Artistic Program CCAS

Following a year of lockdowns, disruption, and uncertainty 2021 began on a positive note. Homebound, the first exhibition at CCAS, attempted to reunite a fractured community with work by seven Canberra artists many of whom had spent months in isolation with limited support from government and/or institutions. The exhibition highlighted the challenges artists faced over the year and how practices changed as they worked from home with only those materials that were available. The opening reflected those pre-COVID-19 celebrations prior to 2020 and the return to some semblance of normalcy provided a significant morale boost for our community. Homebound was followed by austrALIEN, Dan Toua’s first major exhibition featuring first- and second-generation Australian women, investigating the complexities of balancing the cultures of their heritage with the culture they participate in today. Described by art critic Sasha Grishin as, “A brooding show perfect for our age of uncertainty”, Timeline opened late July as the second wave of COVID-19 Delta variant spread throughout New South Wales and eventually into Canberra.

CCAS closed its doors again on August 12 and remained closed until 27 October. The cancellation of DESIGN Canberra, Capital Arts Patrons’ Organisation (CAPO) Art Auction + Exhibition and the final exhibition of the year, left us with Timeline until the end of the year and that is fortunate because it had only opened two weeks before lockdown. Wet weather, scarcely a trickle of tourists and atmosphere of cautiousness in the ACT community saw audience numbers dip and struggle to recover for the remainder of the year. While CCAS has continued to benefit from increased visitation with (Homebound attracting 2,320, austrALIEN 2,220 and Timeline 1,682 visitors respectively), we can only imagine audience numbers in a time of no global health emergency.

Closed for the better part of a year, due to difficulties in monitoring CCAS’s COVID-19 Safety Plan off-site, CCAS Manuka finally reopened on 9 July with its own comprehensive safety plan and was closed again within five weeks as Canberra went into the second lockdown. One further exhibition at the end of 2021 highlighted the difficulties faced by artists, many of whom, have been waiting for exhibition space for two and a half years.

While COVID-19 restrictions have compromised CCAS’s ability to hold fundraising events and severely reduced income from CCAS Manuka we appreciate the recurrent support provided by artsACT and Australia Council Visual Arts Craft Strategy which continued throughout the year. Rent Relief from the National Capital Authority during closure and JobKeeper payments in the early part of the year have also assisted CCAS to stay afloat. Throughout the year CCAS has developed a closer relationship with CAPO, hosting their Awards Night, a talk on Arts Funding and Policy with Tony Burke MP Shadow Minister for the Arts and Alicia Payne MP ALP Member for Canberra; unfortunately the CAPO Gala Auction was postponed due to lockdown and restricted numbers.

Image ANDY MULLENS Tombs for the Reborn, 2014 Inkjet prints on10mm clear perspex, rice, light bulbs, cord, dimensions variable

Photo Brenton McGeachie

There have been many twists and turns in the continuing saga of the Kingston Arts Precinct throughout the year but little tangible progress. CCAS staff and board members have been involved in the planning for this project for over a decade. 2021 saw a period of community consultation with residents and stakeholders and the formation of the KAP Steering Committee consisting of the directors of resident organisations. Together with artsACT and consultant Esther Anatolitis the Committee initiated a strategic planning process that focussed on Country as central to the ongoing development. Three representatives of First Nations communities joined the Committee to ensure that traditional custodianship, the arts and inclusivity would coalesce and form a solid direction for the developing the character of the centre. In November, however, the ACT Government announced that following slow progress Geocon had been dropped from the project which would now be delivered by the Suburban Land Agency (SLA) and the ACT Government. Citing heritage issues and a lack of focus on the arts the SLA reported an amicable break up and a renewed emphasis on community and stakeholder engagement. At the end of 2021 the SLA redrew the timeline for development and design with an amended delivery date extended to 2026. While CCAS and, I believe other resident organisations, have not always been comfortable with Geocon and believe the ACT Government and SLA the better option for delivery, we are extremely disappointed that the project is delayed for another (at least) 3 years. While we have been assured that as much of the planning as possible will be retained we are naturally concerned that the significant amount of time and work that has been dedicated to KAP since 2015 will need to be reconsidered and reconstructed. CCAS continues to be an enthusiastic supporter of this visionary development whose completion will impact not only on the future of CCAS but also the role played by ACT in Australia as a whole.

Amanda Biggs Chair

Image EMMA BEER everlasting, 2020 Acrylic on cotton canvas, 120 x 100cm

Photo Brenton McGeachie

In another difficult year for artists and arts organisations Canberra Contemporary Art Space’s (CCAS) significantly reduced program concentrated less on what we wanted to produce and more on what was possible.

The postponement of four exhibitions required that programs were flexible and could be easily adapted to restricted movement for artists, audiences and the work itself. As various States and Territories locked down, borders opened and closed, not always at the same time, artists were unable to attend openings and the transport of work was disrupted. 2021 was a year that challenged artists and curators to reconsider the normal expectations associated with realising projects and work through situations in a way that required patience and adaptability. Despite the obstacles provided by 2021 CCAS’s program was able to continue exhibiting Australian artists in a national, although not international context. In a time of crisis, exhibitions focused on and reflected contemporary issues in a time of uncertainty and crisis.

Homebound, for example, concentrated on ways that artists dealt with isolation and vastly reduced support from a depleted and struggling ecology while Timeline called upon senior artists who with significant bodies of work produced revealed bleak visons of past, present and future. austrALIEN on the other hand represented women from diverse cultural backgrounds reconciling their practices to represent heritage in the context of a new and sometimes challenging environment.

While 2021 afforded many disappointments and much frustration CCAS continued to celebrate the excellence and achievements of Australian artists and present itself as an organisation able to adapt and make the best of adversity.

David Broker Director / Public Officer

Image CAROLINE GARCIA Queen of the Carabao (video still), 2020 Two-channel video, colour, sound scape, 30’00” duration, looped

Photo Brenton McGeachie

CCAS achieved an overall operating surplus for the year of $927 (compared to a $33,067 surplus for 2020). This financial result shows effective management of resources in a year of operational disruption and consolidation due to the COVID-19 Health Emergency.

The Board would like to thank every member for their contribution this year, and also take this opportunity to acknowledge the ongoing financial support CCAS receives from both artsACT and the Australia Council for the Arts (AusCo). Grants were received totalling $204,691 (operational) from the ACT Arts Fund and $49,735 from the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy (VACS), ACT Government, and $37,876 from AusCo (VACS). This support is greatly appreciated and fundamental to the financial viability of CCAS.

CCAS, like many similar arts organisations, faced unusual challenges this year. The Board is acutely aware that during 2021, due to COVID-19, CCAS did not have the opportunity to earn income from functions, events and the CCAS Manuka Gallery (Manuka income totalled $4,018 in 2021, down from $13,660 in 2019). CCAS was, however, eligible for JobKeeper payments of $36,000, and the National Capital Authority (NCA) reduced rent payments during Canberra’s lockdown.

Although CCAS received subsidised rent between August and October 2021, the $27,877 depreciation and amortisation expense covers payments of $21,808 to the NCA, and our financial statements reflect the depreciation of the lease as per accounting standards AASB 16 introduced in 2019.

The Board is pleased to have been able to operate at a small surplus in a year when CCAS was unable to operate any fundraising activities due to COVID. We are aware that going forward we will not receive government support from Job Keeper and fundraising activities remain an important function for both Board and CCAS management.

No fundraising events have been held since we relocated to our higher-profile lake-front location in early 2020. We remain very optimistic of our ability to use this location to ensure the ongoing financial viability of CCAS into the foreseeable future.

Finally a big thank you to all the staff at CCAS for continuing to provide a great service to our community in very challenging times and particularly making my job as Treasurer easy.

Ian Whyte Treasurer

Image JOEL ARTHUR Golden Fleecing, 2021 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 145 x 165cm

Photo Brenton McGeachie

3 March – 2 May 2021 Audience: 2320

Homebound brought together six Canberra-based artists and one expat who resides in Melbourne. This multi-media exhibition included painting, drawing, performance, 3D sculpture, installation of found objects and digital photography focusing on found objects. The title ‘Homebound’ was a double entendre, meaning to be confined to home and also to return home. The title succinctly describes the situation for artists during the 2020 nation-wide lockdown. Unable to leave their residences, they spent time consolidating skills and reassessing practices.

Homebound is essentially a story of resilience and survival. The romantic stereotype of the impoverished, introverted artist, working solo in their garret rang strangely true in 2020 but this was no matter of choice. As COVID-19 exposed the developing cracks in every culture and society, preying upon the vulnerable, artists with their already fragile career paths suddenly found themselves in a particularly precarious position. Unlike other industries, the arts and practitioners received little to zero support from Government and were literally, left to their own devices. It is these devices that this exhibtion focuses on. The works in Homebound reflected the mindset and processes artists undertook during the first wave of the global health emergency. Rosalind Lemoh’s sculptures reflect a “stream of consciousness” with concrete crash helmets and Perspex thought bubbles, revealing her inner most thoughts about the Black Lives Matter movement and restricted lockdown activities while cycling past the gallery on Queen Elizabeth Terrace.

Robbie Karmel made art that questions its own worth, with objects and performances that address notions of futility. Throughout 2020 he produced one drawing every day confined to a bedroom at his parents’ home, mapping shifting moods and emotions.

Like an island between the two main gallery spaces, Aidan Hartshorn’s Growth signalled new directions for his practice that considers furniture (and materials) as vehicles for discussion around conflicting identities imposed upon First Nations peoples by a persistent colonial hangover. His installation was a symbolic impression of a colonial parlour that also addressed the artist’s Indigenous heritage: created with minimal means, two dilapidated chairs, Wambuwany (kangaroo) fur and a well-worn Persian carpet.

Image JOEL ARTHUR, AIDEN HARTSHORN, NATALIE MATHER and EMMA BEER HOMEBOUND installation photograph, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, 2021

Photo Brenton McGeachie

An interesting conversation develops between Hartshorn’s work and that of Joel Arthur containing a colonial narrative of a very different kind. In the context of Homebound, Arthur’s three paintings contain elements that reflect Australian history and the role of painting/art in attempting to come to terms with strange lands, harsh conditions and prevalent danger through deference to what settlers considered to be ‘superior’ European influences. Golden Fleecing (2021), for example, samples South Australian painter Hans Heysen’s Droving into the Light (1921) a work that encapsulates a distinctively European impression: painted in Handorf on the lands of the Peramangk peoples.

During the first wave of COVID-19 Rory Gillen considered his ongoing practice as a photo media artist and how he could translate the image making process, from a physical object to a photographic object, and the distortions that can occur within this transformation. High gloss prints of a found circuit board are the focal point from which he created the works Transcription I-V (2020) and stem from his desire to understand or translate the function of this ‘hieroglyphic object’ while drawing attention to the humanity and creativity embedded in unnatural objects such as the technologies we employ on a daily basis and yet know so little about, both in terms of their aesthetics and machinery.

Everlasting (2020), was an example of the way that Emma Beer has been working over a decade, with its 1950s colour scheme dominated by black, yellow and white, with a hint of green and beige, overlapping, undermining and underlining transparent brushstrokes close to the surface. Famous for her titles that lift the works from the canvas and walls and insinuate the presence of the artist into each piece, Everlasting sits apart from …… , getting to know thy self from the kitchen table, or not, 1-30, (2020) informing the audience that nothing is everlasting, particularly in a year like 2020. From her kitchen Beer worked with blank pages torn from a sketchbook, painting overlapping geometrical forms, lines and textures drenched with colour. These paintings on paper, reminiscent of previous works, address a different time and place of production and are therefore a significant departure brought about by necessity.

Like a number of artists in 2020 Natalie Mather did not always have access to her studio at the Stables, Victorian College of the Arts, and also spent much of the year drawing from her kitchen table. It was her three-panel painting cardiopharmacy (2020), however, that seemed most appropriate for Homebound in that it describes a state that could be applied to the year in its entirety. If Futurism reflected the post war energy and dynamism of the 1920s and 30s, Mather’s immersive paintings are evocative of a complex global malaise resulting from myriad national responses to pandemic: from lockdown, to heard immunity and in some cases, complete denial. Elements of Vorticism, Cubism, Geometric Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism, along with powerful architectural and design referents populate

her vibrant canvases. As seductive as they are jarring, each series explored the idea of ‘heterotopia’, a concept elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive spaces that are disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. COVID-19 generated such a heterotopic world that included all of these things.

The participants in Homebound represent a group of emerging artists from 10 years ago several involved in CCAS’s suspended Studio Residency Program: Rosalind Lemoh, Emma Beer, Joel Arthur and Natalie Mather. The exhibition was also an opportunity to show Robbie Karmel who has recently emerged with a Doctorate from University of New South Wales, and recent graduates from the Australian National University’s School of Art and Design, Aidan Hartshorn and Rory Gillen.

Homebound attempted to raise public awareness of the difficulties faced by artists during the lockdown by including artists whose work reflected their personal experience of pandemic. The works in this exhibition shine a light on the artists ouevre during a time when practitioners were producing work but not showing it publicly. In other words, the works expressed raw feeling, disappointment, fear, frustration, renewal and were without pretence. Homebound revealed the short-term effects of isolation on arts practices and in some instances, dire consequences that were not hidden from audiences. It was also an opportunity for artists to show work after a long break of one to two years and to bring Canberra’s visual arts community back together.

The lack of contact with audiences and colleagues had left many artists with a sense of isolation and several described a certain loss of confidence following a period of limited or no feedback. Was the work made in these isolated circumstances, outside the familiar support structures and studios of a standard that warrants public display? Many participants were caused to consider how they might re-engage with audience and even if their practice was relevant in such challenging and fast changing times. As a gathering point for audiences who may not have visited a gallery in some time, Homebound reintroduced visitors to the gallery experience while informing them how artists had adapted, or perhaps not adapted, to a situation beyond their control. For artists the act of producing and showing new work had a cathartic effect: providing relief through the open expression of strong emotions and the ability to express such feelings to a receptive, culture starved audience.

Image ROSALIND LEMOH and ROBBIE KARMEL Homebound installation photograph, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, 2021

Photo Brenton McGeachie

Image MARIANA DEL CASTILLO PAUSE, 2021 Recycled wool blankets, wood, metal, paper, cotton, tyre detritus, plastic, dimensions variable

Photo Brenton McGeachie

14 May - 11 July 2021 Audience: 2220

austrALIEN brought together seven first- and second-generation female Australian artists, for an exhibition that explores how each of these artists deals with, and reconciles the complexities of becoming accepted in their new home, while honouring the importance of their family’s histories and cultures. The title speaks to how the seven artists continue to contend with their parents’ adopted country and current culture in Australia, while feeling like outsiders and singals the intent of the exhibition, which featured painting, video and sound, installation, works made from found objects and archival pigment prints.

Each of the artists in this exhibition have built their practice on investigating their own identity politics as first- and second-generation Australians. Each work explores culture, examines authenticity, confronts stigma and challenges audiences to connect with otherness.

Marianna del Castillo immigrated to Sydney with her family in 1972 following the Whitlam Government’s dismantling of the ‘White Australia’ policy that had gripped Australia since Federation in 1901. Revisiting her Ecuadorian hometown 40 years later, the artist found the pilgrimage to be both revelatory and instrumental in reaffirming the artist’s work. del Castillo’s practice has always utilised recycled materials, and the stark contrast between the throwaway consumerism of Australian society and her Ecuadorian upbringing centred around reusing and recycling confirmed the importance of her making methods.

As a first-generation Australian, Andy Mullens has an interest in the narratives of children of the diaspora, and the tension between assimilation and keeping the culture of one’s homeland alive, and how survival and pride play out. Through her work, Mullens examines dislocation and connection; and the different stages of affirming ownership of culture, in observing how one’s relationship to culture can shift and evolve.

Image SHIVANJANI LAL Palwaar, 2019 Haldi watercolour on Masi, dimsions variable: each approximately 90 x 300cm

Photo Brenton McGeachie

As a descendant of indentured labourers, Sancintya Mohini Simpson’s practice navigated the complexities of migration, memory and trauma through addressing gaps and silences within the colonial archive. Dhūãna akase mararai is made up of 32 archival pigment prints, and displayed in two rows of 16 photographs. Each photograph depicts a plantation landscape in varying scenes. This series of photographs questions the colonial archive that has stood to represent Mohini Simpson’s family and this history of sugar and exploitation – reframing this lens. Acknowledging the archive of images and research from this period, existing images took the form of commercial postcards, handcoloured and selling the industry and agriculture of the region, depicting people as commodities and landscapes. The artist reimagines this archive and the silences present through reframing the ownership of this history of missing stories and histories, ghosts of forgotten women, sent out across those dark waters.

Lara Chamas is second-generation Lebanese, Australian artist whose practice investigates postcolonial and migrant narratives using both humorous and poetic notions. Through her practice Chamas explores cultural comparatives, which have provided relativity and perspective into contemporary Australian culture as experienced by the artist. Chamas’ work focuses on an exploration of transformation and adoption, highlighting the transitional states of being and belonging through life and faith, with both the medium and practice of the work alluding to ritualistic or mystic processes. What started as a bold assertion of subversion - ‘Islamifying’ an Australian icon, such as the kangaroo - to confront conservatives and alarmist narratives expressed in Australia, has become a peaceful merging of seemingly opposed cultures.

Caroline Garcia is an interdisciplinary artist working across live performance and video. Garcia’s practice investigates alterity (the state of being different / other), and in her work she adopts the role of shape shifter - sliding into the gaps between cultures and experiences of otherness.

Shivanjani Lal is a member of the indentured labourer diaspora from the Indian and Pacific oceans. Lal is a twiceremoved Fijian-Indian-Australian artist and curator tied to a long history of familial movement and her practice uses personal grief to account for ancestral loss and healing. Palwaar (meaning ‘family’ in Fijian Indian) is her monumental 13-piece ‘watercolour’ on Masi, fibrous pounded wood native to Fiji. A fundamental concern in the work is how art develops and represents culture as it transitions between contexts, while also probing the experiences of women in these situations of flux.

Elefteria Vlavianos’ paintings have been produced by applying layers of paint; deep emerald greens and sapphire blues emerge from the dark, shadowy voids. examines how abstract painting can facilitate the retrieval and renewal of a displaced cultural aesthetic from one context into another. She also examines loss and cultural memory, looking through the lens of the Armenian Genocide coupled with her own personal loss as a product of diaspora.

austrALIEN is a relatable exhibition for many, as most Australians have a diverse background. Many audience members commented on how particular parts of the exhibition reminded them of their parents, their home, or their own migration story and growing up in Australia. For CCAS this exhibition spoke directly to our values of presenting high-quality work from a diverse range of artists. austrALIEN also champions female artists, another of CCAS’ core values – supporting artistic minorities with diverse histories and experiences that influence their practice and their work.

austrALIEN showcased the diversity we have in our artistic Australian community and attempted to engage multicultural audience members. Ultimately austrALIEN showcases the three stages of coming to terms with living in Australia with a migrant history: 1) realising you are different (and it’s often only when your otherness is pointed out to you that you realise you’re different), 2) trying to cover or erase your history in order to assimilate, and finally, 3) reaffirming your otherness, exploring your identity politics, navigating your diaspora and understanding that your relationship to your culture can evolve.

Image ELEFTERIA VLAVIANOS austrALIEN installation photograph, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, 2021

Photo Brenton McGeachie