ANTICIPATION IS HALF OF THE SEDUCTION

BLINDSIDE 2018 EMERGING CURATOR MENTORSHIP

Helen Grogan, Christopher Boots, Shannon May Powell, Honey Long, Prue Stent, Kathleen Campone, Isabella Whāwhai Waru.

Anticipation is Half of the Seduction is an exhibition that considers the heightened states of being that exist between sites of release and resistance. Whether it be found in the tension between consenting bodies or the impact of colliding objects, the dynamic movement that exists between the attraction and repulsion of energy is everywhere. Considered through artworks that both document and demonstrate through choreography, photography, sculpture and light, Anticipation is Half of the Seduction examines the uncontrollable forces of our emotions and nature.

Anticipation is Half of the Seduction

Pleasure isn’t a wasteful frivolous distraction. Pleasure is enjoyment. Pleasure is political. Pleasure is health. Pleasure is resistance.

Our bodies moving through time and space is fundamentally sensual, this world is full of sensual delights. We perceive the world through our senses, even if we often forget we have a body, and are stuck in the most northern compartment of our bodies, whirling through a list of things to do to prove our productivity.

So if we can cultivate more pleasure, by experiencing more pleasure, which lubricates our lives with more pleasure, how do we actually experience more pleasure? Pleasure isn’t just sex, penetration, shared with someone else, or orgasm. Pleasure isn’t created in a vacuum, provided on demand, orgasms served by others with expectations with instant gratification, or disappointment.

No, it’s a forever slow dance of anticipation, seduction, waves, and tension generated by ourselves for ourselves. Our sensuality is lubricated by the smaller moments in our lives, in the small dances of our day to day.

But how do we remind ourselves to bring pleasure into the process, and allow ourselves and the world to seduce us over and over? To centre pleasure in our actions, body, tasks, and days?

Perhaps cultivating pleasure is asking yourself what you want and need and providing those moments, like self pleasure, boundaries, or joy in a task or process. It’s developing agency and a full sense of autonomy with your body and it’s feelings, rather than submitting your body, pleasure, comfort, and self to a situation, another person, or society.

Perhaps experiencing pleasure is through micro-movements and adjustments to your body, to make it a little more comfortable and enjoyable. To breath, move, make sound and allow your body and pleasure to take up space. Being aware of the nuances and range of sensation, the pressure of gravity on our bodies and how to play with the resistance and impact, the wind on our skin, how our body relates to our surroundings, the tension and release of movement, or impact from objects.

Or perhaps lubricating pleasure is the allowing of fantasy to lure you into infinite ways of being, doing, seeing, desiring. Your imagination mirroring and revealing your wants, needs, and desires to yourself. Then potentially bringing elements of those fantasies into reality. Or not. Perhaps leaving them in the fantasyscape as they have more seductive power there, are more appropriate, or ever-fulfilling.

We must gently keep asking ourselves and centring the question: how do we nurture the fragility of pleasure in our world and bodies, and safely take up space with our pleasure?

Euphemia Russell.

Jonathan Homsey is an arts maker and manager interested in the intersection of street dance, visual art and social engagement. Born in Hong Kong and raised in the United States of America, he immigrated to Australia in 2010 where he is a graduate of Victorian College of the Arts (BA Dance) and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (MA Arts Management with Distinction). His choreographic practice has evolved from a theatrical context with works such as the award-winning Together As One (Arts House, Melbourne Fringe 2013) to an interdisciplinary practice in galleries and public spaces from Footscray Community Arts Centre (Melbourne) to 107 Projects (Sydney) and Design Festa Gallery (Tokyo). He has curated dance events such as Ancestors and Anecdotes, a retrospective look at Australian dance history as part of the 20th Australian Dance Awards in partnership with Delving into Dance.

Hannah Mathews is a Melbourne-based curator with a particular interest in contemporary art and performance.

She graduated with a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne in 2002 and has worked in curatorial positions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2008-16); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2005-07); Monash University Museum of Art (2005); Next Wave Festival (2003-04); The South Project (2003-04); Vizard Foundation Art Collection of the 1990s, the Ian Potter Museum of Art (2002); and the Biennale of Sydney (2000-02). She is currently Senior Curator at Monash University Museum of Art.

Hannah’s key curatorial projects include The humours, MUMA (2017); Ulla von Brandenburg: It has a Golden Yellow Sun and an Elderly Grey Moon, ACCA (2016); Derek Kreckler: Accident & Process, PICA, Perth and national tour (2015-ongoing); Ryan Gander: READ ONLY, ACCA, Melbourne (2015); Framed Movements, ACCA (2014); In the Cut: Contemporary Collage, ACCA (2013); Power to the People: Contemporary Conceptualism and the Object in Art, ACCA (2011); NEW11, ACCA (2011); ART#1 and ART#2 - ACCA Regional Tour (2010-11); Johanna Billing: Tiny Movements, ACCA (2009); Linden1968, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne (2008); Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2008); and Old skool (never lose that feeling), PICA (2007).

Hannah has recently initiated an occasional series of projects that engage with choreography and the visual arts. To date this has included: Sharing Space, a 12 month program including a seminar with Andre Lepecki, a workshop and publication focused on notation across disciplines and a writing workshop with RealTime and the Next Wave Festival (2016); Action/Response, a 2-night cross-disciplinary program for the 2013 Dance Massive Festival; a 4-day workshop and performance of Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney (2013); a 5-day workshop of Trisha Brown’s Early Works in Melbourne (2014); and To write, a 1-day writing program for the 2015 Dance Massive Festival.

Hannah has completed curatorial residencies in New York, Berlin, Tokyo and Venice, and has taught in the curatorial programs at Melbourne University, Monash University and RMIT University, Melbourne. She currently sits on the boards of the National Association for the Visual Arts, City of Melbourne Arts & Cultural Heritage and International Art Space, Perth.

Christopher Boots' handmade work—including lights, furniture and objects—explores the architecture and geometry of organic shapes, and is often inspired by forms found in plants, animals, and minerals. Christopher’s Greek heritage is reflected in the fusion of natural and classical, with mythology a core concept driving his work. Christopher graduated with a BA in Industrial Design at the National School of Design (Prahran, 2005). An apprenticeship with lighting pioneer Geoffrey Mance followed, leading to half a decade of training in various design and lighting techniques. While the craft of Christopher Boots can be found in London, Vancouver, Los Angeles and Dubai, all products are made in his Melbourne Atelier with love and care by artisans—amongst them glass blowers, copper smiths, ceramicists, sculptors, and bronze casters, ensuring a commitment to superb quality. Whether for a private residence, luxury hotel, museum or public space, the work of Christopher Boots accents and complements the dramatic experience of extraordinarily designed spaces.

Informed by studies in philosophy and choreography, Helen Grogan uses sculptural, photographic, and filmic means to approach space and spatial concepts as material(s). Her works directly engage exhibition sites as situations to be expanded and opened in material, ontological, and political ways. With a particular interest in framing what is already occurring, Grogan works from the perspective that the gallery exhibition is itself performative and viewers are implicated through the physical and intellectual act of observation. Grogan’s practice operates critically and dynamically with exhibition formats and institutional conditions. Works often incorporate explicit processes of flux, drift, layering, and reconfiguration as means to push or stretch potential temporalities and spatialities. By employing devices that resist fixed or prioritised points of view or points in time, her works seek an embodied attention within the present.

Kathleen Campone is a Melbourne-based performance artist currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) at The Victorian College of the Arts. Their research delves into the field of critical theory specifically queer theory, radical queerness and gender performativity. Their practice focuses on the body, in particular, the queer body as a tool for activism. Their work seeks to question and push beyond heteronormative structures of power through the ways in which we perform and construct gender. Through this, they aim to provide a framework for which queer bodies can exist outside or in excess of binary pairs. Kathleen has worked closely over the last four years with artists based in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brussels. Some of those artists include Eglė Budvytytė, Atlanta Eke, Rebecca Hilton, Sandra Parker, Emily Robinson, Boni Cairncross, Jonathan Homsey and Sarah Aiken. Kathleen’s most recent project QUEERING SPACES, is an ongoing experimental practice which focuses on the notion of interjecting queerness into heteronormative structures.

Isabella Whāwhai Waru
Ko Tainui te Waka
Ko Tararua nga pai Maunga
Ko Ahau te Awa
Ko Ngāti Tukorehe te Marae
Ko Ngāti Tukorehe te iwi
Ko teenei pepeha o Ihapera Mason tōku kuia
Ko Aotea te Waka
Ko Taranaki te Maunga
Ko Waitotoroa te Awa
Ko Parihaka te Marae
Ko Niho te Wharenui
Ko Ngati Ruanui, Ngai Rauru, Taranaki, Ruahine, Titahi, Te Atiawa nga iwi
Ko teenei pepeha o Puohooho Mason tōku koro
Ko Te Haumoariki tōku matua
Ko Katia tōku whaea
Ko Ihapera Whāwhai Waru tāku ingoa

Isabella Whāwhai Waru’s name calls me to fight and to follow – in the footsteps of ancestors from whom I inherit my name and birthright. I use performance as medium for resistance//connection//transformation//clearing. They have worked in dance with Amrita Hepi for ‘Now is the Hour’ (Pieces of Small Spaces 2017 & Sugar Mountain Festival 2018) and Victoria Hunt for ‘Tangi Wai’ (Dance Massive 2017), and exhibited their own works for ‘Knots: a forced marriage story’ (US documentary currently in post-production), ‘Raranga’ for Kirsten Lyttle’s exhibition, Keteparaha (BlakDot Gallery 2018), ‘Savages’ for New Wayfinders Spoken Word Collective (KOKO KALApU 2018), ‘oneSELF’ (Melbourne Fringe 2017), and ‘Practice’ for ArTy ParTy (Treloarland 2017). As a visitor on Naarm land, Isabella Whāwhai Waru acknowledges and pays respects to the rightful custodians, the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri peoples; who have told stories, performed and held ritual since the dreamtime only continuing what has been done on this land for thousands of years.

Shannon May Powell's work explores intimacy, with particular interest in psychogeography, the meaningful interaction between people and place. She is a freelance journalist and photographer with a range of clients which include: Indie Magazine, If You Leave, i-D Magazine, i-D Magazine Germany, Vice Magazine, Ain't Bad Magazine, Oyster Magazine, The Ladies Network, Ladies of Leisure Zine, Les Others, Cabin Porn, Suitcase Magazine, Whitelies Magazine, The Adventure Handbook, Curated by Girls, Accidental Discharge, Dumbo Feather, SUKU, Sister Studios, Hard Workers Club, Pool Resources, The Sleepover Club Initiative, FEAD magazine, RedMilk Magazine, Tribe de Mama Magazine. She is Berlin based and has exhibited across Germany, Australia and USA.

Working across photography, performance, installation and sculpture, Honey Long and Prue Stent (both b. 1993, Sydney, Australia) have been making art together since they were teenagers. Long completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney, in 2015 and Stent completed her Bachelor of Arts (Photography) at RMIT, Melbourne, in 2014. Their work has been shown across Australia and in various counties internationally, including Zurich, Madrid, the United Kingdom and the United States. Recent exhibitions include London Photo, The Female Lens: 9 Contemporary Female Photographers, HuxleyParlour Gallery, London (2018); Future Feminin, Fahey/ Klein Gallery, Los Angeles (2018); Long and Stent, Nicola Von Senger Gallery, Zurich (2018); Players, curated by Cristina De Middle Puch, Photo Espanña Festival, Madrid (2017); and Sites of the Imagination, ARC ONE Gallery, Melbourne (2017). They have participated in a number of projects, including This _ _ _ _ _ _ _ may not protect you but at times it’s enough to know it’s there, collaboration with Amrita Hepi, Underbelly Arts Festival, Sydney (2017); Sound and Vision, Sydney Opera House, Sydney (2016); and Gucci #24 Hour Ace, LA. Long & Stent currently live and work between Melbourne and Sydney, Australia.
Represented by ARC ONE, Melbourne.

The 2018 Emerging Curator Mentor program is focused on curatorial research and the development of an exhibition at BLINDSIDE.

IMAGES | Shannon May Powell, The offering if one’s body as extraneous clothing, 2017, photographic print on satin, 173 x 210cm. Courtesy the artist. | Honey Long + Prue Stent, Venus Milk, 2015, archival pigment print, 159 x 106cm. Courtesy the artist and Arc One Gallery, Melbourne. |Helen Grogan, HOMAGE COLLAGE, 2018. Courtesy the artist.