The Painted River Project engages communities about the importance of watersheds for human and planetary health through an innovative collaboration between artists and scientists. Join artist Leo Robba and scientist Kat Warwick to explore our shared connection to place through art, science, and design so together, we can reimagine a healthy, more sustainable future for our water ways including the Georges River.
This experience centres around ancestral rituals of care and healing to create a space of collective care and foster the preservation of ancestral knowledge. This specific ritual will involve sharing coffee and having your cup read (the art known as tasseography). We will come together as a community over a cup of coffee and share our passed down traditions or memories of care. This event comes from my own work of gathering those of the SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) diaspora to collect and upkeep our traditional practices and knowledge. The session is focused on these lineages and is meant to be a safe space for those of us from this diaspora to come together and share, however, anyone who is interested and open to sharing is welcome.
Calling all creative thinkers and makers who live, work or study in Western Sydney: you’re invited to attend this information and creative jamming session for Casula Powerhouse Art Centre’s 2023 FLIGHT exhibition project. You’ll hear from curator Luke Létourneau about the vision for the six-month program, which aims to showcase the histories, evocations and imaginary futures of FLIGHT from a range of perspectives across multi-media, multi-modal, multi-art form practices. (Think aeroplanes, birds, migration, songlines, tourism, environmental impacts, space and more, explored through art works, films, installations, public talks, and workshops, just by example.) Luke will be joined by artist-scholars from Western Sydney University who will lead a creative jamming session designed to generate ideas for public programming, creative works, and other community-informed contributions. FLIGHT has been developed in anticipation of the 2026 take-off of the Western Sydney international (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport and the surrounding aerotropolis. It opens at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in January 2023.
The expression ‘a sense of place’ is a catchphrase that often defies clear understanding. As readers we know when a writer has created a ‘great sense of place’. But what does that mean? It’s hopelessly vague. In this workshop, through storytelling, writing and play, you’ll learn the techniques authors use to write complex stories about the worlds they live in. We’ll look at how writers convey ‘a sense of place’, as well as the role it plays in creative writing. You’ll learn how to write with ‘telling details’ as opposed to too much detail; how to offer an unexpected way into a place; and some strategies for weaving a sense of place into the narrative.
ART & SOLE is an interactive activity where students create a graphic using the outline of their shoes as the template. The objective is to design a sole with a customised insignia that might leave an everlasting impression wherever one were to walk. Designs may feature issues relating to politics, social justice, climate change, gender equality etc. Referencing a unique pair of Air Jordan basketball boots with a tailored sole, Blak impresses upon students the concepts of narrative and composition in art & design as a means to express and customise identity. In his youth, Blak found himself searching for an ultimate identity and consequently sought influence in Hip Hop & brand shoe culture from the U.S. Iconic films like Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee as well as Breakdance were pivotal in seeking that identity.
