Kihara's project seeks to develop platforms for inter-cultural
discussion, by bringing together two musical or dance groups from
different cultural backgrounds to develop performances in public spaces.
Talanoa: Walk the Talk #V, Sydney Cook Island Dance Group and the Australian Yau Kung Mun Association. Courtesy the artist. Commissioned by 4A. more..
'The Cast and Crew' is based on Guo Jian's experience of living between the cultures of Australia and China. Guo's pantings confront the difficulty that migrants face when trying to tell 'us' apart from 'them' in the contemporary world. The feeling is likened to being on a movie-set in between 'takes'. Once the cameras stop rolling, actors playing heroes and villains lose their distinctions, all in on the joke together.
4A presents its ever-popular Cinema Alley -- a street cinema for contemporary Asian video art. For one night only, Parker Street transforms into a street cinema
screening animation from the 1960s from the Shanghai Animation Company
and contemporary video art by one of China's leading video artists -- Yang Fudong.
4A presents Sliding Mirror: 24 Hour Embrace
by New Zealand-based, Korean artist Young Sun Han. Staged in 4A's street front gallery,
the performance involves the artist finding strangers matching his physical description through
online listing services. At the stroke of midnight the artist and a stranger will embrace for 24
hours. Previously staged in Chicago, this will be Young Sun Han's first presentation of work in
Australia.
Aris Prabawa was a founding member of the
Indonesian artist-run collective Taring Padi, he has been living on
the North Coast of Australia for nearly a decade. In the Service of Nature is a new body of painting and drawings which takes nature and the rapacious abuse of the environment by people, governments
and corporations as a central theme, expressed through a symbolic visual
language.
In 2009, Brisbane-based artist
Eric Bridgeman travelled through remote parts of the Chimbu (Simbu) Province,
his mother's country in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. As he was born in
Australia, Bridgeman became increasingly conscious of his own 'white'
Australian presence, and began to recognise the impact of photography on
representations of national and cultural identity in PNG.
New
Photographs From Kokwara Trail(2010) is a new body of photographic work based on his recent travels.
4A's ground floor turns into Make-do Garden City, a place where
fictional Chinese gardens of the seventeenth century meet with the personal
histories and potential sustainable futures of Sydney's Chinatown.
Tessa Zettel
& Karl Khoe will be conducting a six-week program of talking, making and
growing that explores new ways of remembering and recreating the city around
us. Members of the local community are invited to contribute stories of
gardens - real, past or imagined - in exchange for edible plants grown by the
artists.
On Thursday 13 May at 12:30pm,
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art will present a performance by one of the key
contemporary art figures from Japan, Tatsumi Orimoto in 4A's ground floor gallery space.
Oil Can will see the artist and
15 volunteers standing solemnly in 44 gallon steel drums. Employing
humour,
often to the discomfort of the viewer, Tatsumi Orimoto?s artistic
practice
examines forms of communication. Throughout the duration of this
performance,
the absurd gives way to a tender and serious existential questioning.
Neatly in
rows, people appear marooned and isolated by their steel confines. Though
physically close and in the same situation as their neighbour, no one is
able
to connect to another.
What's Eating Gilberto Gil? is a lecture that explores
our flesh-eating history and its contemporary legacies. From ancient socio-religious origins, colonial captivations, to more
recent forms of cultural anthropology, cannibalism has shaped our
civilisation.
RSVP ESSENTIAL via email info@4a.com.au Limited seating available - book early to avoid disappointment Presented in association with Momentum, Sydney more..
Catching the Moment; Each Step is the Past is an ephemeral and
poignant installation using silk and hand-woven fabric, layered with delicate
drawings and Thai texts.
The softness of Suwannakudts work is underpinned
by a serious meditation on communication. Her work is imbued with allegorical
and everyday references, resonating with personal memory and experiences.
Suwannakudt migrated to Australia in 1996. She describes her entry into
Australian culture as both shocking and disorientating. Translated through the
tactility of materials her works evoke a shared need to connect and allows a
space to contemplate the dual existence of living both here and elsewhere.
Split over two exhibition periods and featuring artists from Australia and the Asia region, Last Words is a group exhibition that explores language, knowledge and communication in an age of cultural diversity and globalisation. It is the culmination of a series of mid-career solo exhibitions and performances, which 4A has undertaken throughout 2010 that tackle ideas of communication.
Last Words Exhibition Opening Event Thursday 15 July 6-8pm
Last Words selected artists and curator floor talks Saturday 17 July 2pm
Last
Words continues with Phase 2 examining the ways in which meaning is constructed in times of
uncertainty, when traditional forms of identification are neither consistent or
certain. The dissolution of the traditional boundaries of geography and
culture, through technology and globalisation, poses particular issues for both
artists and society generally, especially as individuals attempt to articulate
their place, their histories and a sense of connection within these changing
environments.
Last Words Phase 2 Exhibition Opening Event: Friday 3 September 6-8pm
To be opened by Councillor Robert Kok and special guest speaker, author of Look Who's Morphing, Tom Cho.
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art has embarked on a series of new community initiatives, encouraging artists to work collaboratively within the local Chinatown area.
We've invited local comic creator Matt Huynh to uncover untold stories of Chinatown through the engaging, poetic and visual form of short comic strips.
4A ANIMATION PROJECT In 2010, 4A celebrates animation!
Taking
inspiration from the world of animation, 4A embarks on a year long
animation project.
We want to see the work of the dynamic and
creative individuals who make up our vibrant community. We are asking
members, artists, students, designers in short everybody to make and
submit a short animation work.
