Footscrayism

Footscrayism, a set on Flickr.

Footscrayism Part 2

Of course, apart from my own videos, there was a huge body of work produced by the participants I worked with, namely: Johanna Lafferte, Josh Howie and Billie Whitbread. With varying levels of experience, but buckets of talent and creativity, they were a great group to work with- open-minded, responsive and really keyed into their community.

The photos they produced were ace and there is some documentation above, and the text from the floor sheet below.

Footscrayism
Josh Howie
Johanna Lafferte
Jessica Scott
&
Billie Whitbread

Created over six months, using digital cameras, polaroid film, video and paint, these works together form a multilayered portrait of Footscray, drawing strongly on each artist’s personal relationship to the people and places around them.

Each participant volunteered to be part of the project, meeting regularly and taking their cameras out with them on the street to try and capture their own vision of Footscray. The period of the project turned out to be a tumultuous time for Lentil as Anything: a period of uncertainty, transition and ultimately resilience, which is reflected in the work.

A Footscrayism is something both dark and light, bitter and sweet, funny and tragic, and strong and fragile all at the same time. It embodies, rather than pays lip service to, words like community and diversity – here, where they are every day realities, necessities, facts of life.

Footscrayism is an outcome of the New Skin Artist in Residence program at Barkly Arts Centre, 2011.

We would like to acknowledge the generous support of Rae & Bennett Fine Art Printers

Footscrayism Part 1

For the first half of 2011 I had the pleasure of being an artist-in-residence at Barkly Arts Centre in Footscray, one of three artists part of the New Skin Program. It was a really enjoyable, responsive program where I was able to get to know people, spend time in the community researching and allow a project to evolve naturally. I loved hanging out at Barkly, at Lentil As Anything, wandering around Footscray with the artists I worked with looking for inspiration, visiting the incredibly quaint Footscray Historical Society to find out more about the Barkly Hotel, shooting on the street, collecting bits and pieces of Footscray ephemera and most of all: eating Olympic Doughnuts on a regular basis.

One of the over all goals of the program was to engage with residents and community members who live in/work for/use the facilities in the very unique (and visionary) social housing development in which the art centre sits. I worked with three emerging artists who work at Lentil As Anything, the community’s erstwhile town square, and we produced an exhibition in June called “Footscrayism” which focussed on different modes of portraiture- of people, and places in their community. I produced two videos for the exhibition, one of which I have posted an excerpt of here, as well as accompanying essay.

This residency, the work that came out of it and the people I worked with have strengthened my resolve as an artist- given me a really clear sense of the kinds of projects and work I want to be a part of. Showing work at Barkly was unlike any exhibition I’ve ever been part of. Seeing the effect the work had on the audience- whether they were deeply moved, delighted, slighted or downright angry, made me think a lot about the relationship between art and audience. This audience were so invested in the outcome of the work. It meant a lot for them to be represented in this way, and they held us to a high standard, had high expectations.  The question “Who am I making this for?” has always troubled me. I don’t think there is any one answer to this question – I in fact don’t believe art has an inherent purpose. But I do know that art means more to me when I can feel the connection with the audience I am presenting it to. And it feels awful when I can’t.

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An interview with Richard Tuohy and Marcia Jane from Artist Film Workshop

My sister, Maggie Scott, interviewed Richard and Marcia as research for her report on the most recent Artist Film Workshop, at Bouverie Studios in March. The report will be available on Screen Machine shortly.

An interview with Richard Tuohy and Marcia Jane from Artist Film Workshop

By Maggie Scott

Maggie Scott: Why is it important to you to salvage the practice of using the film technologies you do in this age of hyper en masse digital film craziness?

Richard Tuohy: Well that is a key question for what AFW are about. In some respects we are motivated by ‘salvaging’ – there are still games to be played with film – still ideas to be discovered and played out. Film still offers new insights into the world and itself. That much is a salvaging, or at least a continuation of the film art tradition. But what film is changes too. Now, film is a much more hands-on thing. As film equipment is dropping in value, it is now more than ever able to fall into the hands of artists to play with. We can now get our hands on gear that a little while ago was way too expensive and only the domain of the film industry. This is new, and has changed what working with film means. In part, the internet is a factor in this change too, as it has made it easy to get your hands on equipment. A very important factor for AFW is that while digital is everywhere and anyone can shoot and edit on their own computer, film requires a bit more effort. People often need help to use film, to learn how it is possible to work with film. That is a core mission of AFW. We want to make it possible for artists to work with film. And we want to create a context where work made on film is prioritised, such that it makes sense to work on film.

Marcia: I tried my first video art making while I was studying multimedia in 2003. I used what was available to me as a student, and at that time it was very definitely digital video. Had I studied at an earlier time I would have been handed a Bolex camera and would have explored film first. But using what I had, I began to delve into the textural possibilities of shooting on DV, and I know from this that every shooting medium has its own textural qualities that are ripe for exploration. So I don’t subscribe some popular positions on film, for example that it automatically looks better than video. Materiality is an interesting aspect of film, but immateriality is also an interesting aspect of video.

As a digital video maker who has recently begun to work with film projects, I see it as an opportunity to work with images and time in a very different way. I generally do ‘direct film’ and this is because of my ongoing interest in drawing and collage. Film offers a drawing surface. After the drawing is done the film strip is run through a projector. The mechanism of claws and shutter perform a mechanical division of the drawn images, sequencing them and converting them to moving image. I’m still figuring out how this works but I think there are ways to do this that will be interesting. I also make video recordings of my films that I project at home, and these images are making their way, via a series of optical and digital procedures, into my video installations.

Is this activity really salvage? You do have to salvage gear that is often on its way to being thrown out, quite literally it could be in a dumpster. And film requires you to have a series of devices in order to make a work, from tanks, chemistry and racks to splicers, winders and projectors. This is a very different way of thinking from using software to make work; you need some knowledge and access to a different set of (mechanical) resources, and that knowledge and gear base is shrinking.

Film as a nostalgic activity does not appeal to me at all. In so far as time travels in any direction, it’s forward, not back! I see film’s potential now (in 2011) for multi-practice artists. I’m talking about artists who make sound, movement, visual, spatial or moving image works, making hybrids of these as they wish. Film becomes another strand, another mode of expression in this mix. These type of artists are the ones who will bring interesting thought to the medium of artists’ film.