly shoes at some point during their childhood years.

Image from Rambling Mummy

I still have an old brown pair that I wore while gallivanting all over Europe in 2009, but I never considered them the next must-have fashion item.

Late last year, a Jelly Shoe Store called M Dreams popped up in Pitt St mall, and suddenly, jelly shoes were no longer an 80's memory best forgotten. Even Fashion Hayley had something to say.

I got mine from Juju shoes online, and they arrived in the post today. I'm super excited to be strutting around in my high heeled glitter jellies tomorrow! They're really comfortable too.

Image: mine

And that's not the end of it. Jelly shoes are made from PVC, which is extremely durable (hence why my brown ones are going on 5 years!), isn't going to upset any animal activists, weather proof, and 100% recyclable. This means if they do break, or I get tired of them, they can be put in the recycle bin along with my empty milk bottles, which means zero waste.

In fact, the Brazilian company that make Melissa Shoes actually recycle their old unsold stocks and use the plastic for the new collection! It really brings a new scope to the idea of "wearing plastic bags on your feet". Recycled Coles plastic bags could end up being jelly shoes!

Jelly shoes comes in many style, and great colours. So get green with envy over jellies!

Daddy's Little Princess

Daddy's Little Princess at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre by Linda Wilken opened a couple of weeks ago. If you remember, I first met Linda by chance at the Firstdraft Depot where she was undertaking a residency and I was working at the Big fag Press. We discovered we had some conceptual ideas in common and I interviewed her for Ivory Tower Magazine last year (page 10 in this document).

Sexualisation and objectification of young girls is a current social and political issue. This exhibition represents the way young girls in contemporary western cultures develop their identity based on popular culture and stereotyping which begins in childhood. Influenced through magazines, music videos, social media and the internet, these ‘young consumers’ are being seduced into stylising themselves on hyper-sexualised ideals.

-From the Casula Powerhouse website

Here are some photos I took of Daddy's Little Princess.

[All photos are mine of Linda Wilken's work at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre]

Life of Pi

[image from Google Images]

I had to do a post about Life of Pi. I hadn't read the book and didn't even know much about the film when I saw it - other than there was a tiger, and I'd vaguely heard that the book was amazing.

Well, I just have to commend both the author Yann Martell and the film produced for bringing me this masterpiece that had me laughing, in hysterical tears, and feeling thoroughly enlightened at the end. I'm an atheist but I loved that this little boy was so adventurous and sought knowledge of all these religions as a way of explaining his reality.

The end of the story made perfect sense to my beliefs. The two stories of his shipwreck survival was that the phatasmagorical tale which included lands he'd never seen, and a mercurial relationship with this tiger was the story he preferred, the story many preferred over the distressing version where he saw his mother die. The way I interpreted it was that god was his survival in the ocean - and he brought him this magical world to explore and this tiger that somehow kept him company, as well as alive. He prefers this story, as he prefers to believe in god because this belief is what got him through it. But he realises that perhaps reality doesn't exactly work that way.

As an atheist, this is pretty much my belief. God exists to those who believe in him, and I am glad he does, I know many people to whom god is an unrelenting power of strength. To me, god does not exist, I find my beliefs in other places like nature, science and love.

On another note, after I saw the film, I learnt from my usual googling of how well the film industry treats its animal actors, that surprisingly, many of the animal scenes were computer rendered. No endangered Bengal Tiger needed to be on set for this film - a few photographs were sufficient to computer generate the animal scenes in the entire movie. And frankly I couldn't tell, the animal scenes were so real, there wasn't a moment I thought through my tears "this poor dying tiger looks a little photoshopped". Now, I can be a master of photoshop when I need to be, but the idea of "photoshopping" for filmscreen seems like an unfathomable amount of great technology coupled with great talent.

I know The Hobbit too used some computer generated animal scenes. But I am still disappointed for those 27 animals that died due to lack of sufficient care, on a budget that could have easily guaranteed their safety and comfort.

And here is a movie all about animals with far fewer dollars to spend who managed to get it right - and still win its prizes and accolades. Very well deserved. I'm now reading the book.

Anish Kapoor

I've been wanting to do a post about Anish Kapoor's exhibition at the MCA for about a week since I went to see it. Incidentally, I did love it. From a structural point of view it is amazing, he really has an understanding of the minds of his audience, and how they interact with his work. The works I found most interesting are ones I couldn't photograph - the squares of fabric on (in?) the wall which make you doubt your own sense of 3D perception, and the solid concave structure hanging which seems to change shape as you move closer towards it and then retreat backwards. I'd love to be a gallery minder for this exhibition - it must be great watching visitors try to understand objects that trick their minds by moving their heads around in strange ways, and trying to touch physical objects that appear closer than they are.

....however, nothing beats his "Gangnam for Freedom":

[Video: Anish Kapoor]

(I confess I am a little bit obsessed with Gangnam style - especially how it's been used for advertising like this).

Anyway, although I loved the current exhibition, I always have more to say when I can think about a work conceptually rather than structurally. Last month on twitter, one of my friends retweeted a post which said, "Someone should commission Anish Kapoor to design a giant funhouse for kids". It was a little like that!

I have some of my photos from the exhibition on Instagram (louisekateanderson):

Is it there, or isn't it? #anishkapoor #mca

 I always wondered what my legs looked 

like from this angle #anishkapoor #mca 

Sky Mirror #anishkapoor #mca

[3 images are mine]

Big Fag Press Artist Residency Programme 2013

* Flier design mine

Supported by Artspace and Australia Council for the Arts, the Big Fag Press got to host an Emerging Artists' Residency for 3 weeks in January with two artists, Laura Hindmarsh and Pat Grant.

Both artists were looking at introspective notions of art work, and it was great to be able to do test printing on the Press and spend time mentoring the artists and helping them create works that really took into account the unique functioning of our machine.

Here are some images from the residency and launch.

 

 *All photos are mine

Photography from Vietnam

Hanoi

Huê

Halong Bay

Hoi An

Da Nang

Sapa and surrounds

*All photos are mine.