August 6, 2023 • 50 mins
In this episode, Steph catches up with multidisciplinary artist Kaspar Schmidt Mumm. They throw back to his mother's artistic influence, and trace that framing of art as a vehicle for bigger things through to his latest exhibition, Rockamora. Tune in to hear why participatory sculpture isn't at all like sitting in the front row of a comedy show, and what Ursula Le Guin has to do with offering chips to bullies.
Show Notes:
- Interview Transcript (PDF)
- KasparSchmidtMumm.com
- @Kaspartness (Instagram)
- Koruna Schmidt Mumm
- Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Kaspar’s Painting works
- Kaspar’s Paper works
- IMMI / IMEMI
- Humboldt Forum
- Berlin’s bizarre new museum (Guardian article)
- ROCKAMORA over the years
- ROCKAMORA at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE) 10 June – 12 August 2023, 11am-4pm Tues-Sat, free entry
- Porter Street Commission
- The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction – Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Bait Fridge
- Slowmango.com / @Slowmango_
See also: ABC Art Works Series 3, Episode 19
Image: photo of Kaspar by Emmaline Zanelli, courtesy of ACE
Music: Blob Funk – Slowmango, 2023, Hypercolour Miscellaneous, courtesy of Kaspar
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[Blob Funk - Slowmango pays]
(00:23):
Hello and welcome to the SALApodcast. My name is Steph and
today I'm catching up withKaspar Schmidt Mumm. We're
coming to you from a meetingroom in the SALA office in
Adelaide, which is a stone'sthrow from Kaspar's massive show
at Adelaide ContemporaryExperimental Gallery. I want to
acknowledge the Kaurna People asthe Traditional Owners of the
(00:45):
land that we're meeting on andworking on, and pay respect to
Elders past and present. Kaspar,thank you for making time to
chat today. I know you're sobusy.
It's actually the calm after thestorm for me now, and I'm happy
to be here.
Oh good, thank you. Usually,this is the part where I'd give
a bit more information aboutyour art practice. But ...where
(01:09):
do I start? I mean, you, youmake physical objects, you make
music, you make digital pieces,you perform your work
individually, you workcollaboratively, you make
costume? So I'm gonna handballthis to you. Could you please
describe your practice?
Well, yeah, it's, it's aninteresting one, I'd say I'd
make process driven performativeworks using local materials, and
(01:36):
create site-specificinstallations or participatory
sculptures.
I love that you managed to findan umbrella for the scope of
what you do
there's a lot of words there,you know, sometimes you just
boil it down to three or two orthree words. But yeah, it's
hard. I love all the littledifferent processes and
(01:57):
materials that I get to use.
I think you'd have to be withthe amount of work that you're
putting in, you'd have to havesome hyper fixation on that
aspect.
oh definitely, yeah.
And I get the impression thatyou were always going to be an
artist, is that fair to say?
Um, yeah, I guess I was kind ofborn into it, in a way, like my
(02:17):
mom is an artist and she does alot of like, really
rehabilitative work. So she,she's an artist in residence in
hospitals and aged care centersand community centers. And yeah,
kindergartens, schools, likewhat wherever she kind of
orientates herself
so she'd be very in tune with,like the very tangible
(02:38):
therapeutic benefits of art. Isthat kind of it -like art
therapy and all those kinds ofthings?
Exactly. Yeah. But like, I guessshe doesn't see herself as an
art therapist, and she doesn'tnecessarily want to be one
either. She's actually quiteagainst that idea.
Yep, don't put her in a box
Yeah, she doesn't want to fix aproblem. She wants to prevent a
problem, do you know what Imean?
(02:59):
right
So I think like therapy andhospitals, and those kinds of
environments often react to aninjury or react to... whether
it's even a brain injury, youknow, whereas I think that she's
really interested in the, Iguess, the preventative nature
of the just the happiness and,and belonging and purpose you
(03:20):
get out of making art. That'sher thing.
That's a great distinction.Yeah. Thank you for making sure
she felt represented there,yeah.
She always reiterates that tome, and I'm like, I'm starting
to understand it fully. But Ihaven't always regarded myself
or regarded that part of mypractice as the most important.
(03:43):
You know, like, for most of myteens and early 20s. I really
wanted to be like, a famousartist Jean Michel Basquiat,
painting paintings and sellingthem for millions of
Yeah, yeah, so grandiose
That is exactly it, I reallyromanticized that idea of an
artist; alone in the studio. Youknow, painting my sufferage onto
(04:07):
a surface using vibrant colors,you know. And I did that, I
loved it, and I got really goodat it. And I sold my paintings
and I did it you know, but um, Ifelt like there was more to why
I wanted to be there in thefirst place. And I now know that
it was completely linked to justmaking stuff with people. And it
really is that simple. It reallyis just, it's a privilege to be
(04:30):
able to play with nonsense to todo things out of boredom and no
reason and and just becausethey're beautiful, you know and
be able to chase beauty for forno reason other than to be
happy. You know that. That is tome what art should be.
(04:52):
That is it, isn't it. Amazing.So from early Kaspar, who
entered a seal photograph in ashow... which show?
yeah, I, it was my early teens,I remember that. It's a long
(05:12):
time ago now, you know, it'slike literally 15 years ago.
Don't put numbers on it.
But my mom was in thiscollaborative show in the Drill
Hall, across the road from thefestival center. And I had taken
this really good photo of a babyseal on Kangaroo Island. And she
was like, we'll print it off andframe it and we'll put it in the
(05:33):
show. And I was like ... I'm inSALA.
[both laugh]
And I thought I was so cool. Andthen, you know, I got to hang my
work on this on this giantbuildings wall. And there was
all these artists doing thiscrazy stuff.
Yeah. And that building hasvibes.
Yeah. It's such a cool spot.
That's so cool. So that was likethe early...
(05:55):
I said, that was my firstexhibition ever.
Amazing. I love that it was aSALA one, that's so good. And
good on you mom, for making ithappen.
She's been exhibiting around theworld forever, you know. So it
was pretty normal for me to haveto go to my mom's like, install
because me and my brother wouldalways have to come and like sit
in the corner of the gallerywhile my mom put up her work
with the other artists.
(06:16):
That's such a cool insight. Tobe like, seeing the behind the
scenes from such an early ageand being like normal.
Yeah, yeah. No, it is great.It's, it's cool. Because the
type of people that you get tohang out with in those
environments, like, you know,they're really they'll give you
some paper and some artmaterials, you can just sit
there and draw, like, whenyou're a kid in that
environment. It's like, great,because you've got crafts and
(06:38):
creative people around you thatare willing to listen and play.
I guess that's a great thingabout it.
Yeah you would have been aroundthose nice energies.
And so... I'm still strugglingto just find the right inpoint
to the behemoth that is yourpractice. Because it's looked
(07:00):
like lots of different things.Gosh, I don't even know where to
like, can you talk maybe a bitabout how you regard the
collaborative work that you do,and then also the really
individual projects that you'vedone - like, are they distinct
in your mind? Are they one inthe same? Is it all enmeshed?
(07:22):
I think the beauty of anindividual practice is that you
have this meditative time toyourself to really go inside of
yourself and understand whyyou're doing what you're doing.
And it doesn't even have to bewhy you're painting a canvas,
you can think about an innerdialogue that involves why you
(07:43):
love the people you love, whyyou live in the place you do,
why you do the things that youdo in your life, you know, and
it doesn't have to be that, youknow, your life revolves around
painting; painting can just bethe medium for you to be able to
have the agency to contemplatewithin yourself. You know, I
think that was really importantfor me when I was younger and
(08:03):
and it still is today. It's justI think I've changed my medium a
lot. And there's been, you know,revolutions in my practice I
think. My most recent craftbased work was paper mache,
because I was really interestedin recycled material, I realized
that I've been painting withplastic my whole life really
and, and I'd kind of wanted toget away from using materials
(08:24):
that weren't biodegradable andand I think paper is related to
my Indo Aryan heritage and likethe Persian, Pakistani, Indian
ancient crafts of paper are likeall over the world now, you
know, the the French adopted itfor their furniture, and, yeah,
that's what made me interested,I guess. But, um, there's that
(08:46):
part of my practice, which islike, solitary, and I think I
find a lot of that in writingnow as well. Like, I love to
write now. It's so integral tomy practice, I think. I don't
think I could be where I amwithout it.
Yeah. And that sort of sitswithin the solitary reflective
vehicle for deeperintrospection.
Yeah exactly. Whether it'screative writing, or, I guess,
(09:10):
grant writing, you know,
There's merits in that.
reviewing, even helping otherpeople write their philosophy to
their practice and theirpolitics.
Yeah. I'm a big fan of beingforced to find the words; I do
like that.
Yeah, I love that; I lovesitting down and being able to
read about something that'shappening in the world and then
react to it with my own writing.I like doing that now. But
collaboratively (09:33):
I think... each artist has their individual
practice and they have their ownlike, way of finding their place
in the art scene or the worldand, and then, I guess now now
that I have the power to havehad so much experience and made
such a huge community in theart, literally everyone I know
(09:56):
as an artist like my mom, mydad, my brother, my girlfriend,
my Best Friends -I almost needless artists friend, I need to
make [friends] outside of art.
Dilute!
Like my, my father was ascientist, but since retiring
now he's a sci fi novelist,apparently, you know, I guess he
just saw the rest of all beartists was like, oh maybe I
(10:16):
should do it too. But yeah, so Ithink the power that I have now
is to enable other people tomake stuff the way I have. And I
think, like I said before,making art is a privilege, it's
something that like, onlysocieties that can really afford
and like, not just monetarily,but like, psychologically, is
(10:39):
the society happy enough to havethe room to want to make art,
you know, and I think that's,that's something that comes into
play. So I want to be able tofacilitate people to find that
privilege. And to understandthat, you know, maybe, I think
there's heaps people in ourstate in our country that
volunteer already and do thosekinds of things. But I think the
arts are... it's probably thebest way to express yourself.
(11:03):
And now my job, I guess, is tofacilitate the people who, who
are really pushing theboundaries of understanding who
they are, and what our societyis, and encouraging tradition to
exist in Adelaide. I know it's abig call to make that I'm
someone doing that, but I thinkthat's my drive towards life,
(11:26):
that's what I want to do with mylife is to make sure that the
community that exists within hasthe traditions that it needs, in
order to identify with a culturethat, that we all share, you
know, that's, that's my drivein. And I see there's a lot of
disparity in that in ourcountry, you know, like, even
just the fact that our countrygives a gives an
(11:48):
acknowledgement, every time wedo an event is something to be
to think about and, and notevery country in the world does
that even though every countryin the world has First Nations,
you know, they all every placein the world has had ancient
civilizations that arecompletely connected to the
ecology and, and spirituality ofthe land, you know, like, but
not everyone, not everyone needsto acknowledge it. And, and I
(12:11):
think we really do, and I thinkwe're all and we've actually
learned so much in the just thepast five years of how that can
be done. And, and integratedthis identity of, of so called
Australian culture into what wedo, and, you know, figured out
that we are the oldest culturein the world. It's just that
(12:32):
it's hard to identify as it, youknow, when really you've been
part of the vehicle that'sabused it.
yes. But I hope that themomentum of leaning into the
difficult conversationscontinues.
and I think as an immigrant,like I'm, I'm technically a
third generation immigrant, thatmeans that both sides of my
(12:55):
family have immigrated for threegenerations. Yeah, so my
grandparents on both sides werealso immigrants. Yeah, so, you
know, like, my grandparents, myparents, and I; even my great
grandparents on my on myfather's side, but that's
another story
yeah we only have half an hour
[both laugh]
(13:15):
But so I think, you know, inwithin all of that, immigration,
there's a lot of identity in, indiaspora and, and with that
comes these ideas ofcolonization and, you know,
colonization is a big word, andit's being thrown around a lot
at the moment. And I thinkthere's a lot of intricacy to
it. And there's a lot ofunknowns in in that political
(13:37):
agenda, that theme, that topic,and it interests me because it
is so broad, and it does, it hasaffected my life, you know, and,
or at least intergenerationally.And so yeah, through my ancestry
I'm learning about colonizationin the world and through
colonization the world I'mlearning about Australian
identity and the politics of whywe think we are who we are.
(14:04):
I can see why... where am Igoing with this? There's a lot
going on in that brain. A lot.Yeah, okay. Let me... there'll
be a piece of music in here.Just...this is a lot of words
before lunchtime.
(14:25):
Yeah it's not even noon yet.
yeah, chill out.
[music plays]
(14:50):
Kaspar and I have just committedto really trying not to talk to
fill spaces, so there may besome extra pauses from here on.
Don't ramble, don't ramble.
Don't ramble, don't repeatmyself... and now I won't be
able to put a sentence together.Coming back to the sort of
themes about diaspora and youknow, all of those things that
(15:11):
just kind of come into yourthinking: is there a work in
particular that you can sort oftie it to make, to... Oh my
gosh, words. I think you saidthe IMMI works are probably the
best example of that. Can youmaybe speak to them a little
bit?
Oh totally. I guess for sevenyears, I explored cultural
(15:34):
identity, cultural alienation,representation. You know, what
is appropriation? And what is, Iguess, pushing tradition and how
do I, how do you identify withtradition when you're not "from"
(15:55):
(quote/unquote) a place or aculture. And that's been a huge
part of my life because, youknow, I was born in Germany, my
mom's Pakistani Canadian, mydad's a German Colombian. I live
in Australia, I look like, I'mbrown and I look like I'm from
India, or Pakistan, but I don'tspeak the language, nor do I
have the accent, nor have I everbeen there, I still need to go
(16:18):
there. You know, like, so thosethings, really mix up your idea
of where you should identify,traditionally. But then living
in Australia, you want toidentify with the people around
you. And you know, you want tobe part of the society you're
in, and IMMI is the prefix forimmigration
(16:40):
oh, that's where it comes from
to put something in, you know,that's the, 'im' is the prefix
for putting something in. Andso, yeah, I created essentially,
because I couldn't, I didn'tfeel like I could identify with
being German. I didn't feel likeAustralian, Indian, Canadian. I
don't feel like any of those. SoI was like, alright, well, I'll
just make my own.
(17:00):
That's so good
[both laugh]
And then, and then I can testall my theories on my own, and I
don't have to appropriate anyoneI don't like, I don't have to
subject any of the cultures thatI partially identify with, with
my experiments, I can justsubject myself to it. And so
what I did is... I was doingheaps of workshops, as I always
(17:25):
do with different communitiesall around Adelaide and
Australia. And I just started touse the colour blue in
association with all of them.
Yeah, it was this lovely, vivid,deep, rich blue.
Yeah, greeny, bluey like, itwasn't quite an electric blue.
It was a bit more of like agreeny blue I feel
(17:47):
in the in the realm of
Yeah exactly, I mean, I wasn'ttoo particular. If there was
something blue, you know, I waslike a bowerbird.
[laughs] A bowerbird!
Yeah and I was obsessed with the-and colour has been such an
important part of my practice.But, um,
but that tied it together.
Yeah what it did is like... itdid! it really did tie it
[together], it gave ituniformity. And I think that's
(18:09):
one of the things that peoplethink of culture, you know, they
think, Oh, if it's red, it'sChinese, or, you know
It's such a simple thing isn'tit. I mean, that's a bit
reductive,
I mean it's not black and white,you know, everybody has
different ideas for colour andwhere they are. But I think,
(18:32):
giving my audience this kind ofoverarching aesthetic to the
work made them think that it wasall tied together. Whereas like,
if I just done it, like anycommunity art project is done,
my audience would have looked atit and gone 'oh, that's just
community art'.
Isn't that interesting?
So I used the illusion ofaesthetic and uniformity, to tie
(18:56):
everything together culturally.And, and to me that, you know,
it was almost like my gag that Iuse to, to fool people into
thinking that everything I didwas connected, because it was.
You know, all of my work isconnected thematically, it's
just that you can't see that. Ifyou look at a community center,
(19:17):
and the art that's made in it,it's all different colours, by
different people with differentfonts because they all have
different handwriting, differentsubjects. There's no tangential,
visual, connection. And I don'tnecessarily think you need one
either, it's just that I forcedmyself into one in order to make
(19:38):
it digestible for a contemporaryarts audience. You know, I think
that's why I did that. And Ithink that speaks to cultural
representation in general.
Yeah, there's a lot of layersthere.
I did a six month residency atthe Museum of South Australia
through a mentorship with JohnCarty, and essentially we went
(20:00):
through the museum and justlooked at the ethics of cultural
representation in a museumcontext. And, you know, I have a
lot of problems with the Museumof South Australia, I have a lot
of problems with museums in theworld in general. I've been
doing a lot of work with theHumboldt Forum in Berlin, which
is a very controver- peopleprotested the building of the
building that Humboldt is in for20 years. And then by the time
(20:24):
it was built, they decided toput one of the largest colonial
organizations for ethnologicalcollections in the world into
it, you know, it's like, imaginetaking a capitalistic represent,
like the architecture of thecastle of West Germany, it just
(20:44):
really represents the the earlylike ideas of capitalism within
society, whereas it was a, itwas a republic building before
that. It was like a socialisticbuilding that was in that same
spot. Anyway, at the Museum ofSouth Australia, with John
Carty, I looked at a lot of thedisplays of indigenous culture.
And, to me, indigenous cultureisn't necessarily like
(21:07):
boomerangs, and clap sticks,and, like, you know, making a
fire with sticks. And, you know,it's like that we, we really
think of First Nations cultureas being like, ancient and being
something that is, has like,stagnated within a certain era
of humanity, like, you know,hunters and collectors. And, you
(21:31):
know, my
almost at arm's length.
Yeah exaclty, It's like, that'show society was, you know,
whereas I just think, like,indigenous cultures can be
contemporary. Like, there's, youknow, and really, like, if you
go to a museum and you want to,you want to see indigenous
culture, you shouldn't go to seeit the way it was represented,
like, the way that it was precolonization. I think that's I
(21:53):
think that's wrong, I think thatall representations of culture
should be contemporary; for,with, and by the people who are
a part of it. And so that was mybig problem that I had with the
museum. And I still have, Ithink it's a bit controversial
to say something like that. ButI yeah, I definitely think there
could be some major changes madein our cultural institutions.
(22:17):
And so I went there, and I justlike, took the aesthetics of
anthropology that the museumuse, you know, gloss cases,
little plaques. And
yeah, that real like, 'here isthe artifact' kind of thing
exactly. Yeah, the artifacts.
And here I'm presenting it foryou.
(22:38):
I think John was the first onewho instigated [that] the
plaques underneath the objects[would] say who the artists were
that made them, not who theanthropologist was who found
them.
That's an important distinction.
Yeah, you know, it's a majordifference. But it's very small
as well, it's just changing alittle piece of paper that's
underneath it, you know, and sothings like that I took into
(22:59):
consideration for the work. Andthen I presented a variety of
portraits and objects that I'dmade that were in context to
cultural representation of myown culture that I invented,
using artworks that thecommunity had made in workshops,
you know, so that was kind of, Iguess, it was like, I was
gathering folklore from all ofthese kids and, and like, people
(23:22):
that I worked with in Adelaideover the years doing workshops,
and used it in context torepresenting my own culture. So
you know, my family and friendswere all in the show, my my
brother's band played, and themost interesting thing I thought
was that we had is that, it wasat Floating Goose, like right at
the beginning of Floating Goose.And inside the window, we set up
(23:43):
this kind of set with a, like atarp as the backdrop. And then
we had the band play inside,real real humans, like we were
giving out or like vegan horsd'oeuvres to the audience, and
everybody was on the street.There's like, all these people
in the middle of Morphett Streetwatching it. And then we played,
we actually made a short film.And then we put the curtain
down, remove the wholeinstallation, took all of our
(24:06):
costumes off, and then let theaudience into a kind of
anthropological study of us.
Gosh, there's so much going onthere.
[both laugh]
oh wow. I'm gonna need anotherpause to soak that in.
[music plays]
(24:37):
All right, I think it's time totalk about ROCKAMORA, which is
currently on at AdelaideContemporary Experimental
Gallery. Now you were announcedas the recipient of the Porter
Street Commission, and this isthe outcome and I'm very excited
about the whole thing. And itties in really well with what we
(24:58):
were just talking about becauseyou're sort of saying... You
know, I think it's fair to saythat you tend to have these
projects that they don't justhave one single life, they sort
of have these iterations. Andthere's this lovely development
that happens between andbuilding upon these projects. So
ROCKAMORA actually does sort oftie in with the IMMI works.
(25:22):
Maybe I'll just throw to you,can you... how... maybe we
should talk about what the theactual theme of ROCKAMORA is,
because I think it's reallyfascinating. And maybe just
paint a bit of a picture of whatthe install looks like, as well,
or what it is.
I guess... where do I begin?
I know!
creak goes my chair. I guess,technically, this is the fifth
(25:46):
ROCKAMORA. You know? Becausewe've toured it around Victoria,
we toured it regionallythroughout South Australia,
like,
and 'we'; collaborative kind of,you know, large scale kind of
multi-faceted.
You know, it's funny, saying"we", I don't want to say "I"
because every single time I'vedone it, it's been with other
people. Yeah. And you know,like, sure, like, there's the
(26:08):
Jeff Koons and that would alwayssay I when they talk about their
own work, but I just don't, Idon't think that's the reality
of definitely my practice. Ithink people put so much of
themselves in it for so little,you know, and they just do it
because they love me and, and
the energy of it all
Yeah, we have a community and wehave a family that makes cool
shit together. Sorry, my French.
(26:29):
Oh we're not bleeping that.
But yeah, so the first ROCKAMORAwas completely off the cuff. It
was built out of remnants of anold bookstore and some awnings
from a community center. And wejust used a couple of hinges and
like, put some kind of drum kitstools as the eyes and then we
(26:50):
had my brother and Ben Sargent,who are musicians, set up a
microphone and then, you know,we just installed this big
puppet at Carclew. It wasn'tlike... I never thought of
myself as a puppeteer, do youknow what I mean?
Yeah, okay.
I don't think of these works aspuppets. I don't, I don't know
why. To me puppetry is veryspecific to a time and a place.
(27:14):
You know, I think it's verywestern idea. I mean, there's
incredible puppetry in Easterncultures as well. But I think of
the works as participatorysculptures, because I don't want
only myself to be controllingthem, my aim is for the
community that gets to see themand interact with them to
actually control them as well.And that's different to being a
(27:34):
puppeteer. I think you know, apuppeteer just makes an object
that they create an ontology forto understand and move and speak
for
and the audience receives itvery passively
Exactly, whereas my sculptures,you can go inside of them, or
you can become them yourself.Yeah. And I think that's an
important difference to make.And so yeah, first ROCKAMORA was
at Carclew; kids feeding chipsthat they found in the in the
(27:57):
yard to this giant monster. Somekids got scared and we were
like, Don't worry, dude, this isall fake, took them around the
back and then they get to havethe microphone and control the
sculpture. We just sit back,drink coffee, and let them play
with it.
Yeah. imaginations going wild,love it.
Yeah, and that toured to StreakyBay, to Onkaparinga to, you
know, all around. And then wewent to Melbourne, and we built
(28:19):
a new one at Seventh Gallery,which was blue. So that's where
I kind of tied IMMI toROCKAMORA. And what we did is we
hung a giant parcel from theceiling, and then at the opening
of the exhibition, we playedpass the parcel. And we had a
bunch of microwaves; in betweeneach layer of the parcel, there
was popcorn, you got to make abag of popcorn in the microwave.
(28:42):
And then you would unwrap thelayers of your cultural
identity, which is what
Wow, there's a lot there
that was the idea is take alayer off of the parcel and feed
it to ROCKAMORA, they'll eat thelayer of your pop cultural
identity and spit out someinformation or just talk about,
you know, the binaries of how weidentify, and how to break down
(29:04):
binaries in our identity andbecome more... have more of a
spectrum in how we seeourselves. In all kinds of ways,
not just culture, gender,whatever we could feed into it.
We had a bunch of poets thathelped us write stuff, and then
we gave this dialogue thatreacted to people feeding layers
(29:24):
of this pass the parcel game tothe puppet.
There's such a great dynamicbetween the ideas that you're
tapping into that, you know, Ireally have to pay attention to
make sure I'm followingproperly, And yet it's, you
know, juxtaposed with, you know,this very, like...
just playful
It's so playful! and accessibleand unpretentious and, you know,
(29:50):
what a great marriage of thesetwo things that and I think
maybe just for anyone who hasn'tseen it yet, at the moment, the
current iteration is a gianthead like and you know there are
these comically big... maybe weshould tap into the actual,
(30:10):
who/what ROCKAMORA is based onand what it means.
yeah so ROCKAMORA is the name ofmy mother's -and her sisters',
so she had to she has twosisters. And they all went, they
all got to Canada and they theylanded and they were the brown
girls in the white school. Andthey had a bully, and the bully
was called ROCKAMORA. But yeah,so they always when I was a kid
(30:36):
told me the story of confrontingROCKAMORA as a way for me to
deal with my own stuff, youknow, and so I really had this
kind of absurd or exaggeratedidea of this moment in time that
they, for them was just like,you know, they just scrubbed it
off. And they, they turned itinto this story that they tell
their kids, but like, it wasn'tthat important to them. But
(30:58):
because I was a kid and I hadthis, this idea in my head of
who Rockamora is, you know,Rockamora was probably 10 feet
tall.
of course
in my eyes, you know, and likein her eyes is just like a
little kid that she had a roughtime playing with. And my auntie
is really good friends withRockamora and the real Rockmora
still is alive and lives inToronto and has no idea that
(31:18):
this is a giant sculpture inAdelaide that's made with
why are my ears burning [bothlaughing]
maybe one day Rockmora will goto Toronto, and they'll just be
like, Whoa. But, you know, Ithink the reason why, like, I
think it became clear to methrough me, and through the
beginnings of representing thefirst Rockamora is that like,
(31:40):
you can't represent culture, ifit's not your own, you know, you
really just can't. And so I askmyself, How can I represent
ideas and stories that arenecessary to society to feel
better about existing, you know,like to find purpose and to deal
with the stuff we deal withevery day. And I was like, I
(32:01):
want to tell my own stories.That's the best way to do it.
It's just like, figure out whatstories have affected me, and
then open open myself up to showpeople what I've experienced, so
that they can feel like it'snormal. You know, that's what
you want. When you go to schoolfor the first day, you want
everybody else to be late, doyou know what I mean? You want
everybody else to wear the weirdshirt with the crinkles in it,
(32:23):
you know, that's what you want.You just you want to feel
belonging in that everyone'sflawed, you know, and that's why
Rockmora is the bad guy, youknow, because everyone is
flawed. Everyone is a bad guy.But we still need to treat bad
guys with benevolence, we stillneed to care for the bad guys.
And that's part of theparticipation, isn't it? Is it
that we're invited to care forthe bully? Like, yeah, and
(32:46):
that's such a interesting... youknow, reading the copy and the
blurb about what the show wasabout, I was just like, what?
Why?!
I'm being invited to be a goodperson? No, it's a lovely
empathy, but it's, yeah, stillplayful. and
(33:06):
I feel like, it'scounterintuitive, though, you
know, it's like a very simpleelement of counter intuition. I
think most stories we hear areabout, like, the defeat of
agonist you know, and I thinkthat's a very patriarchal story,
you know?
and tired!
Literally, I'm tired of thatstory. I'm tired of superheroes.
(33:28):
I'm tired of the protagonistbeing this sexy blond, white man
that like wears a cape anddestroys the ugly Purple
Tentacle.
It's always purple!
Exactly. Like why? why? Give mesomething that I can be, I can
feel, I can understand andidentify with
(33:52):
or is just a little more realand nuanced and dynamic and
contradictory, and, yes, morethings at once.
And so, one of the best fantasysci fi novelists in the world,
Le Guin, -everyone knows LeGuin- wrote an essay that's
called the carrier bag theory.And it's the theory that most
(34:14):
stories in our history had beenwritten about a man who makes a
weapon to defeat a bad guy
gosh that does cover a lot,yeah.
It's a lot of stories. And sheargued that really, we need to
start telling stories of thecarrier bag, which is the person
(34:36):
who creates a vessel to collectthe information, the necessary
tools to overcome something fromwithin, you know, it's like this
idea of like, taking in aspectsof your ecology, aspects of your
antagonist, and your family andwhatever to combine them
(35:00):
together or to compare them tounderstand their relationship,
so that you can come up with asolution. Through care,
understanding, empathy. Throughcombining resources, you know,
and that's what care is, to me,it's like, you have to combine
resources with the personaffected by whatever thing that
(35:21):
you they need healing for, andthen you problem solve a
solution. And that's what careis.
And so important to underscorethat actually, that is a very
valid and interesting and bravething to be doing. That's much
more interesting than justdefeating a bad guy!
They should be the superheroes,the people who cared, like in
our society, you know, thepeople that do the hard work
(35:43):
that like actually takeslistening, and reacting and
problem solving. That is, that'sthe beautiful, powerful
narrative that I think we like,and it's not just made who tells
that story, I think, a lot ofpeople dealing with topics of
colonization, discrimination,even gender politics as well,
like, they talk about self careand, and healing in general, as
(36:08):
a, as a form of, you know,contemporary storytelling, a way
to take the attention off of thevictim and put it onto the
perpetrator. But still tell thestory without, you know,
damaging the the ecology thatexists to uphold those
narratives. You know, like, ifwe constantly tell the story of
(36:32):
like, a post colonial decolonialnarrative through the victim,
then the victim has to do allthe work, you know, all of it.
And we just can't do that, thereneeds to be like, I'm an
antagonist within myself aswell. Like, I'm, you know, I've
got many stories in my historythat are flawed, and probably
(36:53):
took advantage of whateversituation.
everyone is someone's ROCKAMORA.
Exactly! Everyone's a Rockmoraeveryone's ROCKAMORA. And I
think, you know, I think I stillwant to be able to tell those
stories, I want to be able to, Iwant to be able to stand in
front of my community and say,My ancestors, and I have done
some bad stuff. We've done someterrible things, you know, but
(37:13):
I've also got good things, andmaybe I can use the good things
to fix the bad things, you know,like, let's just admit to stuff,
yes. And then figure out how tofix it instead of just
not talking about it
ROCKAMORA, to me, is my idea orlike my representation of the
elephant in the room. That's howI see it.
That is a great way to put it,isn't it? Because I mean it's
(37:35):
big enough.
Exactly, I'm like this is howbig the friggin elephant is,
guys. This is how big it is.
Like, you can't ignore the gianthead.
And it's having a bath, that'show comfortable it is. It's
comfortable. There's hundreds ofyou here. And this elephant in
the room is taken a bath.
Yeah, there's so much to unwrapthere, I love it. But what a
(37:59):
great just unapologetic justlike no, this is a conversation
we're having. And it's fun. Andyou can you know, I think it's
it's not scary, which is funny,because, for some people when
you read the word'participatory' is a bit of a
trigger, because you know, Idon't know, I think of like
going to a comedy show and notsitting in the front row, you
(38:20):
know, noone wants to be picked.But it's not like that at all.
It's just, it's welcoming. Imean, you know, we were talking
before about, you know, isn'tall art participatory, really,
you know, that kind of thing.
Actually, one of the bestmoments in this entire process
has been on the first and secondperformance, but I just remember
(38:41):
the first one really made animpression because it was the
first time it happened. We hadlike planned like Kate Cheel and
I working through theperformance structures and like
some of the dramaturgy of,essentially there's six levels
and the third level is feeding.So you feed Rockmora,
Yeah, so like different phasesof interacting with the work?
Yeah, so it's sleep. So you wakeup Rockmore using making by
(39:04):
making sound, then you cleanthem; you brush their teeth,
clean their ears, and
I love that giant cotton bud
and then you feed them, so youthrow like protein balls in
their mouth; and then they do apoo. And then they get
embarrassed and they get angry.And then there's two endings and
(39:24):
you either calm them down, oryou break them.
wow - should we have this power?but what a great commentary, and
the choice.
but one of my favorite momentsin this whole process has been
on the opening night when we hadplanned for a few people to
maybe get up during theperformance and throw some food
in the gob, we had this big packof chips, we had all these like
(39:48):
recycled Styrofoam off-cuts andwe like painted them yellow. And
then we sewed the chip packetclosed and there was this moment
where like, as soon as wesmashed it like ripped open this
packet of chips, Blob Funkplayed, was like [sings Blob
Funk]. And so during this reallyup lively song, we would try and
give out these chips to peopleto feed Rockamora. And like,
(40:10):
obviously every single kid inthe venue got up and sprinted
for the stage, they're like giveme one of those!
yeah give me giant chip
but not only the kids, like assoon as those kids stood up,
literally the whole room stoodup, like I'd say, like, close to
200 people, and I was like, Ijust didn't think that, you
know, we thought maybe a handfulof people in the front row might
(40:32):
help us out and do it. But likethe entire room, grabbed a chip
and threw it in Rockamora'smouth.
That is so good.
My faith in humanity restored.Just like participation can
work. And yeah, people do feellike they want to be involved in
our art
Yes, and are willing!
actively participate in it, youknow, and I just was so
(40:54):
astounded.
Oh, that's goosebumps-good.
Yeah, literally shivers up myspine.
Amazing. This is so interesting.Because I mean, if you didn't
know, like, if you hadn't readthe copy, and then even then,
talking to you now, there's somuch more than I'd really
thought behind the work. And itwould almost be if we hadn't
(41:16):
heard you speak about it,because it's fun and colourful,
it's almost like you couldalmost assume it was just fun
and just play and just -not tobe [rude], I feel terrible
saying that but- it's one ofthose things where I'm glad
we're talking about it
I think that's... it's such acommon thing, you know? That
when something is happy andsprightful and optimistic and
(41:41):
playful, it can seem a bitsuperficial.
Yeah. Which is weird! But I knowwhat you mean, yeah.
I think it's, I think it's aflaw in how we see art, to think
that play is superficial.
Yeah. or less?
Yeah. Because play has strictboundaries.
Do go on.
(42:02):
Like, if you don't haveparameters set in place for
play, then you can't play.Because otherwise the world's
too big and you become tooscared. And so I think that's a
big thing in our company, youknow, so we've got The Bait
Fridge, which is our like, 30plus collective of artists from
(42:23):
anywhere and everywhere, youknow, we're trying to create as
much accessibility as we canwith our company. So there's
people from literally everycorner of Adelaide in our
collective,
there's a lot of really engagingworkshops, and, you know,
projects that are just largerthan life
and process based, you know,we're just like, how can we let
people that don't have thepower, take over?
[both laugh]
who let you guys be in charge?Amazing
(42:45):
Yeah. And then there'sSlowmango, which is the band
that was kind of born within andwithout the bait fridge and kind
of has created this beautifulstructure for the bait fridge to
exist upon.
Oh that's a great relationship.
So yeah, music is foundationalfor the parameters that we set
for our play in the collective.So my brother really took the
(43:09):
play that we'd done andsolidified it into something
tangible. And you know, wereleased a record last week, and
we've already sold half of them,you know, it's, it's been
amazing
oh my gosh, do you sleep?
[laughing] Yeah, I do. I do. Weall have to.
Sometimes. Fit it in onWednesdays.
(43:29):
But I think one of the bigthings that I've come to terms
with recently is trying tounderstand how important the
work we do is, because it is soplayful. And I think, I want us
to be seen, like we areaccessible and playful and open
(43:50):
and optimistic towards theworld. But I also want people to
understand that what we do hasintense processes for
accessibility, for likecomfortability, for safety, for
you know, we aren't ageist, wearen't sexist, and those to be
(44:10):
able to say those things is big,especially in the contemporary
arts, you know, like, I don'tthink many people can say that.
And, you know, we literally dowork with people that don't have
a platform because they don'thave the access to have one. And
when you see a performance infront of you, it's just like,
oh, yeah, that person is just ina costume dancing around...
(44:32):
they've never danced in acostume before. They've never
made a costume before. Theylearned how to do it with us.
They, they hardly they don'teven have a studio because they
can't organize one forthemselves; the only time that
they make work is when they'rein a situation where they're
being facilitated or helped. Wedon't help people, we just want
(44:56):
to make them feel like they'reequal to us, you know, and in
order for someone to get tothere is hard enough in the
first place, let alone make thework itself. And so it might
seem like the topics and thethemes and the facade of our
work is really superficial andplayful, but there's so much
more to it than that, which ishard to convey. And also, we
(45:18):
don't want to make someoneparade their baggage if they
don't feel comfortable.
Yes, I think that's an importantthing, isn't it? Because, as
much as it's so easy to forpeople to not observe that,
that's probably the way it hasto be, because yeah, you don't
want to labor someone'sdifficulties, or someone's that
inability to access something.
And that's like, one of thebiggest reasons why I've always
(45:40):
done masking, or costume. And isbecause it allows you to not
have to identify as what youlook like. do you know what I
mean?
Yeah... this will be part 2
I think that's a huge part ofit, as well as like, it all
seemed like, Masquerade. Youknow, it's like a parade of this
kind of beautiful thing. And,but it really like what is
(46:02):
underneath the mask? You know,that's, that's what really
counts. But, but the great thingabout our performances is that
you don't have to show that. Youdon't have to be brown, you
don't have to be disabled, youdon't have to be male, you don't
have to be female, you can justbe what the character you invent
is. And I know that seems prettysimple. But like, yeah, that
(46:26):
in the context of everythingthat you're saying, yeah. And it
makes sense, I mean, that is oneof the ways that you can
facilitate, no 'othering',you're just all weird characters
or
And it's an even playing field,if everyone's in a mask, it's an
even playing field, you know,and, and, and then, behind the
(46:47):
scenes, we create a safe space,you know, that's where that's
where it's just us. And we cansay you deserve the equity,
because you haven't had theopportunities that we have. So
you get to do what you want todo, how you want to do it, and
then we facilitate those peoplethat need that access, or to be
able to present their work theway that they want to present
(47:09):
it. It's the job of the peoplewho have the privilege to help
them behind the scenes. Yeah.Because help doesn't need to be
presented on stage. And it whenwe don't want people to think
like, 'oh, all the white peopleare helping the brown people',
that's not what we want to do.
yeah, and the difference betweenperforming the help and just
doing it for the right reasons.
(47:30):
Yeah exactly. And just havingfun and not having to confront
those politics on the stage. Youknow, we can confront them in
our own time, behind the scenes,you know,
and that not laboring the pointof the help, because the
important thing is the work andthe art.
Yes, and then once people arecomfortable, like if once people
(47:50):
are integrated into our work,then they can go and then they
can present their baggage ifthey want. Everybody wants to; I
do it all the time. You know,like, I mean, there's so many
forms in society of performanceand art where people are
parading their baggage, youknow, like just showing the
world how they suffered becausethat's what is freaking
beautiful, but it's not easygetting there. You gotta you
(48:12):
gotta really know yourself yeah,to do something like that
and you have to be safely inthat position to make that
choice. But amazing, I love Ilove it all. And I love the just
the enigma of like, Bait Fridge,but what is it and like, what?
There's just this like, I don'tknow, mythology around it all,
that's great. But um, yeah,quintessentially, like, so South
(48:36):
Aussie, but also worldly anduntethered.
[laughs] Unhinged!
Unhinged! Can we finish on that?Thank you for your... delving
into the unhinged with Kaspar.
and honestly I couldn't do itwithout them. Like, my name
might be at the front of thePorter Street Commission title
(48:57):
because that's how theCommission works. But in the
end, you know, my entire careeris hinged off of the community
that I have here. And you know,I didn't go to school. My
community is the one that I madeart with while I worked, you
know, in every context fromSignWriting, to festival to
(49:19):
exhibition to you know, readingand writing, you know,
everything
no better foundation than that.Yeah,
Cheers to The Bait Fridge. AndSALA! oh my god we didn't even
get to talk about SALA!
Haha, that's alright, we're init baby!
[both laugh]
(49:57):
[music plays]
[Blob Funk - Slowmango pays]
(00:23):
Hello and welcome to the SALApodcast. My name is Steph and
today I'm catching up withKaspar Schmidt Mumm. We're
coming to you from a meetingroom in the SALA office in
Adelaide, which is a stone'sthrow from Kaspar's massive show
at Adelaide ContemporaryExperimental Gallery. I want to
acknowledge the Kaurna People asthe Traditional Owners of the
(00:45):
land that we're meeting on andworking on, and pay respect to
Elders past and present. Kaspar,thank you for making time to
chat today. I know you're sobusy.
It's actually the calm after thestorm for me now, and I'm happy
to be here.
Oh good, thank you. Usually,this is the part where I'd give
a bit more information aboutyour art practice. But ...where
(01:09):
do I start? I mean, you, youmake physical objects, you make
music, you make digital pieces,you perform your work
individually, you workcollaboratively, you make
costume? So I'm gonna handballthis to you. Could you please
describe your practice?
Well, yeah, it's, it's aninteresting one, I'd say I'd
make process driven performativeworks using local materials, and
(01:36):
create site-specificinstallations or participatory
sculptures.
I love that you managed to findan umbrella for the scope of
what you do
there's a lot of words there,you know, sometimes you just
boil it down to three or two orthree words. But yeah, it's
hard. I love all the littledifferent processes and
(01:57):
materials that I get to use.
I think you'd have to be withthe amount of work that you're
putting in, you'd have to havesome hyper fixation on that
aspect.
oh definitely, yeah.
And I get the impression thatyou were always going to be an
artist, is that fair to say?
Um, yeah, I guess I was kind ofborn into it, in a way, like my
(02:17):
mom is an artist and she does alot of like, really
rehabilitative work. So she,she's an artist in residence in
hospitals and aged care centersand community centers. And yeah,
kindergartens, schools, likewhat wherever she kind of
orientates herself
so she'd be very in tune with,like the very tangible
(02:38):
therapeutic benefits of art. Isthat kind of it -like art
therapy and all those kinds ofthings?
Exactly. Yeah. But like, I guessshe doesn't see herself as an
art therapist, and she doesn'tnecessarily want to be one
either. She's actually quiteagainst that idea.
Yep, don't put her in a box
Yeah, she doesn't want to fix aproblem. She wants to prevent a
problem, do you know what Imean?
(02:59):
right
So I think like therapy andhospitals, and those kinds of
environments often react to aninjury or react to... whether
it's even a brain injury, youknow, whereas I think that she's
really interested in the, Iguess, the preventative nature
of the just the happiness and,and belonging and purpose you
(03:20):
get out of making art. That'sher thing.
That's a great distinction.Yeah. Thank you for making sure
she felt represented there,yeah.
She always reiterates that tome, and I'm like, I'm starting
to understand it fully. But Ihaven't always regarded myself
or regarded that part of mypractice as the most important.
(03:43):
You know, like, for most of myteens and early 20s. I really
wanted to be like, a famousartist Jean Michel Basquiat,
painting paintings and sellingthem for millions of
Yeah, yeah, so grandiose
That is exactly it, I reallyromanticized that idea of an
artist; alone in the studio. Youknow, painting my sufferage onto
(04:07):
a surface using vibrant colors,you know. And I did that, I
loved it, and I got really goodat it. And I sold my paintings
and I did it you know, but um, Ifelt like there was more to why
I wanted to be there in thefirst place. And I now know that
it was completely linked to justmaking stuff with people. And it
really is that simple. It reallyis just, it's a privilege to be
(04:30):
able to play with nonsense to todo things out of boredom and no
reason and and just becausethey're beautiful, you know and
be able to chase beauty for forno reason other than to be
happy. You know that. That is tome what art should be.
(04:52):
That is it, isn't it. Amazing.So from early Kaspar, who
entered a seal photograph in ashow... which show?
yeah, I, it was my early teens,I remember that. It's a long
(05:12):
time ago now, you know, it'slike literally 15 years ago.
Don't put numbers on it.
But my mom was in thiscollaborative show in the Drill
Hall, across the road from thefestival center. And I had taken
this really good photo of a babyseal on Kangaroo Island. And she
was like, we'll print it off andframe it and we'll put it in the
(05:33):
show. And I was like ... I'm inSALA.
[both laugh]
And I thought I was so cool. Andthen, you know, I got to hang my
work on this on this giantbuildings wall. And there was
all these artists doing thiscrazy stuff.
Yeah. And that building hasvibes.
Yeah. It's such a cool spot.
That's so cool. So that was likethe early...
(05:55):
I said, that was my firstexhibition ever.
Amazing. I love that it was aSALA one, that's so good. And
good on you mom, for making ithappen.
She's been exhibiting around theworld forever, you know. So it
was pretty normal for me to haveto go to my mom's like, install
because me and my brother wouldalways have to come and like sit
in the corner of the gallerywhile my mom put up her work
with the other artists.
(06:16):
That's such a cool insight. Tobe like, seeing the behind the
scenes from such an early ageand being like normal.
Yeah, yeah. No, it is great.It's, it's cool. Because the
type of people that you get tohang out with in those
environments, like, you know,they're really they'll give you
some paper and some artmaterials, you can just sit
there and draw, like, whenyou're a kid in that
environment. It's like, great,because you've got crafts and
(06:38):
creative people around you thatare willing to listen and play.
I guess that's a great thingabout it.
Yeah you would have been aroundthose nice energies.
And so... I'm still strugglingto just find the right inpoint
to the behemoth that is yourpractice. Because it's looked
(07:00):
like lots of different things.Gosh, I don't even know where to
like, can you talk maybe a bitabout how you regard the
collaborative work that you do,and then also the really
individual projects that you'vedone - like, are they distinct
in your mind? Are they one inthe same? Is it all enmeshed?
(07:22):
I think the beauty of anindividual practice is that you
have this meditative time toyourself to really go inside of
yourself and understand whyyou're doing what you're doing.
And it doesn't even have to bewhy you're painting a canvas,
you can think about an innerdialogue that involves why you
(07:43):
love the people you love, whyyou live in the place you do,
why you do the things that youdo in your life, you know, and
it doesn't have to be that, youknow, your life revolves around
painting; painting can just bethe medium for you to be able to
have the agency to contemplatewithin yourself. You know, I
think that was really importantfor me when I was younger and
(08:03):
and it still is today. It's justI think I've changed my medium a
lot. And there's been, you know,revolutions in my practice I
think. My most recent craftbased work was paper mache,
because I was really interestedin recycled material, I realized
that I've been painting withplastic my whole life really
and, and I'd kind of wanted toget away from using materials
(08:24):
that weren't biodegradable andand I think paper is related to
my Indo Aryan heritage and likethe Persian, Pakistani, Indian
ancient crafts of paper are likeall over the world now, you
know, the the French adopted itfor their furniture, and, yeah,
that's what made me interested,I guess. But, um, there's that
(08:46):
part of my practice, which islike, solitary, and I think I
find a lot of that in writingnow as well. Like, I love to
write now. It's so integral tomy practice, I think. I don't
think I could be where I amwithout it.
Yeah. And that sort of sitswithin the solitary reflective
vehicle for deeperintrospection.
Yeah exactly. Whether it'screative writing, or, I guess,
(09:10):
grant writing, you know,
There's merits in that.
reviewing, even helping otherpeople write their philosophy to
their practice and theirpolitics.
Yeah. I'm a big fan of beingforced to find the words; I do
like that.
Yeah, I love that; I lovesitting down and being able to
read about something that'shappening in the world and then
react to it with my own writing.I like doing that now. But
collaboratively (09:33):
I think... each artist has their individual
practice and they have their ownlike, way of finding their place
in the art scene or the worldand, and then, I guess now now
that I have the power to havehad so much experience and made
such a huge community in theart, literally everyone I know
(09:56):
as an artist like my mom, mydad, my brother, my girlfriend,
my Best Friends -I almost needless artists friend, I need to
make [friends] outside of art.
Dilute!
Like my, my father was ascientist, but since retiring
now he's a sci fi novelist,apparently, you know, I guess he
just saw the rest of all beartists was like, oh maybe I
(10:16):
should do it too. But yeah, so Ithink the power that I have now
is to enable other people tomake stuff the way I have. And I
think, like I said before,making art is a privilege, it's
something that like, onlysocieties that can really afford
and like, not just monetarily,but like, psychologically, is
(10:39):
the society happy enough to havethe room to want to make art,
you know, and I think that's,that's something that comes into
play. So I want to be able tofacilitate people to find that
privilege. And to understandthat, you know, maybe, I think
there's heaps people in ourstate in our country that
volunteer already and do thosekinds of things. But I think the
arts are... it's probably thebest way to express yourself.
(11:03):
And now my job, I guess, is tofacilitate the people who, who
are really pushing theboundaries of understanding who
they are, and what our societyis, and encouraging tradition to
exist in Adelaide. I know it's abig call to make that I'm
someone doing that, but I thinkthat's my drive towards life,
(11:26):
that's what I want to do with mylife is to make sure that the
community that exists within hasthe traditions that it needs, in
order to identify with a culturethat, that we all share, you
know, that's, that's my drivein. And I see there's a lot of
disparity in that in ourcountry, you know, like, even
just the fact that our countrygives a gives an
(11:48):
acknowledgement, every time wedo an event is something to be
to think about and, and notevery country in the world does
that even though every countryin the world has First Nations,
you know, they all every placein the world has had ancient
civilizations that arecompletely connected to the
ecology and, and spirituality ofthe land, you know, like, but
not everyone, not everyone needsto acknowledge it. And, and I
(12:11):
think we really do, and I thinkwe're all and we've actually
learned so much in the just thepast five years of how that can
be done. And, and integratedthis identity of, of so called
Australian culture into what wedo, and, you know, figured out
that we are the oldest culturein the world. It's just that
(12:32):
it's hard to identify as it, youknow, when really you've been
part of the vehicle that'sabused it.
yes. But I hope that themomentum of leaning into the
difficult conversationscontinues.
and I think as an immigrant,like I'm, I'm technically a
third generation immigrant, thatmeans that both sides of my
(12:55):
family have immigrated for threegenerations. Yeah, so my
grandparents on both sides werealso immigrants. Yeah, so, you
know, like, my grandparents, myparents, and I; even my great
grandparents on my on myfather's side, but that's
another story
yeah we only have half an hour
[both laugh]
(13:15):
But so I think, you know, inwithin all of that, immigration,
there's a lot of identity in, indiaspora and, and with that
comes these ideas ofcolonization and, you know,
colonization is a big word, andit's being thrown around a lot
at the moment. And I thinkthere's a lot of intricacy to
it. And there's a lot ofunknowns in in that political
(13:37):
agenda, that theme, that topic,and it interests me because it
is so broad, and it does, it hasaffected my life, you know, and,
or at least intergenerationally.And so yeah, through my ancestry
I'm learning about colonizationin the world and through
colonization the world I'mlearning about Australian
identity and the politics of whywe think we are who we are.
(14:04):
I can see why... where am Igoing with this? There's a lot
going on in that brain. A lot.Yeah, okay. Let me... there'll
be a piece of music in here.Just...this is a lot of words
before lunchtime.
(14:25):
Yeah it's not even noon yet.
yeah, chill out.
[music plays]
(14:50):
Kaspar and I have just committedto really trying not to talk to
fill spaces, so there may besome extra pauses from here on.
Don't ramble, don't ramble.
Don't ramble, don't repeatmyself... and now I won't be
able to put a sentence together.Coming back to the sort of
themes about diaspora and youknow, all of those things that
(15:11):
just kind of come into yourthinking: is there a work in
particular that you can sort oftie it to make, to... Oh my
gosh, words. I think you saidthe IMMI works are probably the
best example of that. Can youmaybe speak to them a little
bit?
Oh totally. I guess for sevenyears, I explored cultural
(15:34):
identity, cultural alienation,representation. You know, what
is appropriation? And what is, Iguess, pushing tradition and how
do I, how do you identify withtradition when you're not "from"
(15:55):
(quote/unquote) a place or aculture. And that's been a huge
part of my life because, youknow, I was born in Germany, my
mom's Pakistani Canadian, mydad's a German Colombian. I live
in Australia, I look like, I'mbrown and I look like I'm from
India, or Pakistan, but I don'tspeak the language, nor do I
have the accent, nor have I everbeen there, I still need to go
(16:18):
there. You know, like, so thosethings, really mix up your idea
of where you should identify,traditionally. But then living
in Australia, you want toidentify with the people around
you. And you know, you want tobe part of the society you're
in, and IMMI is the prefix forimmigration
(16:40):
oh, that's where it comes from
to put something in, you know,that's the, 'im' is the prefix
for putting something in. Andso, yeah, I created essentially,
because I couldn't, I didn'tfeel like I could identify with
being German. I didn't feel likeAustralian, Indian, Canadian. I
don't feel like any of those. SoI was like, alright, well, I'll
just make my own.
(17:00):
That's so good
[both laugh]
And then, and then I can testall my theories on my own, and I
don't have to appropriate anyoneI don't like, I don't have to
subject any of the cultures thatI partially identify with, with
my experiments, I can justsubject myself to it. And so
what I did is... I was doingheaps of workshops, as I always
(17:25):
do with different communitiesall around Adelaide and
Australia. And I just started touse the colour blue in
association with all of them.
Yeah, it was this lovely, vivid,deep, rich blue.
Yeah, greeny, bluey like, itwasn't quite an electric blue.
It was a bit more of like agreeny blue I feel
(17:47):
in the in the realm of
Yeah exactly, I mean, I wasn'ttoo particular. If there was
something blue, you know, I waslike a bowerbird.
[laughs] A bowerbird!
Yeah and I was obsessed with the-and colour has been such an
important part of my practice.But, um,
but that tied it together.
Yeah what it did is like... itdid! it really did tie it
[together], it gave ituniformity. And I think that's
(18:09):
one of the things that peoplethink of culture, you know, they
think, Oh, if it's red, it'sChinese, or, you know
It's such a simple thing isn'tit. I mean, that's a bit
reductive,
I mean it's not black and white,you know, everybody has
different ideas for colour andwhere they are. But I think,
(18:32):
giving my audience this kind ofoverarching aesthetic to the
work made them think that it wasall tied together. Whereas like,
if I just done it, like anycommunity art project is done,
my audience would have looked atit and gone 'oh, that's just
community art'.
Isn't that interesting?
So I used the illusion ofaesthetic and uniformity, to tie
(18:56):
everything together culturally.And, and to me that, you know,
it was almost like my gag that Iuse to, to fool people into
thinking that everything I didwas connected, because it was.
You know, all of my work isconnected thematically, it's
just that you can't see that. Ifyou look at a community center,
(19:17):
and the art that's made in it,it's all different colours, by
different people with differentfonts because they all have
different handwriting, differentsubjects. There's no tangential,
visual, connection. And I don'tnecessarily think you need one
either, it's just that I forcedmyself into one in order to make
(19:38):
it digestible for a contemporaryarts audience. You know, I think
that's why I did that. And Ithink that speaks to cultural
representation in general.
Yeah, there's a lot of layersthere.
I did a six month residency atthe Museum of South Australia
through a mentorship with JohnCarty, and essentially we went
(20:00):
through the museum and justlooked at the ethics of cultural
representation in a museumcontext. And, you know, I have a
lot of problems with the Museumof South Australia, I have a lot
of problems with museums in theworld in general. I've been
doing a lot of work with theHumboldt Forum in Berlin, which
is a very controver- peopleprotested the building of the
building that Humboldt is in for20 years. And then by the time
(20:24):
it was built, they decided toput one of the largest colonial
organizations for ethnologicalcollections in the world into
it, you know, it's like, imaginetaking a capitalistic represent,
like the architecture of thecastle of West Germany, it just
(20:44):
really represents the the earlylike ideas of capitalism within
society, whereas it was a, itwas a republic building before
that. It was like a socialisticbuilding that was in that same
spot. Anyway, at the Museum ofSouth Australia, with John
Carty, I looked at a lot of thedisplays of indigenous culture.
And, to me, indigenous cultureisn't necessarily like
(21:07):
boomerangs, and clap sticks,and, like, you know, making a
fire with sticks. And, you know,it's like that we, we really
think of First Nations cultureas being like, ancient and being
something that is, has like,stagnated within a certain era
of humanity, like, you know,hunters and collectors. And, you
(21:31):
know, my
almost at arm's length.
Yeah exaclty, It's like, that'show society was, you know,
whereas I just think, like,indigenous cultures can be
contemporary. Like, there's, youknow, and really, like, if you
go to a museum and you want to,you want to see indigenous
culture, you shouldn't go to seeit the way it was represented,
like, the way that it was precolonization. I think that's I
(21:53):
think that's wrong, I think thatall representations of culture
should be contemporary; for,with, and by the people who are
a part of it. And so that was mybig problem that I had with the
museum. And I still have, Ithink it's a bit controversial
to say something like that. ButI yeah, I definitely think there
could be some major changes madein our cultural institutions.
(22:17):
And so I went there, and I justlike, took the aesthetics of
anthropology that the museumuse, you know, gloss cases,
little plaques. And
yeah, that real like, 'here isthe artifact' kind of thing
exactly. Yeah, the artifacts.
And here I'm presenting it foryou.
(22:38):
I think John was the first onewho instigated [that] the
plaques underneath the objects[would] say who the artists were
that made them, not who theanthropologist was who found
them.
That's an important distinction.
Yeah, you know, it's a majordifference. But it's very small
as well, it's just changing alittle piece of paper that's
underneath it, you know, and sothings like that I took into
(22:59):
consideration for the work. Andthen I presented a variety of
portraits and objects that I'dmade that were in context to
cultural representation of myown culture that I invented,
using artworks that thecommunity had made in workshops,
you know, so that was kind of, Iguess, it was like, I was
gathering folklore from all ofthese kids and, and like, people
(23:22):
that I worked with in Adelaideover the years doing workshops,
and used it in context torepresenting my own culture. So
you know, my family and friendswere all in the show, my my
brother's band played, and themost interesting thing I thought
was that we had is that, it wasat Floating Goose, like right at
the beginning of Floating Goose.And inside the window, we set up
(23:43):
this kind of set with a, like atarp as the backdrop. And then
we had the band play inside,real real humans, like we were
giving out or like vegan horsd'oeuvres to the audience, and
everybody was on the street.There's like, all these people
in the middle of Morphett Streetwatching it. And then we played,
we actually made a short film.And then we put the curtain
down, remove the wholeinstallation, took all of our
(24:06):
costumes off, and then let theaudience into a kind of
anthropological study of us.
Gosh, there's so much going onthere.
[both laugh]
oh wow. I'm gonna need anotherpause to soak that in.
[music plays]
(24:37):
All right, I think it's time totalk about ROCKAMORA, which is
currently on at AdelaideContemporary Experimental
Gallery. Now you were announcedas the recipient of the Porter
Street Commission, and this isthe outcome and I'm very excited
about the whole thing. And itties in really well with what we
(24:58):
were just talking about becauseyou're sort of saying... You
know, I think it's fair to saythat you tend to have these
projects that they don't justhave one single life, they sort
of have these iterations. Andthere's this lovely development
that happens between andbuilding upon these projects. So
ROCKAMORA actually does sort oftie in with the IMMI works.
(25:22):
Maybe I'll just throw to you,can you... how... maybe we
should talk about what the theactual theme of ROCKAMORA is,
because I think it's reallyfascinating. And maybe just
paint a bit of a picture of whatthe install looks like, as well,
or what it is.
I guess... where do I begin?
I know!
creak goes my chair. I guess,technically, this is the fifth
(25:46):
ROCKAMORA. You know? Becausewe've toured it around Victoria,
we toured it regionallythroughout South Australia,
like,
and 'we'; collaborative kind of,you know, large scale kind of
multi-faceted.
You know, it's funny, saying"we", I don't want to say "I"
because every single time I'vedone it, it's been with other
people. Yeah. And you know,like, sure, like, there's the
(26:08):
Jeff Koons and that would alwayssay I when they talk about their
own work, but I just don't, Idon't think that's the reality
of definitely my practice. Ithink people put so much of
themselves in it for so little,you know, and they just do it
because they love me and, and
the energy of it all
Yeah, we have a community and wehave a family that makes cool
shit together. Sorry, my French.
(26:29):
Oh we're not bleeping that.
But yeah, so the first ROCKAMORAwas completely off the cuff. It
was built out of remnants of anold bookstore and some awnings
from a community center. And wejust used a couple of hinges and
like, put some kind of drum kitstools as the eyes and then we
(26:50):
had my brother and Ben Sargent,who are musicians, set up a
microphone and then, you know,we just installed this big
puppet at Carclew. It wasn'tlike... I never thought of
myself as a puppeteer, do youknow what I mean?
Yeah, okay.
I don't think of these works aspuppets. I don't, I don't know
why. To me puppetry is veryspecific to a time and a place.
(27:14):
You know, I think it's verywestern idea. I mean, there's
incredible puppetry in Easterncultures as well. But I think of
the works as participatorysculptures, because I don't want
only myself to be controllingthem, my aim is for the
community that gets to see themand interact with them to
actually control them as well.And that's different to being a
(27:34):
puppeteer. I think you know, apuppeteer just makes an object
that they create an ontology forto understand and move and speak
for
and the audience receives itvery passively
Exactly, whereas my sculptures,you can go inside of them, or
you can become them yourself.Yeah. And I think that's an
important difference to make.And so yeah, first ROCKAMORA was
at Carclew; kids feeding chipsthat they found in the in the
(27:57):
yard to this giant monster. Somekids got scared and we were
like, Don't worry, dude, this isall fake, took them around the
back and then they get to havethe microphone and control the
sculpture. We just sit back,drink coffee, and let them play
with it.
Yeah. imaginations going wild,love it.
Yeah, and that toured to StreakyBay, to Onkaparinga to, you
know, all around. And then wewent to Melbourne, and we built
(28:19):
a new one at Seventh Gallery,which was blue. So that's where
I kind of tied IMMI toROCKAMORA. And what we did is we
hung a giant parcel from theceiling, and then at the opening
of the exhibition, we playedpass the parcel. And we had a
bunch of microwaves; in betweeneach layer of the parcel, there
was popcorn, you got to make abag of popcorn in the microwave.
(28:42):
And then you would unwrap thelayers of your cultural
identity, which is what
Wow, there's a lot there
that was the idea is take alayer off of the parcel and feed
it to ROCKAMORA, they'll eat thelayer of your pop cultural
identity and spit out someinformation or just talk about,
you know, the binaries of how weidentify, and how to break down
(29:04):
binaries in our identity andbecome more... have more of a
spectrum in how we seeourselves. In all kinds of ways,
not just culture, gender,whatever we could feed into it.
We had a bunch of poets thathelped us write stuff, and then
we gave this dialogue thatreacted to people feeding layers
(29:24):
of this pass the parcel game tothe puppet.
There's such a great dynamicbetween the ideas that you're
tapping into that, you know, Ireally have to pay attention to
make sure I'm followingproperly, And yet it's, you
know, juxtaposed with, you know,this very, like...
just playful
It's so playful! and accessibleand unpretentious and, you know,
(29:50):
what a great marriage of thesetwo things that and I think
maybe just for anyone who hasn'tseen it yet, at the moment, the
current iteration is a gianthead like and you know there are
these comically big... maybe weshould tap into the actual,
(30:10):
who/what ROCKAMORA is based onand what it means.
yeah so ROCKAMORA is the name ofmy mother's -and her sisters',
so she had to she has twosisters. And they all went, they
all got to Canada and they theylanded and they were the brown
girls in the white school. Andthey had a bully, and the bully
was called ROCKAMORA. But yeah,so they always when I was a kid
(30:36):
told me the story of confrontingROCKAMORA as a way for me to
deal with my own stuff, youknow, and so I really had this
kind of absurd or exaggeratedidea of this moment in time that
they, for them was just like,you know, they just scrubbed it
off. And they, they turned itinto this story that they tell
their kids, but like, it wasn'tthat important to them. But
(30:58):
because I was a kid and I hadthis, this idea in my head of
who Rockamora is, you know,Rockamora was probably 10 feet
tall.
of course
in my eyes, you know, and likein her eyes is just like a
little kid that she had a roughtime playing with. And my auntie
is really good friends withRockamora and the real Rockmora
still is alive and lives inToronto and has no idea that
(31:18):
this is a giant sculpture inAdelaide that's made with
why are my ears burning [bothlaughing]
maybe one day Rockmora will goto Toronto, and they'll just be
like, Whoa. But, you know, Ithink the reason why, like, I
think it became clear to methrough me, and through the
beginnings of representing thefirst Rockamora is that like,
(31:40):
you can't represent culture, ifit's not your own, you know, you
really just can't. And so I askmyself, How can I represent
ideas and stories that arenecessary to society to feel
better about existing, you know,like to find purpose and to deal
with the stuff we deal withevery day. And I was like, I
(32:01):
want to tell my own stories.That's the best way to do it.
It's just like, figure out whatstories have affected me, and
then open open myself up to showpeople what I've experienced, so
that they can feel like it'snormal. You know, that's what
you want. When you go to schoolfor the first day, you want
everybody else to be late, doyou know what I mean? You want
everybody else to wear the weirdshirt with the crinkles in it,
(32:23):
you know, that's what you want.You just you want to feel
belonging in that everyone'sflawed, you know, and that's why
Rockmora is the bad guy, youknow, because everyone is
flawed. Everyone is a bad guy.But we still need to treat bad
guys with benevolence, we stillneed to care for the bad guys.
And that's part of theparticipation, isn't it? Is it
that we're invited to care forthe bully? Like, yeah, and
(32:46):
that's such a interesting... youknow, reading the copy and the
blurb about what the show wasabout, I was just like, what?
Why?!
I'm being invited to be a goodperson? No, it's a lovely
empathy, but it's, yeah, stillplayful. and
(33:06):
I feel like, it'scounterintuitive, though, you
know, it's like a very simpleelement of counter intuition. I
think most stories we hear areabout, like, the defeat of
agonist you know, and I thinkthat's a very patriarchal story,
you know?
and tired!
Literally, I'm tired of thatstory. I'm tired of superheroes.
(33:28):
I'm tired of the protagonistbeing this sexy blond, white man
that like wears a cape anddestroys the ugly Purple
Tentacle.
It's always purple!
Exactly. Like why? why? Give mesomething that I can be, I can
feel, I can understand andidentify with
(33:52):
or is just a little more realand nuanced and dynamic and
contradictory, and, yes, morethings at once.
And so, one of the best fantasysci fi novelists in the world,
Le Guin, -everyone knows LeGuin- wrote an essay that's
called the carrier bag theory.And it's the theory that most
(34:14):
stories in our history had beenwritten about a man who makes a
weapon to defeat a bad guy
gosh that does cover a lot,yeah.
It's a lot of stories. And sheargued that really, we need to
start telling stories of thecarrier bag, which is the person
(34:36):
who creates a vessel to collectthe information, the necessary
tools to overcome something fromwithin, you know, it's like this
idea of like, taking in aspectsof your ecology, aspects of your
antagonist, and your family andwhatever to combine them
(35:00):
together or to compare them tounderstand their relationship,
so that you can come up with asolution. Through care,
understanding, empathy. Throughcombining resources, you know,
and that's what care is, to me,it's like, you have to combine
resources with the personaffected by whatever thing that
(35:21):
you they need healing for, andthen you problem solve a
solution. And that's what careis.
And so important to underscorethat actually, that is a very
valid and interesting and bravething to be doing. That's much
more interesting than justdefeating a bad guy!
They should be the superheroes,the people who cared, like in
our society, you know, thepeople that do the hard work
(35:43):
that like actually takeslistening, and reacting and
problem solving. That is, that'sthe beautiful, powerful
narrative that I think we like,and it's not just made who tells
that story, I think, a lot ofpeople dealing with topics of
colonization, discrimination,even gender politics as well,
like, they talk about self careand, and healing in general, as
(36:08):
a, as a form of, you know,contemporary storytelling, a way
to take the attention off of thevictim and put it onto the
perpetrator. But still tell thestory without, you know,
damaging the the ecology thatexists to uphold those
narratives. You know, like, ifwe constantly tell the story of
(36:32):
like, a post colonial decolonialnarrative through the victim,
then the victim has to do allthe work, you know, all of it.
And we just can't do that, thereneeds to be like, I'm an
antagonist within myself aswell. Like, I'm, you know, I've
got many stories in my historythat are flawed, and probably
(36:53):
took advantage of whateversituation.
everyone is someone's ROCKAMORA.
Exactly! Everyone's a Rockmoraeveryone's ROCKAMORA. And I
think, you know, I think I stillwant to be able to tell those
stories, I want to be able to, Iwant to be able to stand in
front of my community and say,My ancestors, and I have done
some bad stuff. We've done someterrible things, you know, but
(37:13):
I've also got good things, andmaybe I can use the good things
to fix the bad things, you know,like, let's just admit to stuff,
yes. And then figure out how tofix it instead of just
not talking about it
ROCKAMORA, to me, is my idea orlike my representation of the
elephant in the room. That's howI see it.
That is a great way to put it,isn't it? Because I mean it's
(37:35):
big enough.
Exactly, I'm like this is howbig the friggin elephant is,
guys. This is how big it is.
Like, you can't ignore the gianthead.
And it's having a bath, that'show comfortable it is. It's
comfortable. There's hundreds ofyou here. And this elephant in
the room is taken a bath.
Yeah, there's so much to unwrapthere, I love it. But what a
(37:59):
great just unapologetic justlike no, this is a conversation
we're having. And it's fun. Andyou can you know, I think it's
it's not scary, which is funny,because, for some people when
you read the word'participatory' is a bit of a
trigger, because you know, Idon't know, I think of like
going to a comedy show and notsitting in the front row, you
(38:20):
know, noone wants to be picked.But it's not like that at all.
It's just, it's welcoming. Imean, you know, we were talking
before about, you know, isn'tall art participatory, really,
you know, that kind of thing.
Actually, one of the bestmoments in this entire process
has been on the first and secondperformance, but I just remember
(38:41):
the first one really made animpression because it was the
first time it happened. We hadlike planned like Kate Cheel and
I working through theperformance structures and like
some of the dramaturgy of,essentially there's six levels
and the third level is feeding.So you feed Rockmora,
Yeah, so like different phasesof interacting with the work?
Yeah, so it's sleep. So you wakeup Rockmore using making by
(39:04):
making sound, then you cleanthem; you brush their teeth,
clean their ears, and
I love that giant cotton bud
and then you feed them, so youthrow like protein balls in
their mouth; and then they do apoo. And then they get
embarrassed and they get angry.And then there's two endings and
(39:24):
you either calm them down, oryou break them.
wow - should we have this power?but what a great commentary, and
the choice.
but one of my favorite momentsin this whole process has been
on the opening night when we hadplanned for a few people to
maybe get up during theperformance and throw some food
in the gob, we had this big packof chips, we had all these like
(39:48):
recycled Styrofoam off-cuts andwe like painted them yellow. And
then we sewed the chip packetclosed and there was this moment
where like, as soon as wesmashed it like ripped open this
packet of chips, Blob Funkplayed, was like [sings Blob
Funk]. And so during this reallyup lively song, we would try and
give out these chips to peopleto feed Rockamora. And like,
(40:10):
obviously every single kid inthe venue got up and sprinted
for the stage, they're like giveme one of those!
yeah give me giant chip
but not only the kids, like assoon as those kids stood up,
literally the whole room stoodup, like I'd say, like, close to
200 people, and I was like, Ijust didn't think that, you
know, we thought maybe a handfulof people in the front row might
(40:32):
help us out and do it. But likethe entire room, grabbed a chip
and threw it in Rockamora'smouth.
That is so good.
My faith in humanity restored.Just like participation can
work. And yeah, people do feellike they want to be involved in
our art
Yes, and are willing!
actively participate in it, youknow, and I just was so
(40:54):
astounded.
Oh, that's goosebumps-good.
Yeah, literally shivers up myspine.
Amazing. This is so interesting.Because I mean, if you didn't
know, like, if you hadn't readthe copy, and then even then,
talking to you now, there's somuch more than I'd really
thought behind the work. And itwould almost be if we hadn't
(41:16):
heard you speak about it,because it's fun and colourful,
it's almost like you couldalmost assume it was just fun
and just play and just -not tobe [rude], I feel terrible
saying that but- it's one ofthose things where I'm glad
we're talking about it
I think that's... it's such acommon thing, you know? That
when something is happy andsprightful and optimistic and
(41:41):
playful, it can seem a bitsuperficial.
Yeah. Which is weird! But I knowwhat you mean, yeah.
I think it's, I think it's aflaw in how we see art, to think
that play is superficial.
Yeah. or less?
Yeah. Because play has strictboundaries.
Do go on.
(42:02):
Like, if you don't haveparameters set in place for
play, then you can't play.Because otherwise the world's
too big and you become tooscared. And so I think that's a
big thing in our company, youknow, so we've got The Bait
Fridge, which is our like, 30plus collective of artists from
(42:23):
anywhere and everywhere, youknow, we're trying to create as
much accessibility as we canwith our company. So there's
people from literally everycorner of Adelaide in our
collective,
there's a lot of really engagingworkshops, and, you know,
projects that are just largerthan life
and process based, you know,we're just like, how can we let
people that don't have thepower, take over?
[both laugh]
who let you guys be in charge?Amazing
(42:45):
Yeah. And then there'sSlowmango, which is the band
that was kind of born within andwithout the bait fridge and kind
of has created this beautifulstructure for the bait fridge to
exist upon.
Oh that's a great relationship.
So yeah, music is foundationalfor the parameters that we set
for our play in the collective.So my brother really took the
(43:09):
play that we'd done andsolidified it into something
tangible. And you know, wereleased a record last week, and
we've already sold half of them,you know, it's, it's been
amazing
oh my gosh, do you sleep?
[laughing] Yeah, I do. I do. Weall have to.
Sometimes. Fit it in onWednesdays.
(43:29):
But I think one of the bigthings that I've come to terms
with recently is trying tounderstand how important the
work we do is, because it is soplayful. And I think, I want us
to be seen, like we areaccessible and playful and open
(43:50):
and optimistic towards theworld. But I also want people to
understand that what we do hasintense processes for
accessibility, for likecomfortability, for safety, for
you know, we aren't ageist, wearen't sexist, and those to be
(44:10):
able to say those things is big,especially in the contemporary
arts, you know, like, I don'tthink many people can say that.
And, you know, we literally dowork with people that don't have
a platform because they don'thave the access to have one. And
when you see a performance infront of you, it's just like,
oh, yeah, that person is just ina costume dancing around...
(44:32):
they've never danced in acostume before. They've never
made a costume before. Theylearned how to do it with us.
They, they hardly they don'teven have a studio because they
can't organize one forthemselves; the only time that
they make work is when they'rein a situation where they're
being facilitated or helped. Wedon't help people, we just want
(44:56):
to make them feel like they'reequal to us, you know, and in
order for someone to get tothere is hard enough in the
first place, let alone make thework itself. And so it might
seem like the topics and thethemes and the facade of our
work is really superficial andplayful, but there's so much
more to it than that, which ishard to convey. And also, we
(45:18):
don't want to make someoneparade their baggage if they
don't feel comfortable.
Yes, I think that's an importantthing, isn't it? Because, as
much as it's so easy to forpeople to not observe that,
that's probably the way it hasto be, because yeah, you don't
want to labor someone'sdifficulties, or someone's that
inability to access something.
And that's like, one of thebiggest reasons why I've always
(45:40):
done masking, or costume. And isbecause it allows you to not
have to identify as what youlook like. do you know what I
mean?
Yeah... this will be part 2
I think that's a huge part ofit, as well as like, it all
seemed like, Masquerade. Youknow, it's like a parade of this
kind of beautiful thing. And,but it really like what is
(46:02):
underneath the mask? You know,that's, that's what really
counts. But, but the great thingabout our performances is that
you don't have to show that. Youdon't have to be brown, you
don't have to be disabled, youdon't have to be male, you don't
have to be female, you can justbe what the character you invent
is. And I know that seems prettysimple. But like, yeah, that
(46:26):
in the context of everythingthat you're saying, yeah. And it
makes sense, I mean, that is oneof the ways that you can
facilitate, no 'othering',you're just all weird characters
or
And it's an even playing field,if everyone's in a mask, it's an
even playing field, you know,and, and, and then, behind the
(46:47):
scenes, we create a safe space,you know, that's where that's
where it's just us. And we cansay you deserve the equity,
because you haven't had theopportunities that we have. So
you get to do what you want todo, how you want to do it, and
then we facilitate those peoplethat need that access, or to be
able to present their work theway that they want to present
(47:09):
it. It's the job of the peoplewho have the privilege to help
them behind the scenes. Yeah.Because help doesn't need to be
presented on stage. And it whenwe don't want people to think
like, 'oh, all the white peopleare helping the brown people',
that's not what we want to do.
yeah, and the difference betweenperforming the help and just
doing it for the right reasons.
(47:30):
Yeah exactly. And just havingfun and not having to confront
those politics on the stage. Youknow, we can confront them in
our own time, behind the scenes,you know,
and that not laboring the pointof the help, because the
important thing is the work andthe art.
Yes, and then once people arecomfortable, like if once people
(47:50):
are integrated into our work,then they can go and then they
can present their baggage ifthey want. Everybody wants to; I
do it all the time. You know,like, I mean, there's so many
forms in society of performanceand art where people are
parading their baggage, youknow, like just showing the
world how they suffered becausethat's what is freaking
beautiful, but it's not easygetting there. You gotta you
(48:12):
gotta really know yourself yeah,to do something like that
and you have to be safely inthat position to make that
choice. But amazing, I love Ilove it all. And I love the just
the enigma of like, Bait Fridge,but what is it and like, what?
There's just this like, I don'tknow, mythology around it all,
that's great. But um, yeah,quintessentially, like, so South
(48:36):
Aussie, but also worldly anduntethered.
[laughs] Unhinged!
Unhinged! Can we finish on that?Thank you for your... delving
into the unhinged with Kaspar.
and honestly I couldn't do itwithout them. Like, my name
might be at the front of thePorter Street Commission title
(48:57):
because that's how theCommission works. But in the
end, you know, my entire careeris hinged off of the community
that I have here. And you know,I didn't go to school. My
community is the one that I madeart with while I worked, you
know, in every context fromSignWriting, to festival to
(49:19):
exhibition to you know, readingand writing, you know,
everything
no better foundation than that.Yeah,
Cheers to The Bait Fridge. AndSALA! oh my god we didn't even
get to talk about SALA!
Haha, that's alright, we're init baby!
[both laugh]
(49:57):
[music plays]
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