Inspired by Helen Grace who initiated a workshop model which included ferry trips/walks for a collaborated project, Phaptawan invited three other artists in Sydney; Helen Grace; Sue Pedley and Virginia Hilyard to engage the excursion workshop, each with candidate of their own choices to conducted series of meeting-up excursions at their own time for Womanifesto Gathering 2020 in Sydney. The participants were from across intergenerations, intergender and may or may not belong to artistic practices. (Shuxia, Toby, Kyati, Charlotte, and Virginia’s mother) The excursions included walks, road trips, ferry rides and visits at community recycling shops and aged-care facility.
Participating artists resumed in a meeting at UP studio on 19 December 2020 where each group presented and shared results of their experiences and a picnic meal together.
Bios:
Phaptawan Suwannakudt (born in Thailand, 1959), trained as a mural painter with her late father Paiboon Suwannakudt and led a team of painters that worked in Buddhist temples throughout Thailand during the 1980s-1990s. She was also involved in the women artists group exhibition Tradisexion in 1995 and in Womanifesto. She relocated to Australia in 1996 and completed MVA degree at Sydney College of the Arts, The Sydney University. She has exhibited extensively in Australia, Thailand and internationally including Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Museum of Anthropology, UBC, Vancouver, Canada (2017) Retold-Untold Stories, Chiang Mai (2014) and Sydney (2016), Thresholds: Contemporary Thai Art, New York (2013) and the18th Biennale of Sydney: All Our Relations (2012). she is selected to participate in Beyond Bliss the Inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale, Thailand (2018-9) Most recently her work is included in Asia TOPA 2020, Art Centre Melbourne and The National 2021, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her works are in public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Bank Sydney, the National Art Gallery of Thailand and the National Gallery Singapore. www.phaptawansuwannakudt.com
Virginia Hilyard living in Sydney Australia, is a visual and media artist whose practice is grounded in an experimental aesthetic and an interest in the convergence of digital and analogue image and sound-making, merging technology and the hand-made mark. Producing film, video, sound and installation work since 1985, Virginia continues to contribute to moving image and sound culture in Australia and overseas and to work collaboratively with artists of other disciplines including composers, sculptors, poets, writers and performance artists. Recent works include sonic analogue exhibited at Orange Regional Art Gallery – a suite of poetic sonic compositions drawn from 16mm optical sound and field recordings gathered in regional Australia and New Zealand. Other works include Lacuna (series) installed at Lake Macquarie, NSW and finalist in Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, 2017; Picture Start, using found 16mm footage and field recordings, Sydney, 2016; Static screened in London, Estonia and Poland, 2015; Ice Sound, developed from a field recording trip in Iceland, installed in Sydney, 2013; Room Tones screened in Melbourne and the Czech Republic 2012-13 and Memorial 77297 played in the British Library, London, 2012. Residencies include Bundanon Trust, 2016; Hill End Artist Residency, Power Studio at Cite des Arts Internationale, Paris; Thailand and the Philippines on Asialink visual artist residencies, Gertrude Street artist residency.
Helen Grace is an artist, writer and teacher, based in Sydney and Hong Kong. She was the Founding Director of the MA Programme in Visual Culture Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong and is now Adjunct Professor in the Department of Cultural & Religious Studies, CUHK and Associate, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney; in 2012-13 she was Visiting Professor in the Department of English, National Central University, Taiwan on a National Science Council Fellowship. Helen is an award-winning filmmaker and new media producer. Her photo media work is in the collections of Artbank, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW and Art Gallery of South Australia as well as private collections nationally and internationally. Her recent projects include The Housing Question (with Narelle Jubelin), Penrith Regional Galleries, Home of the Lewers Bequest, 2019, Thought Log, SCA Galleries, Sydney (2016) and Map of Spirits, Gallery 4A, Sydney (2015). Her recent books include Culture, Aesthetics and Affect in Ubiquitous Media: The Prosaic Image (Routledge, 2014) and Technovisuality: Cultural Re-enchantment and the Experience of Technology. (Co-editors, Amy Chan, Kit Sze and Wong Kin Yuen) IB Tauris, 2016)
Sue Pedley is an artist who researches place, community, culture and history in relationship to materiality through site-specific installation and interdisciplinary practice. Sue has received Australia Council residencies in Vietnam (2008), London (1993) France and Germany (1985); and an Asia Link residency in Sri Lanka (2001). Other residencies include Tokyo Wonder Site (2012), Redgate Studio Residency, Beijing (2011), Banff Art Centre, Canada (2007) and Bundanon Trust (2016). Exhibitions include Manly Dam Project, Manly Art Gallery and Museum, (2020) Patches of Light – Sue & Peggy Pedley – Queen Victoria Art Museum and Gallery, Tasmania (2019); Tracing Water – Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2018, Japan; Orange- Net- Work, Ningbo Art Museum, China (2019), Mosman Art Gallery (2017), Spare Room, Elizabeth Bay House, Historic Houses Trust, Sydney, (2007); Blue Jay Way, Heide Museum of Contemporary Art and Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest (2007). Sue has also participated in the Setouchi Triennial (2010) and Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial (2006) in Japan. http://www.suepedley.com.au
Shuxia Chen is an art historian and curator of Asian art. She holds a PhD from the Australian National University, an MA in Art History from the University of Sydney, and an MA in Studio Art (Honours) from Sydney College of the Arts. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary Chinese photography, artist groups, and post-socialist visual culture. Shuxia’s research has been published in journals such as Trans-Asia Photography Review, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Made in China, Artforum, among others. Shuxia has also worked with a range of museums and galleries in China and Australia as a curator. Her current curatorial projects include: “A Home for Photography Learning: the Friday Salon, 1977-1980 Beijing and Hong Kong, 2018-2020), “Auspicious Motifs in Chinese Art” (Sydney, 2020-2021), and “Wayfaring: ‘70s and ‘80s Taiwanese Photography (Canberra, 2021). As an artist, Shuxia has mainly exhibited within Australia in exhibitions including “Make in China, Australia” (2012-2015), “Make Yourself at Home” (2012), and “Comings and Goings” (2010).
Inspired by Helen Grace who initiated a workshop model which included ferry trips/walks for a collaborated project, Phaptawan invited three other artists in Sydney; Helen Grace; Sue Pedley and Virginia Hilyard to engage the excursion workshop, each with candidate of their own choices to conducted series of meeting-up excursions at their own time for Womanifesto Gathering 2020 in Sydney. The participants were from across intergenerations, intergender and may or may not belong to artistic practices. (Shuxia, Toby, Kyati, Charlotte, and Virginia’s mother) The excursions included walks, road trips, ferry rides and visits at community recycling shops and aged-care facility.
Participating artists resumed in a meeting at UP studio on 19 December 2020 where each group presented and shared results of their experiences and a picnic meal together.
Bios:
Phaptawan Suwannakudt (born in Thailand, 1959), trained as a mural painter with her late father Paiboon Suwannakudt and led a team of painters that worked in Buddhist temples throughout Thailand during the 1980s-1990s. She was also involved in the women artists group exhibition Tradisexion in 1995 and in Womanifesto. She relocated to Australia in 1996 and completed MVA degree at Sydney College of the Arts, The Sydney University. She has exhibited extensively in Australia, Thailand and internationally including Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia, Museum of Anthropology, UBC, Vancouver, Canada (2017) Retold-Untold Stories, Chiang Mai (2014) and Sydney (2016), Thresholds: Contemporary Thai Art, New York (2013) and the18th Biennale of Sydney: All Our Relations (2012). she is selected to participate in Beyond Bliss the Inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale, Thailand (2018-9) Most recently her work is included in Asia TOPA 2020, Art Centre Melbourne and The National 2021, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her works are in public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Bank Sydney, the National Art Gallery of Thailand and the National Gallery Singapore. www.phaptawansuwannakudt.com
Virginia Hilyard living in Sydney Australia, is a visual and media artist whose practice is grounded in an experimental aesthetic and an interest in the convergence of digital and analogue image and sound-making, merging technology and the hand-made mark. Producing film, video, sound and installation work since 1985, Virginia continues to contribute to moving image and sound culture in Australia and overseas and to work collaboratively with artists of other disciplines including composers, sculptors, poets, writers and performance artists. Recent works include sonic analogue exhibited at Orange Regional Art Gallery – a suite of poetic sonic compositions drawn from 16mm optical sound and field recordings gathered in regional Australia and New Zealand. Other works include Lacuna (series) installed at Lake Macquarie, NSW and finalist in Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, 2017; Picture Start, using found 16mm footage and field recordings, Sydney, 2016; Static screened in London, Estonia and Poland, 2015; Ice Sound, developed from a field recording trip in Iceland, installed in Sydney, 2013; Room Tones screened in Melbourne and the Czech Republic 2012-13 and Memorial 77297 played in the British Library, London, 2012. Residencies include Bundanon Trust, 2016; Hill End Artist Residency, Power Studio at Cite des Arts Internationale, Paris; Thailand and the Philippines on Asialink visual artist residencies, Gertrude Street artist residency.
Helen Grace is an artist, writer and teacher, based in Sydney and Hong Kong. She was the Founding Director of the MA Programme in Visual Culture Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong and is now Adjunct Professor in the Department of Cultural & Religious Studies, CUHK and Associate, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney; in 2012-13 she was Visiting Professor in the Department of English, National Central University, Taiwan on a National Science Council Fellowship. Helen is an award-winning filmmaker and new media producer. Her photo media work is in the collections of Artbank, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW and Art Gallery of South Australia as well as private collections nationally and internationally. Her recent projects include The Housing Question (with Narelle Jubelin), Penrith Regional Galleries, Home of the Lewers Bequest, 2019, Thought Log, SCA Galleries, Sydney (2016) and Map of Spirits, Gallery 4A, Sydney (2015). Her recent books include Culture, Aesthetics and Affect in Ubiquitous Media: The Prosaic Image (Routledge, 2014) and Technovisuality: Cultural Re-enchantment and the Experience of Technology. (Co-editors, Amy Chan, Kit Sze and Wong Kin Yuen) IB Tauris, 2016)
Sue Pedley is an artist who researches place, community, culture and history in relationship to materiality through site-specific installation and interdisciplinary practice. Sue has received Australia Council residencies in Vietnam (2008), London (1993) France and Germany (1985); and an Asia Link residency in Sri Lanka (2001). Other residencies include Tokyo Wonder Site (2012), Redgate Studio Residency, Beijing (2011), Banff Art Centre, Canada (2007) and Bundanon Trust (2016). Exhibitions include Manly Dam Project, Manly Art Gallery and Museum, (2020) Patches of Light – Sue & Peggy Pedley – Queen Victoria Art Museum and Gallery, Tasmania (2019); Tracing Water – Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2018, Japan; Orange- Net- Work, Ningbo Art Museum, China (2019), Mosman Art Gallery (2017), Spare Room, Elizabeth Bay House, Historic Houses Trust, Sydney, (2007); Blue Jay Way, Heide Museum of Contemporary Art and Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest (2007). Sue has also participated in the Setouchi Triennial (2010) and Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial (2006) in Japan. http://www.suepedley.com.au
Shuxia Chen is an art historian and curator of Asian art. She holds a PhD from the Australian National University, an MA in Art History from the University of Sydney, and an MA in Studio Art (Honours) from Sydney College of the Arts. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary Chinese photography, artist groups, and post-socialist visual culture. Shuxia’s research has been published in journals such as Trans-Asia Photography Review, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Made in China, Artforum, among others. Shuxia has also worked with a range of museums and galleries in China and Australia as a curator. Her current curatorial projects include: “A Home for Photography Learning: the Friday Salon, 1977-1980 Beijing and Hong Kong, 2018-2020), “Auspicious Motifs in Chinese Art” (Sydney, 2020-2021), and “Wayfaring: ‘70s and ‘80s Taiwanese Photography (Canberra, 2021). As an artist, Shuxia has mainly exhibited within Australia in exhibitions including “Make in China, Australia” (2012-2015), “Make Yourself at Home” (2012), and “Comings and Goings” (2010).