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MAPBM is presenting an exciting project in May 2025 to help reactivate the Wentworth Falls School of Arts and as part of this project is seeking personal stories and memories about past activities and events that have taken place at the School of Arts. Visit https://www.modernartprojects.org/project/mapbm-5-5-project-at-wentworth-falls-school-of-arts for more information
In the second of MAPBM's public seminar series we presented Listen Carefully: The thorny ethics of site-responsive art by Andrew Balletty at RoseyRavelson Books, 1 Badgery Crescent Lawson on Wednesday 27 November 2024.
Balletty, an Indian-born Australian artist and researcher based in the Blue Mountains, will present two recent Darwin-based projects. These initiatives address the town's declining social fabric, particularly among disengaged youth. Belletty's work demonstrates how carefully designed listening interventions can foster empathy and meaningful engagement. His approach is influenced by his upbringing in Darwin's tropical environment and extensive experience in cinematic sound design within diverse cultural contexts.
This was a fascinating presentation relevant to everyone involved in contemporary art, but in particular to artists involved in making site-responsive work. A video of the presentation should be available shortly. MAPBM plans to continue the seminar series in 2025 so please revisit our website for further news in January.
A MAPBM Session was held with MAPBM Member Miriam Williamson and Brad Allen-Waters who discussed their work Williamson Park as part of Cementa 24 at Williamson Park Kandos on Saturday 21 September 2024. For more details go to https://cementa.com.au/artist/miriam-williamson-brad-allen-waters
MAPBM continued its popular Show and Tell program with a presentation by Chia Moan on her work 'Scrolling with the Eucalyptus' in the 'Disruptor: for all that matters' exhibition at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre.
The session was held on Saturday 24 August 2024 and non-MAPBM members were able to attend. For more information about the exhibition please visit https://bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au/exhibition/disruptor-for-all-that-matters. A video of the session will be posted on the MAPBM Vimeo page shortly.
In an elemental physics and cultural dynamics of matter-energy-information, energy has been the odd one out. It is also the stuff from which much in the arts is crafted, not just this vision. Using the poet Anne Waldman's concept of male energy as a guide, I will introduce what drives this still-point epiphany at the centre of the world's most famous road novel. All welcome, no need to have read or tolerated Kerouac.
As the start of a new MAPBM public seminar series, we were pleased to present a talk by Mountains writer Douglas Kahn - ‘Eternal multiswarm of electrical Power...'Energies, Buddhism, and Jack Kerouac's visionary experience at RoseyRaveston Books, 1 Badgery Crescent Lawson on Wednesday 21 August 2024. This talk is now available on the MAPBM Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/1005671417.
MAPBM concludes its successful inner-city adventures with digital art, experimental music (and cocktails) with MASHUP II. Five artists from the MAPBM Digital Group are remixing the works from the first MASHUP last week, so please join us for a great evening at SHADES Bar at Central Station (12A Eddy Avenue Haymarket), 5:00 to 6:20pm Thursday 27 July 2023. Entry is free but please register at https://events.humanitix.com/mashup2
After _MOSAIC, the very successful screening at the Golden Age Cinema, MAPBM's second inner-city digital foray MASHUP! (at SHADES Bar at Central Station on 20 July 2023) was a glitzy, glitchy and glorious cacophony of experimental music and digital art.
MAPBM held its first inner-city presentation of digital works by five member artists - Cinzia Cremona, Fiona Davies, Kenneth Lambert, Naomi Oliver and Sean O'Keeffe - at the Golden Age Cinema, 80 Commonwealth St Surry Hills on Wednesday 12 July 2023.
Together or Otherwise a(part), MAPBM Members' exhibition at Articulate Project Space 497 Parramatta Road Leichhardt NSW 2040 was held 6-21 May 2023.
MAPBM’s first members’ exhibition to be held in the city featured 18 MAPBM artists and was coordinated by MAPBM member Diana Robson.
For more information please go to the exhibition project page.
Carnivale Catastrophe was presented by Modern Art Projects Blue Mountains (MAPBM) at Cementa22, Kandos, 19-22 May, 2022
Proudly assisted by the Australian Government through the Festivals Australia program, Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal and NAB Foundation.
Curated by Fiona Davies, Exhibition Manager Lizzy Marshall. Invited Artists: Fiona Davies, Rhonda Dee, Beata Geyer, Anne Graham, Tom Isaacs, Kenneth Lambert, Sean O’Keeffe, Ebony Secombe.
Both organisations, MAPBM and Cementa22, are based in communities that were severely affected by the 2019/2020 bushfires. The installations, performances and public programs of Carnivale Catastrophe were situated in such a post-disaster emotional landscape and explored the ideas of uncertainty, of trying to find comfort, shelter, or a safer place and trying to understand what happened. Carnivale Catastrophe provided a catalyst for conversations where voices in these communities are able to share their experiences.
For more information visit the Carnivale Catastrophe project page or access the Carnivale Catastrophe catalogue.
See the trailer for the Lumiere Festival!
Lumière - Mount Victoria's Festival of the Moving Image, a 10-day program of events was held respectfully on Dharug and Gundungurra lands from 22nd April to 1st May 2022. Curated by Rebecca Waterstone and presented by Modern Art Projects Blue Mountains, Lumière featurede over 40 short films by 25 artists.
Visit the website: https://www.lumierefestival.com.au/ or click on this news item for more information
Modern Art Projects Blue Mountains proudly presented Lumière - Mount Victoria's Festival of the Moving Image, a 10-day program of events respectfully held on Dharug and Gundungurra lands from 22nd April to 1st May 2022.
Curated by Rebecca Waterstone.
Over 40 short films by 25 artists explored themes of light and liminality, screened in a variety of unique spaces including Mount Vic Flicks vintage cinema, the salons and grounds of historic Mount Victoria Manor, Rhomboid Studio, local shop windows and laneways, and a pop-up cinema.
Six extraordinary artists were commissioned to create new works for Lumière, to be screened at Mount Vic Flicks.
A lantern parade and opening night premiere began the festivities on 22nd April. Visit the Lumière website for more information.
rest/less, MAPBM’s first video screening, was shown on Wednesday 23 June 2021 at Mt Vic Flicks, Mt Victoria.
rest/less is a 30-minute selection of video artworks created by MAPBM member artists (and collaborators), inspired by themes related to energy and rest. The event included artist talks and a Q&A.
Participating artists:
• Cinzia Cremona
• Kenneth Lambert
• Tom Loveday
• Peachy & Mosig
• Sean O'Keeffe
• Naomi Oliver and Ingrid Stiertzel
• Alan Schacher with Sean Bacon and Michelle Mahrer
• Rebecca Waterstone
This screening was generously supported by Mount Vic Flicks cinema.
Image: Peachey and Mosig, The Sky Has Already Fallen
BLUE TOO MAPBM members' exhibition at WAYOUT 71 Angus Avenue Kandos NSW 2848, 27 February 2021 - 11 April 2021
Blue is the most popular colour in contemporary Western societies, a colour with profound social and cultural associations and symbolism that resonates throughout history, language, religion, gender, science, psychology, fashion and art.
Blue saturates our vision, our language and our minds, representing myriads of concepts, emotions and ideas. Its rich history and cultural significance manifests in our everyday lives, in our social codes and our sensibilities.
The exhibition BLUE TOO presented the works of MAPBM artists exploring the notions of blue through a variety of media -painting, drawing, video, photography, sculpture, installation art and performance art.
Exhibiting artists were:
Susan Andrews, M Bozzec, Sarah Breen Lovett, Cinzia Cremona, Beata Geyer, Lynn Godfree, Anne Graham, Yvette Hamilton, Tom Isaacs, Kenneth Lambert, Tom Loveday, Fleur MacDonald, Ro Murray and Mandy Burgess, Naomi Oliver, Katya Petetskaya, Janet Reinhardt, Alan Schacher, Ebony Secombe, Regine Wagner, Rebecca Waterstone, and Miriam Williamson and Brad Allen-Waters
Curated by Beata Geyer
Image: TOM ISAACS, Pietà, 2020 Installation view Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. Photo: Silversalt Photography
Exhibition at Penrith Regional Gallery - Home of the Lewers Bequest, 21st November 2020 to 28th February 2021. Artists: Vivienne Dadour, Beata Geyer, Anne Graham, Ian MIlliss and Ebony Secombe. Curator: Fiona Davies
In the SewnUp project five artists produced artworks that respond to their investigations into the tension between the beauty, comfort and social identity provided by textiles and clothing products on one hand and either questionable aspects of the product cycle or a reassessment of the handmade on the other. In Stage 1 in April 2020 three artists, Linda Adair, Eloise Maree and Tom Isaacs, exhibited and sought audience engagement as an incidental art experience additional to shopping at Lyttleton Stores in Lawson or passing by on the street. They were joined in stage 2 in November 2020 in an Intentional Art Experience by the collaborative team of Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig, and the textile artist Tess Rapa.
Stage 2 SewnUp 3 to 29 November 2020
From 1st August until 20th September 2020 the MAPBM exhibition 'BLUE' was shown at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba
Blue is the most popular colour in contemporary Western societies, a colour with profound social and historical associations and symbolism that resonates throughout art, language, history, religion, gender, science, psychology and more.
Exhibiting artists were:
Susan Andrews
M Bozzec
Kris Peta Deray
Tom Isaacs
Tom Loveday
Naomi Oliver
Rebecca Waterstone
Miriam Williamson and Brad Allen-Waters
The exhibition included three public program events:
An artist and curator talk with curator Beata Geyer alongside MAPBM artists, which provided insights into the exhibition, discussing how artists have explored notions of a colour with profound social and historical associations and symbolism that resonates throughout art, language, history, religion, gender, science, psychology and more.
Pietà by Tom Isaacs was an hour-long performance art piece in which the artist explored different positions and poses with a long piece of blue felt. The colour blue has long held spiritual significance for different religious traditions thanks to its association with the vast expanse of sky and the unfathomable depths of the ocean. Blue is also commonly associated with sadness and depression, typified by the expression: ‘feeling blue’.
On a personal level Pietà combines these two themes, mental health and spirituality, to evoke a desire for healing or resurrection from an experience of depression which feels deathly. Pietà also addresses the broader problems of alienation and fragmentation which, according to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, are an inevitable effect of the development of the ego and the acquisition of language. Pietà draws from the fields of ritual, psychoanalysis and art making, which have all been proposed, at one time or another, as solutions to these problems.
The third event was an artist-led workshop by M. Bozzec titled Language Reframed: The Promise of Found Words. In this workshop participants unlocked the hidden potential of words and learnt to reframe language into creative acts such as poetry and short stories, or visual forms such as drawing, collage and performance. Using found words & phrases gleaned from a diversity of sources – popular idioms, song lyrics, news headlines and things overhead, the workshop offered opportunities to experiment with the processes of list-making, expanded collecting, and research as a catalyst for the creation of diverse art forms.
MAPBM joined Transcultural Exchange on June 20, 2020 – the summer/winter solstice when the nonprofit organisation TransCultural Exchange invited art lovers on a (virtual) voyage around the world.
The launch was live streamed on TransCultural Exchange’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TransCulturalExchange
The recording of Hello World, an international project, can be accessed at: http://transculturalexchange.org/activities/hw/overview.htm
With the mere click of a mouse, travelers can check out paintings, music, dances, films and installations by contemporary artists working in Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Japan, Norway, Spain, Germany, Morocco, Peru, Poland, Senegal, Turkey and Zambia with countless stops along the way. The choices were myriad; hundreds of artists and cultural venues from over 70 countries made up the tour.
The second annual MAPBM members exhibition, Mapping, was opened by Cr Mick Fell on 10th August at Braemar Gallery, Springwood. Curated by Antony Bond, the exhibition featured work by 17 MAPBM member artists:
Brad Allen-Waters, Susan Andrews, Liam Benson, Louise Blyton, Sarah Breen Lovett, Vivienne Dadour, Fiona Davies, Beata Geyer, Anne Graham, Tom Loveday, Sean O’Keeffe, Naomi Oliver, Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig, Tess Rapa, Ebony Secombe, Rebecca Waterstone.
The works are diverse but share an interest in mapping the world around us and the idea of mapping as a way of engaging the world and our environment. These artists have also embraced ideas of the history and nature of our chosen home in the mountains. Mapping is also a metaphor for paying attention to the socio-political ecology of our place - exhibition curator Antony Bond.
8 August 2019 - 1 September 2019
6 July – 25 August 2019
Being in the present moment is a fundamental challenge in contemporary society. The rituals we undertake on a daily basis can serve as a reminder to be present, to be here now. Whether making food, washing or dressing we perform multiple ordinary actions on any given day. When we pay attention to these actions we become aware of that moment. The artists in this exhibition encourage us to slow down, be still, breathe, reflect and listen. Most importantly they ask us to take our time.
The exhibition included a music video work by Katoomba High School students and featured artists Sarah Breen Lovett, Cherine Fahd, Karen Golland, Anne Graham, Rachael Wenona Guy & Leonie Van Eyk, WeiZen Ho, Peachey & Mosig, Pamela Pirovic, Julie Rrap, Honi Ryan, Abi Tariq, Marty Walker and Hayley West.
A Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition curated by Rilka Oakley.
Coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the commencement of WWII, Vivienne Dadour has curated the exhibition-Resilience in Times of Adversity: Contemporary Responses to WW2and Post WW2 in the Blue Mountains that explores aspects of the personal, historical and political landscape of the Blue Mountains during, and post, WW2. Through the use of archival and historical material the exhibiting artists reflect on the many-sided nature of the tragedy of war and the resilience of the human spirit. Anne Graham pays homage to the many women and men who worked at the Lithgow Small Arms Factory; Chris Tobin (Darug) acknowledges the struggles of Aboriginal soldiers who were an occupied People, yet asked to be part of an imperialistic war; Fiona Davies responds to the resilience of returning soldiers suffering from infectious diseases who experienced medical isolation in various facilities in the Blue Mountains during WW2; Sean O’Keeffe explores the fortitude of the many soldiers and military personnel who lived at ‘Hoaxville’ in facilities that housed chemical weapons in tunnels and sidings at Marrangaroo Army base in Lithgow; Vivienne Dadour presents snapshots of life in the Blue Mountains through a collection of photographic archives contributed by Blue Mountains Historical Society collections and individuals in the local community.
National Gallery of Victoria Curator Brian Finemore saw the 1973 exhibition Object and Idea as a smaller conceptualist sequel to the 1968 exhibition The Field. But one invited artist, Ian Milliss, declined to participate having already moved on to working with trade unions and resident action groups rather than exhibitions, galleries and art audiences. At Finemore’s request Milliss wrote a catalogue essay titled New Artist explaining his thinking, the beginning of a politicised cultural activism that was really only accepted by the art world many decades later with the rise of relational aesthetics and social practice.
What are the landmark exhibitions that have shaped Australian art? From 2019 to 2020, ACCA’s Lecture Series, Defining Moments: Australian Exhibition Histories 1968–1999, takes a deeper look at the moments that have shaped Australian art since 1968. In this two-year series, sixteen guest lecturers analyse the game changers in Australian art, addressing key contemporary art exhibitions staged over the last three decades of the twentieth century and reflecting on the ways these exhibitions shaped art history and contemporary Australian culture more broadly.
Ambitious, contested, polemical, genre-defining and genre-defying, contemporary art exhibitions have shaped and transformed the cultural landscape, along with our understanding of the very nature of what constitutes as art. This program traces the legacies of artists and curators, addresses the critical reception of select significant projects, and reflects on a wide range of exhibitions and formats; from artist run initiatives to institutions, as well as interventions in public space and remote communities.
Amulents and talismans are historically revealing about how individuals confronted adversity, misfortune and death. Used for thousands of years as a way to impart strength and dispel fears. In the collection of works for the exhibition Safe Passage, Peachey & Mosig have used rocks, soil and plant matter as physical expressions of different timescales and ecological systems. When feelings of dread surface in the face of individual mortality or ecological collapse from climate change, these object can act as tools to focus on things both within and beyond ourselves and our concerns. They can provide moments of stillness, however brief to consider ourselves in the vastnesses of geological time and to take faith in the inherent hopefulness and persistence of the garden. These materials not only remind us of our place in a complex system they are made up of elements that may directly effect our well being. Mycobacterium vacate is a bacteria that lives naturally in soil and is being investigated for it’s potential to increase levels of serotonin and decrease levels of anxiety. The soil talisman being a reminder of long held advice that gardening and putting your hands into the earth can ward off feelings of unease and bring a sense of contentment.
Fiona Davies undertook a series of performative lectures within her recent exhibition Cast a Cold Eye on Life, on Death: The Remake: Medicalised Death in ICU. This was Davies's examination exhibition, the culmination of four years of practice-led research into medicalised death in ICU. The exhibition involved a series of installations, object-based works, performances and interactive works. In each performative lecture, Davies led a small group of viewers through these works, involved them in activities and encouraged them (if they wished to do so) to participate in conversations about medicalised death.
'Cast a Cold eye on Life, on Death' is a quote by WB Yeats.
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