Equatorial Fruit Opening Party
Many peoples within our archipelago have their own version of shaved ice dessert topped with fruit or other glutinous or sweetened topping. Come and eat them with us and chat with Tiyan and M@ about equatorial fruits – and surrounding concerns – at the overlap of their current research as artists in residence. There will be fruit-opening, screening of video works and an artist talk about their ongoing research around equatorial thinking, heat, language and methods of embodiment.
Hosted by Ana Tiquia, this event included film screenings from Kent Chan and James Nguyen, artist talks and bingsu catering from Nimbo Cloud.
Testing Grounds
391 Queen St, Narrm/Melbourne
This event was supported by
James Nguyen
James Nguyen has a potluck practice.
He has a PhD interogating broken mother tongues at the University of NSW, a Master of Fine Arts on the cinematic body at the University of Sydney, a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) at the National Art School, and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from Charles Sturt University. He was a collaborative fellow at UnionDocs (Centre for Documentary Arts, NYC) and continues to present new work, or in the process of applying for grants to keep presenting new work.
Tiyan Baker
Tiyan Baker is an artist who works with installation, photography, video and sculpture. Her practice draws on historical research, language, digital processes and material play to trace unseen relationships between words, place and stories. Centring her Bidayǔh culture in her works, Baker is also interested in things she has unknowingly inherited. Living far from native lands, culture and family, in the midst of the (re)colonisation of Borneo, she explores all that can be mistranslated or lost, and what can manifest in its place. She has shown her works widely across Australia, and is the winner of the 2022 National Photography Prize awarded by the Murray Art Museum Albury.
She was born and raised on the Larrakia lands known as Darwin and currently lives and works on the Awabakal lands known as Newcastle, Australia.
Photo by Lucy Alcorn
M@ Cornell
Matt Cornell leverages Sci-Fi world building to co-create choreography.
The Mattmosphere composes award winning music for dance, installation and film.
馬特 regularly works from C-LAB (臺灣當代文化實驗場) interrogating choreography as a cultural technology.
M@ recently co-created Fully Automated Human Touch with Merinda Davies.
His writing has been published in international journals, magazines and wikis.
He also a touring dancer, currently in Stunt Double by The Farm.
Photo: Matt Cornell and Lucky Lartey and Vicki Van Hout, Danced Together by Matt Cornell
Nasim Patel
Nasim Patel is an artist engaging with diasporic identities, technologies and the Anthropocene through hip-hop, digital work, and writing. He graduated from the VCA with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance) in 2018 and is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts in Screen & Cultural Studies and Islamic Studies. He has performed with choreographers such as Jo Lloyd, Rachael Wisby, and Chris Chua, with whom he helped develop the interactive video game performance BeatStorm. Nasim's written work has been published by Hardie Grant in the 2021 SBS Emerging Writers Anthology Between Two Worlds, as part of the Open Tab and Massaged by the Medium projects through Critical Path, and as part of ACCA's 2022 Writing in the Expanded Field IV program.
In 2023, Nasim created 'non-paradise', a short film commissioned through the Sydney Opera House's Shortwave program, exploring the relationship between continents and migration paths through the colonial metaphor of the 'desert'. He continued this exploration through receiving The Grimwade Collection Miegunyah Student Project Awards 2023, producing a short film and music piece exploring the more proximal history of the Australian cameleers and their relationship to the sandy landscape.
A life-long fan of video games, Nasim is currently learning video game development to explore his ideas in a more digital context.
Photo by Simon McWilliam
Kent Chan
Kent Chan is an artist, curator and filmmaker based in Netherlands and Singapore. His practice revolves around our encounters with art, fiction and cinema that form a triumvirate of practices porous in form, content and context. He holds particular interest in the tropical imaginary, the past and future relationships between heat and art, and contestations to the legacies of modernity as the epistemology par excellence. His works have taken the form of moving-image, text, performances, and exhibitions.
He is an upcoming resident at Pivô Research and a former resident of Gasworks, Jan van Eyck Academie, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Medialab Matadero. He has held solo and two-person presentations at Gasworks, Kunstinstituut Melly, Bonnefanten Museum, National University Singapore Museum, and de Appel. His works and films have been exhibited in institutions and festivals including Tate Modern, Liverpool Biennial, Videobrasil, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Times Museum, EYE Film Museum, Onassis Stegi, and Bienalsur. He is the 2023 winner of the Paulo Cunha e Silva Award and Impart Art Prize, and 2021 winner of Foundwork Artist Prize.