Zoë Bastin, Waves are disturbances 2019, 20min performance and essay | Courtesy the artist.

Sara Retallick, Inland Island 2019 | Courtesy the artist.

Moorina Bonnini, 2018 | Courtesy the artist.

BLINDSIDE Regional Art + Research Residency Program 2018

BLINDSIDE REGIONAL ART + RESEARCH RESIDENCIES 2018 | FINDINGS

Thursday 5 September
6pm – 8pm

VENUE | MISSING PERSONS | 411-12 Nicholas Building

Late in 2018, Zoë Bastin, Moorina Bonini and Sara Retallick undertook self-directed residencies in Victoria. We invite you to join the artists as they perform, discuss and reflect aspects of their individual research findings.

The BLINDSIDE REGIONAL ARTS RESIDENCY PROGRAM is supported by the City of Melbourne, Creative Victoria.

Moorina Bonini | Zoë Bastin | Sara Retallick

Waves are disturbances | Zoë Bastin

Waves are disturbances under the surface. We only notice them when they break.

Travelling along the East Coast of Victoria my BLINDSIDE regional residency was spent writing and looking at waves. Through reflections on past relationships, researching the movement of the ocean Waves are disturbances is an essay and a solo dance work exploring the politics of consent. It thinks through how bodies come together, how they touch, how the begin to be in relation. My residency aimed to transform my movements by going beyond the built environment - it began with a simple premise, how do we move when we don’t dance in rooms? Using waves as a metaphor for different scenarios of consent making, Waves are disturbances queers the politics of consent making, dissecting what happens between language and action.

Country

1. a state or nation:

What European countries have you visited?

2. The territory of a nation.

My ancestral lands. | Moorina Bonini

This project will examine and juxtapose western ideologies around ‘land’ and ‘country’ against Yorta Yorta traditional custom.

Inland Island | Sara Retallick

Inland Island is an investigation into land, water and culture. Focussed on Ulupna Island on Yorta Yorta Country in Victoria’s North, this research residency will observe the environment and ways that recreational activities impact on the sonic and visual landscape. By drawing connections between this inland island and my own retrospective experience of social and environmental isolation when growing up in this area in the 1990’s, the research will seek to find ways to unpack disconnections to land that colonial descendants may hold.

Sound and memory intersect to present a mediated version of an experience, of a place, of a time. For this public program, Sara Retallick presents an internal sound walk. The walk happens in sound alone. Searching for connections to place, history and identity while re-arranging time and the locality of sound – Retallick’s composition is made from materials collected during the research residency on Yorta Yorta country at Ulupna Island in December 2018.

Zoë Bastin is an artist and curator living in Narrm (Melbourne). Bastin works in-between sculpture and dance creating choreography, objects, videos, photos and performances. Exploring the materiality of bodies and objects, her practice re-imagines her body and its connection to spatial, material and social contexts. Sculpture approximates the body through material while dance re-creates experiences using the body itself. Her recent project choreographic project Volition tries to unlearn movements, through structured improvisation, inherited from dance training to find the body anew.

Currently undertaking her PhD at RMIT University, Bastin researches the materiality of bodies and objects to understand ontology.Bastin has previously exhibited and performed at The Substation, Paradise Hills Gallery, Wyndham City Council, Seventh Gallery, MADA staff Gallery at Monash University, Testing Grounds, School of Art Gallery RMIT University, Tinning St Presents, c3 Gallery and BLINDSIDE Art Space.

Moorina Bonini is a proud Yorta Yorta woman and member of the Dhulunyagen family clan of Ulupna and member of the Briggs family. Moorina is a practicing artist whose works are inspired by her own experiences as an Aboriginal and Italian woman and within her practice creates artwork that examines contemporary Indigenous histories through the use of installation and video.

Sara Retallick is an artist based in Naarm (Melbourne), Victoria. Her practice explores listening and human perception of sound and time in different listening situations. Integrating sound, video and installation, her practice utlises fieldwork, collaboration and expanded listening to explore cultural and historical contexts of place.

Retallick has exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries like Bus Projects in Melbourne, UNSW Gallery in Sydney and at the nomadic International Symposium of Electronic Art 2018 in Durban, South Africa. She was awarded the Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship in 2017, and her work has been financially supported by Creative Victoria, NAVA and Arts Victoria.

IMAGE | Zoë Bastin, Waves are disturbances 2019, 20min performance and essay | Moorina Bonini, 2018 | Sara Retallick, Water Ways, archival pigment print, 45.5 X 30.5cm | Courtesy the artists.