2022 Chamber Made Annual Report

Annual Report 2022

‘captivating and utterly original’

— ARTSHUB (My Self in That Moment)

Artistic Director’s Report

We were thrilled to present the world premiere season of My Self in That Moment at The Substation in July. This work was the result of deep and rich collaborations between the company and a number of remarkable artists and was described by ArtsHub as 'captivating and utterly original'. Our thanks to our presenting partner The Substation, development partner Experimenta and funders The Besen Foundation, Playking Foundation, and The Australia Council for the Arts, along with donors, whose invaluable support underpins all of our works and programs.

Making new work that extends artforms and forges new possibilities between artforms is one of the key drivers of our work at Chamber Made. It is always gratifying when our work is acknowledged by industry and peers, and we were so pleased to receive a Green Room Association Nomination for SYSTEM_ ERROR in the category of Sound Sculpture.

Rebecca Bracewell has been engaged as one of the company's Little Operations artists across 2021 and 2022. Rebecca utilised hearing aids as sound sources, to examine questions around what it means to listen imperfectly and with a reliance on hearing technology. In August Rebecca shared a poetic and intimate performance of her work in progress Instruments that Listen, which opened up new sonic worlds and new perspectives on hearing for the audience. Thanks to the Queen Victoria Women's Centre for hosting this presentation and to Playking Foundation and the Australian Art Orchestra who partnered in this Little Operations.

Throughout October and November Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep had seasons as part of the In New Light Festival (Singapore) to celebrate the opening of the Esplanade’s new Singtel Waterfront Theatre, and OzAsia Festival (Adelaide). It has been wonderful to see this work continue to be enjoyed by new audiences. Our thanks to producing partner CultureLink Singapore.

We were also grateful to be able to travel to arts markets and international events this year. I was joined by Samara Hersch in Rotterdam at the O. Festival for Opera. Theatre. Music, attending as part of the Music Theatre NOW Professionals Programme. Our 2018 work, Dybbuks, was one of the six featured Music Theatre NOW award winning works, with Samara speaking on a panel entitled ‘Otherness' with fellow award recipient Brett Bailey (ZA) in conversation with moderator Marlene Le

Roux (ZA). Our Executive Producer Kylie McRae and I attended Performing Arts Market Seoul alongside a small but wonderful contingent of Australian artists and performing arts company representatives. It is always a privilege to meet national and international peers in these contexts and get a sense of works being made and how companies and artists are continuing to innovate and stretch boundaries of form, presentation and touring.

We finished the year with two of our flagship artist and artform development programs Orange House by The Sea Artist Residency and Hi-Viz Practice Exchange. These programs that support women, non-binary and gender diverse artists, are always so rich in what they bring Chamber Made. It is a pleasure to encounter the practice and processes of artists and to provide some opportunities for practice exchange to our artistic community.

Hi-Viz evolved in 2022 to Hi-Viz Satellites, a new partnership with Central Victorian arts organisation Punctum Inc and Singaporean arts organisation SAtheCollective. Our thanks to Australia Council’s International Engagement Fund for supporting this initiative across 2022-2024. This two-day event was a bold experiment in both cross-geographical and hybrid in-person / online presentation. The Australian event was hosted by Bendigo Venues and Events and beautifully supported on a technical front by the great team at Storyland. It was thrilling to be in a room with a group of presenting and participating artists in Bendigo, many of whom attended both days. To see our Singaporean peers on screen at several points across both days, and to be joined online by an enthusiastic cohort, was a technical achievement and a wonderful way to start the evolution of this program over the next few years. For the first time our Orange House resident, composer and musician Zoë Barry, joined us mid-residency at Hi-Viz to share some of her research and run a workshop.

I want to thank all of the artists and arts workers, industry partners, funders, donors and audiences connected with Chamber Made for such support and enthusiasm this year. We launched our New Work Seeding Fund in 2022 and I want to particularly thank our incredibly loyal existing donors and donors new to the company for helping get this Fund launched with such success. This support means a great deal to the company and is absolutely crucial to the development of our new works and our ability to support the risk-taking and adventurous work of artists. I also want to thank our wonderful Board and our hardworking staff for their ongoing commitment, dedication, humour and ability to bring works and projects to fruition.

2022 was a year rich with activity: new works, new projects in development and new iterations of existing programs.

Tamara Saulwick

Chair Report

Jo

Porter

When I watched My Self in That Moment last year, my experience was of the artists having reached inside me, grabbing lived experience of identity in 2022. This profoundly feminist work exploring fragmentation and infinite mirroring of external and internal selves; it reinforced the privilege it is to Chair the Board of Chamber Made.

Chamber Made's way of making work is based on developing creative relationships that thread through multiple company initiatives. Hi-Viz Practice Exchange, Little Operations, the Orange House by the Sea Artist Residency and internships all offer ways to engage with Chamber Made and it is remarkable how many of these introductions become collaborations over the years.

2022 saw a renewed dedication to fundraising led by the Board and some very generous donors. We will continue these efforts and look forward to the journey with all of our supporters as we nurture the relationships that inform the creative work of the company.

While Chamber Made posted a modest loss at the end of 2022, this should be viewed in the context of robust results over the past years and the persistent impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) on the performing arts. We are confident that Chamber Made's strong governance will support the company as it goes from strength to strength.

The Board is also a collaboration among diverse people with a range of skills and experience. We welcomed Debra Jefferies and Melanie Huang to the Board over the course of the year; they join Jennika, Jen, Michael, Rod, Aaron, Lydia and myself and have already contributed to discussions as we think about the ‘new normal’ post-pandemic. My sincere thanks to everyone for their work during 2022 and beyond.

Chamber Made would not be creating the exciting and provocative work that it does without the creative leadership of Tamara Saulwick. This work is produced with great finesse by Kylie McRae and the organisation is well supported by Emilie Collyer, Helena Jones and Caroline Brosnan. This group of incredible women pursue an ambitious program of works - achieving so much on too little. It is a pleasure to be able to recognise them in the annual report and I know we all look forward to continuing the collaboration in the coming year.

Vision and Values

Vision

Reimagining artistic horizons to transform and enrich art, artists and audiences.

Purpose

To interrogate the intersections of music, sound and performance with risk-taking artists and adventurous audiences to discover new forms of expression that reflect and articulate the themes of our times.

Values Collaboration

We nurture a culture of inquiry, dialogue and exchange, prioritising artists’ agency and the empowerment of independent voices.

Complexity

We create spaces to engage with the exploratory, the unfamiliar and the unknown.

Curiosity

We seek the most prescient questions and then ask them again with the courage to take risks.

Equity

We champion fairness and activate opportunities that reflect, respect and celebrate difference.

Little

‘One of my biggest takeaways from this experience was forming collaborations, and learning how to develop early ideas through conversations with others. I feel a sense of having a network of artists that I know I can reach out to.’

The Year at a Glance Works 2022

JANUARY

Little Operations development with Rebecca Bracewell

A Slow Emergency development

FEBRUARY

My Self in That Moment development

MARCH

Little Operations development with Rebecca Bracewell

APRIL

MILK residency with Sarah Walker and Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy

MAY

Chamber Made fundraiser

Tamara attends Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Belgium then O. Festival in Rotterdam with Dybbuks presented as MTNow Award winner Kylie attends APAM

JUNE

Orange House by the Sea Artist Residency, assessments

Tamara travels to Singapore to work on concept development for new work

One Day We’ll Understand

AUGUST

Little Operations with Rebecca Bracewell

A Slow Emergency development

SEPTEMBER

Kylie and Tamara pitch at Major Festival Initiative meeting, Brisbane

Kylie and Tamara attend and pitch at Performing Arts Market Seoul

OCTOBER

Kylie and Tamara pitch at Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres conference, Singapore

Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep presentation, Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore

Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep presentation, OzAsia, Adelaide

NOVEMBER

Orange House by the Sea Artist Residency, Zoë Barry

Hi-Viz Satellites, two-day hybrid event, Bendigo and Singapore

DECEMBER

Orange House by the Sea Artist Residency, Zoë Barry

JULY

A Slow Emergency development

My Self in That Moment world premiere, The Substation, Melbourne

Dybbuks Ukraine video presentation

My Self in That Moment

A live performance work for distributed voice and body

Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep

Music, text, performance and image

Featuring solo soprano accompanied by an ensemble of 49 tablet devices, My Self in That Moment is a compelling exploration of the fragmented and distributed self in the digital age. Created with a team led by Chamber Made Artistic Director Tamara Saulwick, the elements of live performance, spatialised sound, and screen-based visuals come together in this unique intersection of the human and the technological.

The astonishing sound world for My Self in That Moment, created by composer and sound artist Peter Knight, is built entirely from the singing, sounding and speaking human voice of our three featured collaborating vocalists Tina Stefanou (Australia), Jessica Aszodi (Germany) and Alice Hui-Sheng Chang (Taiwan). Scored, processed and distributed across the moving constellation of 49 digital tablet speakers, the voices become disembodied and dispersed. Steve Berrick developed a system in which networked personal devices function as a visual and sonic ensemble, opening up exciting possibilities for the spatialization of image and sound.

My Self in That Moment is an affective meditation on the ever-multiplying archive of the self, a ritual of endless construction and deconstruction, a disturbing and effecting portrayal of the fragmentation of our enmeshed digital existence.

World Premiere

27–30 July 2022

The Substation

My Self in That Moment was developed in partnership with The Substation and Experimenta, with support from The Besen Foundation, Playking Foundation, and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Artistic Credits

Tamara Saulwick

Concept & direction

Peter Knight Composer & sound artist

Steve Berrick

Creative coder & programmer

Jessica Aszodi, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Tina Stefanou

Performers & collaborators

Sarah Walker Photographer

Martyn Coutts

Dramaturg

Amelia Lever-Davidson

Lighting designer

Geoffrey Watson Costume

Matt Gingold

Production manager

Giovanna Yate Gonzalez

Technical operator

‘My Self at That Moment opens up crucial areas for reflection, especially at a time when the digital self has become a proxy for the real … Voice and image become increasingly distorted through replication, imitation, pixelation, multiplication, looping and fragmentation. The voice is layered and transformed in impossible ways. Images of her physical body are eventually eroded, until all that remains are fragments of a former self.’

In 2022 we were fortunate to have two presentation seasons of Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep

The work was invited to be part of the In New Light Festival that marked the opening of a new theatre space at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay Singapore, the Singtel Waterfront Theatre.

It was an honour to have the work selected to be part of the launch season for this new performing arts space that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Esplanade. The space — a state-of-the-art flexible black box theatre — is heralded as filling a critical gap in the local performing arts scene in Singapore. The festival featured a number of commissioned works and ran from 12 October to 31 December 2022.

The week following this Singapore season, our international team gathered again, in Adelaide, to be part of the OzAsia Festival, performing at the Dunstan Playhouse. With the world premiere of Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep having taken place in February 2020 in Melbourne as part of Asia TOPA, it was wonderful to bring the work once again to Australian audiences.

The performance by New York-based Singaporean pianist Margaret Leng Tan of original music by Erik Griswold, with video design by Nick Roux, dramaturgy by Kok Heng Leun and direction by Tamara Saulwick, was warmly received by audiences, industry and critics at both of these festivals.

Presentation season

21–22 October 2022

In New Light Festival

Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore

28–29 October 2022

OzAsia Festival Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide

Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep is a Chamber Made and CultureLink Singapore co-production that was co-commissioned by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and Asia TOPA. This activity received grant funding from the Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grants Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and is supported by Creative Victoria, Australia Council for the Arts, National Arts Council (Singapore), The Substation, Playking Foundation, Sidney Myer Fund and the Robert Salzer Foundation. Asia TOPA is a joint initiative of the Sidney Myer Fund and Arts Centre Melbourne and is supported by the Australian and Victorian Governments.

Artistic Credits

Margaret Leng Tan

Musician & performer

Tamara Saulwick Director

Erik Griswold

Composer

Kok Heng Leun Drama Box

Dramaturg

Nick Roux

Video artist

Andy Lim ARTFACTORY

Lighting designer

Yuan Zhiying

Costume designer

Yap Seok Hui ARTFACTORY

Production manager

‘Fragments of memory and avant garde performance come together for a singular work’.’

BAKCHORMEEBOY, Singapore

(Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep)

‘a meticulous, pitch-perfect, and stunningly moving piece of work.’

— GLAM ADELAIDE

Dybbuks

Part performance. Part concert. Part exorcism.

A Slow Emergency

A work in three parts: Outside. Inside. The Other side.

We were thrilled that our 2018 work Dybbuks, conceived and directed by Samara Hersch with music composed by Max Lyandvert, was one of six works internationally to be awarded the extremely prestigious Music Theatre NOW award. The six prize winning teams were invited to present their works (some live and some in short lectures with sound and video excerpts) at the international convention of Music Theatre NOW in Rotterdam in May 2022. Practitioners and presenters from all over the world were in attendance, and it provided a unique opportunity to show Dybbuks, showcasing Chamber Made, director Samara Hersch and the Dybbuks team to an international audience.

Judges report general:

‘It was soul nourishing and exciting to see the work being made coming out of this extended and complex [Covid-19] period. The six works we’ve chosen represent a lean towards communal experience and a type of macro expression. From a sonic installation to an archaeological site specific dig into song to a zany fashion intervention, we can’t wait to share this richness with the international audience and congratulate the artists who represent these works, and those who with courage put forward their extraordinary work, making our job hard and ever interesting.’

(Jury of the 2021 edition of Music Theatre NOW competition)

Judges report Dybbuks:

‘With its innovative way of combining an original and traditional text, Dybbuks demonstrates dismantling and reconstructing layers of a traditional fable that is still resonating in today’s world. The work is experienced as a riveting prose, with its thoughtful production and a thoroughly provocative performance.’

(Jury of Music Theatre NOW 2021)

Music Theatre

NOW 2021 Award

For works made between 2018 and 2021

Winners receive an invitation to the MTNow Meeting at O. Festival Rotterdam in 2022.

Artistic Credits include:

Samara Hersch

Concept & direction

Max Lyandvert

Composition & sound design

Tamara Saulwick

Sound dramaturgy

Paul Jackson

Lighting & set design & project dramaturgy

Time is running out. The crisis is so large that we can’t see it. But it’s happening. The teenagers have asked us to gather, to be still, to listen, and to protest. But this is not a protest as we know it. It is a dream, a ritual purging, and an act of resistance.

A Slow Emergency is a new work — part concert, part performance, part fantasia — which positions teenagers at the centre of a conversation about climate.

Made in conversation with a core team of teenage artist/activists and performed by an ensemble of teenage musicians and singers, A Slow Emergency is a ritual summoning, an SOS, an act of resistance, a carnival, a warning to the universe as imagined by teenagers on the precipice of change.

An accomplished team of core artists led by theatre director Adena Jacobs and composer Cat Hope, come into collaboration with a large ensemble of teenage vocalists, instrumentalists and performers to create an epic, disquieting, and hallucinatory work.

Creative Development

January

July

August

A Slow Emergency received seed funding from Rising Festival.

Artistic Credits

Adena Jacobs Direction

Cat Hope Composition

Tamara Saulwick

Dramaturgy

Jen Hector

Lighting design

Eugyeene Teh Design

Aaron Wyatt Music direction

Richard Dinnen

Production management

Jean Hinchcliffe, Theo Boltman, Ella Simons, Jay Patel Artistic associates

Artform and Sector Development 2022

Hi-Viz Satellites

In 2022 Chamber Made’s Hi-Viz Practice Exchange expanded into Hi-Viz Satellites.

Partnering with Punctum Inc (Central Victoria) and SAtheCollective (Singapore), Hi-Viz Satellites 2022 launched with Modes of Making, a two-day hybrid program with in-person events in Bendigo and Singapore and an online component.

This evolution of our annual gathering is a three-year arc connecting artists across cultures, geographies and artforms. Hi-Viz Satellites cultivates conditions of exchange, collaboration and relationships that grow and extend practice, placing a particular focus on the intersections of performance, sound and music. The program is expanding to include other modes of activity including collaboration and making. Hi-Viz Satellites will include in-person gatherings, online labs, and intensives and collaborations in Australia and Singapore between 2022 and 2024.

This program remains an opportunity for women, non-binary and gender-diverse artists to come together, meet, exchange ideas, and form new networks.

‘A really fascinating and surprising day. A great chance to reflect on practice outside the pressures of making work.’

— ADENA JACOBS, HI-VIZ SATELLITES PRESENTING ARTIST PARTICIPANT

18-19 November

The Engine Room, Bendigo SAtheCollective, Singapore Online

Hi-Viz Satellites is a partnership between Chamber Made, Punctum and SAtheCollective. Hi-Viz Satellites 2022-24 is supported by the Australia Council’s International Engagement Fund.

Artistic Credits

Tamara Saulwick, Jude Anderson, Natalie Tse, Andy Chia Curatorial team Zoë Barry, Cherry Chan, Belinda Foo, Lz Dunn, Adena Jacobs, Likie Low, Amaara Raheem, Jean Reiki, Tina Stefanou, Zen Teh Presenting and workshop artists Kar-men Cheng, Kate Hunter Writers-in-residence

‘It feels really important to bring artists together in a cross artform way and to allow space for contemplation and conversation. The location in a regional area I liked a lot.’

—

Orange House by the Sea Artist Residency

The Orange House by the Sea Artist Residency program is for mid-career women, non-binary and gender diverse artists who are working at the intersections of performance, sound and music.

The three-week residency includes a $3,000 artist fee, access to a Melbourne-based mentor if required, accommodation on the Bellarine Peninsula and child care contributions if required.

In 2022 our Resident was award-winning cellist, composer, theatre maker and educator Zoë Barry.

Zoë was interested in exploring ways for a voice to leave a body, and return to a body — and pass through other bodies — and all that that might mean. She collaborated with dramaturg/director Sarah Giles and composer/sound designer Jed Palmer, with an interest in bringing together live looped text, slow throughcomposed music, verbatim recordings, singers, cinematic sound design and performative states that include lip synching the words of another, with live string ensemble.

14 November – 2 December

In 2022 the residency took place in Indented Head This residency is supported by the Playking Foundation, Chamber Made donors and the family of Margaret Cameron.

‘There is something so powerful about this residency being specifically for midcareer female and nonbinary artists. The space surrounding the residency felt different because of it. I felt inspired to be brave in my experimentation, to be playful and rigorous. It was a perfect balance of feeling that my ideas were being supported, and there was time and space to explore them without interruption.’

ZOË BARRY

Little Operations

Thursday 25 August Queen Victoria Women’s Centre

This Little Operations was offered in partnership with the Australian Art Orchestra and supported by City of Melbourne, Australia Council for the Arts and Playking Foundation.

Artistic Credits

Rebecca Bracewell

Little Operations is an eighteen-month program which supports emerging artists to develop their artistic ideas while providing professional development support and mentorship around the many other associated skills required to sustain a long-term career in the arts. It is an open space with a focus on artistic exploration and provides a testing ground for new concepts, projects and collaborations. Each Little Operations project is supported through a small amount of seed funding and culminates in a free public showing.

Little Operations with Rebecca Bracewell: Instruments that Listen

Sound artist Rebecca Bracewell explored her hearing aids creatively through her project Instruments that Listen. Arising from her experience with hearing loss, Instruments that Listen investigated what it means to listen imperfectly and with a reliance on hearing technology. This Little Operations development was used to investigate the specific sound world of each hearing aid, and to create ways of sharing these sound worlds with others in live performance settings.

‘Little Operations enabled an in-depth exploration of the sonic world of my hearing aids, as well as an investigation into the way that hearing aids affect my listening. I was also able to develop the accessibility of my work in developing captions, something that was deepened through conversations and mentorships with other artists.’

REBECCA BRACEWELL

‘This was delightful. I enjoyed the intimacy, the slow evolution of the ‘music’.'

AUDIENCE MEMBER

2022 Recipient Zoë Barry

‘It builds connections between artists, it makes people feel less alone, it opens up possibilities of new friendships and collaborations, it allows wide ranging conversation, it allows people to be seen and heard, it makes people feel supported, it fosters optimism, it shares knowledge.’

—ZOË BARRY Hi-Viz Satellites Workshop Facilitator

Audiosketch

Audiosketch is a Chamber Made podcast created and produced by Roslyn Oades. Roslyn has created a series of art dates with artists about their practice, with conversations particularly referencing how they have been listening at this moment in time. Audiosketch is a Chamber Made podcast created and produced by Roslyn Oades. Roslyn has created a series of art dates with artists about their practice, with conversations particularly referencing how they have been listening at this moment in time.

Relationships 2022

Online

Audiosketch was first commissioned as part of Chamber Made’s Hi-Viz Practice Exchange. It is supported by the Australia Council, the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust and The Substation, as Hi-Viz partners.

Artistic Credits

Roslyn Oades

In 2022 Roslyn Oades continued her Audiosketch series (commenced in 2021). 2022 artists were composer and musician Aviva Endean and multidisciplinary artist Justin Talplacido Shoulder / Phasmahammer.

Artists and arts workers Audiences

In 2022 we worked with a number of artists with whom we have longstanding and deeply valued relationships. This model is important to Chamber Made as we see nurturing artists and providing multiple pathways of engagement over many years as one of our core responsibilities.

An example of this kind of multi and crosspollinating relationship was our engagement with award winning cellist, composer, theatre maker and educator Zoë Barry. Zoë was our 2022 Orange House by the Sea resident. She also led a workshop at Hi-Viz Satellites that took place during her residency in which she explored some of the practice questions and materials from her residency with workshop participants.

In 2023 Chamber Made will produce a new work led by Zoë, extending our relationship and bringing other collaborators into conversation with the company.

Hi-Viz Satellites afforded us the wonderful opportunity to engage with artists in and around central Victoria and Singaporean artists. The chance to meet, share knowledge about practice, workshop together and seed possibilities for ongoing relationships was nourishing and rich.

‘It connects artists who otherwise might not come into contact with each other and is one of the only events outside of performance markets (a very different context) where practice is shared. It's unique because it’s artist to artist.’

ADENA JACOBS, HI-VIZ SATELLITES PRESENTING ARTIST

In 2022 the company engaged…

60 artists and arts workers in a professional capacity

We aim to provide a range of different experiences for audiences and make our works accessible by presenting in varied locations, at different times, at low or no cost.

In 2022 we were fortunate to connect with Melbourne audiences at The Substation at our My Self in That Moment season and for two intimate showings of Rebecca Bracewell’s Little Operations at The Queen Victoria Women’s Centre.

At both events it was wonderful to reconnect with past and existing audiences and to be introduced to new people, keen to experience new work and to support the development of new ideas. We always value the enthusiasm audiences bring to Chamber Made works and the conversations that happen in foyers and over drinks after a showing or opening night are always invigorating, rich and resonant.

It was also a great pleasure to present Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep at the new Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay Singapore, and at the Dunstan Playhouse in South Australia. We are a small company and the opportunity to reach audiences in other states and other countries is one we never take for granted. This extends the reach of the organisation and also introduces us to new

people with an appetite for work that extends artform boundaries. It is also a privilege to share Australian work with overseas audiences and to introduce international artists to different local audiences.

‘I really enjoyed it. It was conveniently placed in the city, and I happened to be free that day. It opened my ears up to new ways of listening and interacting with sound. It gave me some insight into hearing aids as well. It felt casual enough that going without knowing anyone wasn't daunting.’

OPERATIONS AUDIENCE MEMBER

In 2022 we had…

661 number of audience at ticketed (paid) events,

49 number at unticketed (free) events.

LITTLE

Partners Donors

In 2022 we deepened and extended valued partnerships as projects took shape and took us to both familiar and new geographical locations.

It was a pleasure to be back at The Substation presenting My Self in That Moment. Chamber Made has worked closely with The Substation for many years as a development and presentation partner and they provided great support to bring My Self in That Moment to audiences, despite a number of COVID related challenges.

Our producing partnership with CultureLink Singapore continues to flourish as Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep garners more interest and presentation opportunities.

Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep also launched a number of creative collaborations between Chamber Made Artistic Director and Singaporean dramaturg Kok Heng Leun including the Asia TOPA Lab in 2022 and a new work in development One Day We Will Understand with Singaporean visual artist Sim Chi Yin.

2022 saw the launch of Hi-Viz Satellites and we were thrilled to work with two new partners, Punctum Inc in central Victoria and SAtheCollective in Singapore. Working closely with these organisations has been an immense privilege and has brought Chamber Made work into conversation with new artists and seeded exciting new possibilities for this project and other collaborations.

The contribution of our donors cannot be overstated. It is through their passion, generosity and deep commitment to the arts and specifically to the work of Chamber Made, that we can continue to resource all aspects of our program.

In 2022 we held a fundraiser to launch the New Work Seeding Fund. The event was attended by a number of existing donors as well as people newer to the company who were keen to meet us and learn about what we do.

The event was held at ACMI X and included a wonderful participatory performance led by Aviva Endean and Cobie Orger, a version of their work Vibrato Virtual that was commissioned as part of Hi-Viz Practice Exchange 2020.

The New Work Seeding Fund

The pivotal moment in the life of each and every one of our new works is the initial phase where the first seeds are planted; a momentary phase when the possibilities seem endless, when artists

come together, often for the first time, to test ideas, to test working relationships and see where their individual practices can come together. This seeding time lays the foundations for every new boundary-bending work that our audiences have come to anticipate and relish.

Via the New Work Seeding Fund we are building security around new works; to ensure that new ideas are embraced, that experimentation and innovation are nurtured, and that projects are given their best chance as they head out on the pathway to presentation.

‘I have come to believe so strongly in people who are prepared to go outside the circle and do something different. It is one of the most important things for me about Chamber Made. It’s that innovation, the challenge and the bravery that makes me think Chamber Made must keep going and must be supported. And that's why I support it.’

MARGARET LEGGATT

‘It was fun to have the three different locations interweaving.’

Hi-Viz Satellites Participant

Media

‘In My Self in That Moment, we experience a different ‘doubling’, and a different indexing; more immediate and somehow ambiguous, digital rather than analogue. Self and self-image are not contrasted, but inextricably fused, self-as-image. Myself ‘in that moment’, the never-ending digital present, in which we are continually reproduced as images, a spectacle even to ourselves.’

JOEL STERN ADSR ZINE

‘Fragments of memory and avant garde performance come together for a singular work that could only be performed by Singapore’s most famous toy pianist. Ultimately, what makes Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep so fascinating is its very structure. As a whole, the work comprises of a series of fragments, each piece a concentrated, fully-formed and presented memory that contains visual aid, verbal explanation, and musical accompaniment. But what makes it so special is how it doesn’t matter if these pieces are out of chronological order; what matters is how they all come together to complete our impression of her, and work much like any composition played by Margaret – to evoke an abstract but undeniably powerful resonance in audience members, through the act of presenting something so genuine, personal, and artistically crafted.’

BAKCHORMEEBOY

@Esplanade Presents: The Studio 23 October

Our heartiest congratulations to Margaret Leng Tan and the Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep team for 3 monumental yet heartfelt performances. Thank you for sharing your stories and taking us on such a deeply personal journey with you. We wish Margaret and the team all the best for their upcoming performances at OzAsia Festival in Adelaide!

@yoniprior 30 July

Amazing. Still ringing in my mind

@Patrick McCarthy 29 July

Saw the new work by @ChamberMadeOrg at @TheSubstation last night. It was awesome and weird and everything you want from a new Chamber Made creation. One of Melbourne’s true gems. On til tomorrow night!

@milkbarmag 28 July

Fascinating, highly artistic and futuristic, @ChamberMadeOrg’s

My Self in That Moment explores the fragmented and distributed self in the #digitalage. On stage until Sat 30 July at @TheSubstation.

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