Arts House Listening Program

(Questionnaire): “I’m not testing your responses, it’s only because I’m not a qualified neurologist and it hasn’t been passed by an ethics board” - and the other barriers between us… I made a game where I secretly test people’s global abstract reasoning. Although it’s not so secret because I have no filter and I tell everyone that’s what I’m doing.” --- I want to invite you to imagine what it’s li...

(meltdown blob): It’s multiple things that collide in common, that’s also right and it’s very different. When my executive functions drop, I forget I have legs and I think I have so many hands because I get so many sensations from them. I’m a meltdown blob. --- This is a self-portrait. It couldn’t be traditional because I’m not traditional. It couldn’t look like a person born into a female body, b...

(lamp): I have an idea what autism is: switched on, lighted up, plugged in, spark, light-bulb moment, illuminated, brilliant, a light in the darkness, fairy-light enlightened, glowing, luminous. And I can describe a lamp in lots of ways. --- The lamp represents a fleeting moment of an idea where you can feel switched on to what Autism is. This is my idea of Autism: Everyone has their own ideas. It...

(papier-mache glitter brain): I had an idea. I couldn’t good word, or word good. My laughing says everything. --- There’s many things in my heart that I can’t squeeze out into words. It’s hard to understand the impact a life of ableist discrimination can have on a person. I wanted to open the door of my heart so you could feel everything I’ve experienced, so you could really know what I know. Good...

(sensory stim brain): When you touch the textured representation of my MRI, my brain representation touches you through the nerves in your fingers. --- You can touch it. This project is modelled directly off a projection of my MRI. It’s a representation of my sensory profile. Using found objects from my everyday environments. I invite you to explore responding to textures I like. You can build you...

(Self-portrait as human black swan): What is assumed, what is expected, what is invisible, what is very clear: the air is more buzzy, things feel more expansive, there’s a lightness to the air molecules and a depth of feeling. A human with autism, or an autism with human, or a swan with hands? I’m definitely something… ----- Sometimes people separate themselves from animals. Sometimes I relate to...

(sensory stim brain): When you touch the textured representation of my MRI, my brain representation touches you through the nerves in your fingers. A papier mache top-down MRI scan of a brain, approximately 2M high by 1M wide. A bright textured artwork, with elements of glitter and other shiny surprises that pick up the light. The under layer is white. On it are raised contours that reflect the sh...

(Self-portrait as both ape and topless woman) wild and tame, strong and vulnerable, stupid and smart, masc and femme, masking and unable to mask: I can’t make a world without discrimination, I can’t end all ableism, I CAN draw a picture that holds us in the face of everything. An A3 drawing set on bright orange paper of a female-appearing person being embraced by an ape. She is shirtless, breasts...

(papier-mache glitter brain): I had an idea. I couldn’t good word, or word good. My laughing says everything. Placed on a white plinth sits a papier mache brain shaped sculpture. The brain is roughly the size of a microwave. It is covered in white paper with black words. The layers of ripped up pieces of paper have the draft didactic text of the Sublime Stim exhibition printed onto them. Some word...

(Mermaid deer mask painting): Don’t look at my mystical mermaid deer winged body. I’m totally a regular norm-core human, that masks real good. An A4 painting on thin plywood. A night-sky landscape of a black background with white specks of different sizes. In the bottom right half of the painting are two mythical looking creatures who appear to be the same species. They have light green mermaid ta...

(Film): Culture expressed through gesture, sensations all over, and the way the world understands itself: we don’t want to put anything in here that doesn’t make it better. A 20 minute film, played on loop, is projected on a large 3 by 4 metre wide screen which has been hung in front of a black curtain. The film presents diverse people sitting or standing in relaxed postures or stimming, all in fr...

(blob painting): sometimes I like it when my executive functions drop. I can like being over stimulated, sometimes it’s funny and confusing. I can get sound to touch synesthesia; it can tickle me in weird places, like my organs. A human-like creature painted on gray linen canvas. The creature fills two thirds of the canvas. The creature is an entanglement of human-like body parts, entwined with mo...

Arts House’s Disability-led residency and commissioning program focuses on experimental projects presented at North Melbourne Town Hall. The Warehouse Residency centres and celebrates D/deaf, Disabled, neurodiverse and chronically ill artists, curators, collectives and their collaborating allies. EOIs close Thursday 20 October 2022, 5pm AEST https://www.artshouse.com.au/artist-opportunities/the-wa...

Expressions of Interest (EOI) are currently open for CultureLAB. CultureLAB is a creative development program that supports independent artists, collectives, and small-medium organisations to generate new work. CultureLAB is one of the pathways through which Arts House commissions work for our presentation seasons. EOI’s close: Thursday 20 October 2022, 5pm AEST Find out more here https://www.arts...

You’re listening to a recording of “Talking In the Time of Refuge”, a conversation held at Arts House on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation Saturday 19 March 2022. Refuge has been one of Arts House’s most significant undertakings – a multi-year project bringing together a range of people to explore how collaboration with community is critical for how we pre...

An in-depth chat about where it all began. FAMILI brings together 15 artists whose bloodlines hail from Pasifika, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, weaving together some of the most essential queer and Bla(c)k voices across Australia. To experience ‘We Take Back Our Mother Tongues’ by FAMILI at Arts House on Fri 6 & Sat 7 May, 2022 visit https://www.artshouse.com.au/events/famili-...

Arts X Science Residency EOI Call Out by Arts House Listening Program

CultureLAB EOI Call Out by Arts House Listening Program

Makeshift Publics EOI Call Out by Arts House Listening Program

Arts House’s new Disability-led residency and commissioning program focuses on experimental projects presented at North Melbourne Town Hall. The Warehouse Residency centres and celebrates D/deaf, Disabled, neurodiverse and chronically ill artists, curators, collectives and their collaborating allies. EOIs for the 2022 program close Thursday 14 October, 5pm. For more information visit www.artshouse...

Vaka 10: Pilgrimage (4:35) Audio excerpt of Rev Dr Jione Havea - Tongan Methodist Church - WCC 2016 Concept and Fāiva: Latai Taumoepeau Composition and Sound: Nina Buchanan

Fonua OUTRO: Stop | Start (0:05) Concept and Fāiva: Latai Taumoepeau Composition and Sound : Nina Buchanan

Fonua INTRO: Begin|Go by Arts House Listening Program

Vaka 4: Legend of the coconut (2:38) From the book Po Fananga - Folk Tales of Tonga by Tupou Posesi Fanua Read in Tongan by Sis’uno Helu, Read in English by Tempest Fale’aka Taumoepeau Concept and Faiva: Latai Taumoepeau Composition and Sound: Nina Buchanan

Vaka 8: Longest Journey (4:40) Stiff Gins with SistaNative Written by: Kaleen Briggs, Nardi Simpson and Seini SistaNative Taumoepeau "Courtesy & © the artists" Unpublished, demo recording at ABC Studios, Ultimo/Sydney. Languages sung: Tongan & English