Home >> Past

Past Projects

2011 Seedpods
2010 Seedpods | 2009 Seedpods | 2008 Seedpods | Punctum Projects

2011 Seedpods

Hourglass #1
Nicole Canham and Sarah Kaur
May 2011


 

 "He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skills of the physician" (Chinese proverb) #2
Carolyn Teo
June 2011




Dance Exchange #3
Jonathan Sinatra
August 2011 




Betty Grumble (Is Gagging For It) #4
Emma Maye Gibson
September 2011 



Transparency Collective #5
Installation and performances by Rockie Stone, Kieran Swann  and Kali-Rose
October 2011 



Wellness Clinic #6
Amy Turton
November 2011


 

2011 Punctum Projects

Pageant and Pandemonium was a huge success. Thankyou to the 3,000 of you who attended.
A Castlemaine State Festival commission, Opening Event and Public Program, April 2011

Congratulations to the successful In-Habit International arts research and cultural exchange program applicants for 2011.
Helen Bodycomb travelled to Italy to work at CITEMA in Borga Dolciano and to Turkey
Tessa Elieff and Tara Gilbee to France to work at The Abbey Noirlac in Bruere-Allichamps
Nicole Canham worked with sound artists and musicians in Mexico.
and Anna Loewendahl to Mexico to participate in Dragon Dance Theatre's 12th Pan American Puppetry Arts Institute.

2010 Seedpods

The Edge of the Earth #1
Robert Curgenven with Eamon Sprod
March 2010

Sugar Coated #2
Hannah Raisin
April 2010

Who's Afraid of the Dark #3
Katie Sfetkidis
September 2010

Sound Like Movement #4
Dale Gorfinkel and Peter Fraser
September 2010

The Experts Project #5
Lara Thoms
October 2010

Immersion Studio #6
Jacques Soddell and Tessa Elieff
November 2010

2009 Seedpods

Body of Work Seedpod #12
Jon Harris
23 - 24 October 2009

Body of Work re-examines a life drawing class, and asks: what happens if you draw and draw upon a life? Using a male ‘life’ model, memories, a pen and some paper,
Jon commenced the prefromance by leading the audience through the details of a life drawing class, first comically discussing the pitfalls of being an art student and working in such an environment. As the class began he started to draw three separate bodies, each with an different story based on his own experiences to illustrate the potentials and pitfalls of the people we see everyday. By closely analysing the bodies (and through them the stories) of the people around us, we realise the importance of taking a step back and really observing the world around us. Body of Work was not a class and not even an informal lesson, instead it investigated new ground in the way that we perceive our physical bodies and the bodies of others as having an inescapable link to our emotions and feelings. The stories woven by Harris throughout the performance led to a beautiful and unexpected final illustration.




Link Up Seedpod #11
Roseanne Bartley
19 - 20 September 2009

Melbourne artist Roseanne Bartley walked the Bendigo’s streets, parklands, and malls accompanied by a portable drawing table. She invited members of the public to participate by drawing a link of a chain that best represented something of themselves creating a drawing of a democratically inspired civic necklace. Initiated as a stationary artwork in a Barcelona laneway, this project was developed with the assistance of Punctum’s Seedpod initiative as a roving artwork that connects the historically layered sites of inner city Bendigo with a trace of people who occupy it today.




Secret Life of Objects Seedpod #10
Paula van Beek
Saturday 18th July 2009

For the past few years van Beek has been investigating ‘tracing’ as a method for creating work and investigating form. This process is inspired by the art of John Wolseley and his concern for mapping and tracing movements of, and within, the Australian landscape. The Secret Life of Objects, researched through Punctum, is the third project within van Beeks “Tracing” series. In an early development stage, van Beek invited the audience to partake in “tracing tasks”, asking them to play and investigate the rustic objects within her installation. The audience arrived at an understanding of both their time and place within the space but negotiating each object and leaving remnants of their path through the work. To place this within a context, for her first investigation, the artist sets herself a task to ‘trace where a body had been in landscape’, resulting in the performance-installation Shadow and Ash (2006) performed with dancer/choreographer Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal, presented in Melbourne and Sydney. Arch (2007), a durational sculptural project with visual artist Georgie Roxby Smith, was created by the task of ‘tracing sound in 3D space’.




Interior Seedpod #9
Sunday 5th July 2009

"Anthea Caddie and Thembi Soddell burst into their performance with a richly textured and detailed wall of noise. Caddie performed cello in unconventional means and Soddell operated samples, however the artists' deliberate situation behind the audience and more so the musical cooperation and understanding of the duo meant a division between the artists' playing was indistinguishable. The performance demonstrated extraordinary dynamics and deeply considered timing. Caddie and Soddell took listeners through enormously spacious atmospheres; dense, textural noise climaxes; beautifully glistening granular sounds from Soddell and the incredibly rich creaks and wails of Caddie's disembodied cello. Upholding a delicate pace, Caddie and Soddell's sounds unfurled and revealed themselves over time, both through steady sonic shifts and as well as the subjective psychological shifts of extended listening." Jared Davis




In the Absence of Sunlight Seedpod #8
Friday 12th and Saturday 13th June 2009

In the absence of sunlight a new work in progress by acclaimed Melbourne based cross art-form company A is for Atlas, drew inspiration from Australian writer Marjorie Barnard’s short story The Persimmon Tree, where a women recovering from illness lives vicariously through her neighbour – secretly watching her live life outside while she is destined to remain within. Actor Tamara Searle explored what might happen when the ill women meets her neighbour after closely observing her for so long – the audience acting as the neighbour whilst the performer becomes the observer – subverting traditional paradigms (and accompanying expectations) of the spectator/performer relationship. The initial development of the project at the Abbotsford Convent, which is celebrated for its heritage condition, compelled the specificity of the architecture to become a main contributor to the piece. The rooms and corridors of the Workspaces Castlemaine where Punctum is based had undoubtable influenced the work; shaping its development by accordance to its atmosphere – particularly the residues of its institutional history and 1950s ambiance.
Click here for Alison Croggon Review of In the Absence of Sunlight in Melbourne Fringe Festival 2009






Render Seedpod #7
Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th April 2009

Megan Beckwith and Aaron Veryard presented Render, a dance installation that integrated game console multimedia at the Old Fire Station in Bendigo. Veryard, a multi media based artist captured the inferred technology used in Wii gaming consoles to track the movements of Beckwith, a Bendigo based dancer and choreographer. Her performed gestures were followed by minute sensors corresponding to several projected images that trailed Beckwith’s improvised movements – lighting the darkened room of the OFS. Both performances were extremely successful and examined the advantages (and pitfalls) of integrating new technology into live art.

^ page top

 

2008 Seedpods

Night Song Seedpod #6
Friday 21st, Saturday 22nd November 2008

Castlemaine artists Gabrielle Brauer (visual) and James Benedict (writer/actor) developed the first phase of a collaborative performance Night Song – bringing together Brauer’s evocative sculptural work that uses light and fabric to thread ethereal installation spaces with Benedict’s enchanting and resonating libretto, both of the well known Castlemaine identities, united textile sculpture with music and spoken word in a work that gave audiences an unforgettable evening.
“Night Song is an exploration that draws upon ideas from an installation I tested during the 2007 Castlemaine Festival, and a libretto that James has wanted to develop for some time. Because words are a material and have a density just like textiles, this is a real chance to combine them in an exciting way. The audience is also a critical part of this underwater atmosphere we’re weaving” said Brauer. Night Song was a night where music, theatre and sculpture combined to create a visual and dramatic feast for the eyes.





Lit From Within Seedpod #5
August 8th and 9th 2008

With their performance Lit from Within, Wimmera duo Play At Being, comprising Anna Loewendahl and Greg Pritchard, offered a playful and unsettling feast of image and sound at Punctum’s live arts Incubator. Inspired by the Wimmera landscape, its salt lakes and skies, Loewendahl and Pritchard took images to recreate the Victorian area for the performance that explores inner and outer landscapes of regional Victoria. Which also used a delicate white space, shadows, live performance, digital imagery, and VJ software to displace reality and invite disorientation.
Pritchard originates from Castlemaine and with Lit From Within he returns to his childhood base to research and develop this collaborative work. When visiting Punctum’s live arts incubator at Workspace in Halford St., Greg pointed out that he was born in the now ex hospital where Punctum’s incubator is located. From the second floor he was able to point to his grandmother’s house, noting, “it’s an agreeable and amusing twist to work in the live arts incubator that’s by chance based in the very hospital in which I was born because narratives that take a playful and philosophical look at human existence are an important part of our work.”





The Drought Within Seedpod #4
Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th July 2008

Led by Lella Cariddi, performers Tony Yap and Janette Hoe teamed up with musician Kavisha Mazzella and visual artists Anthony Pelchen and Ruth Lyon for a mesmerising performance where physical theatre, sound and voice met to reveal inner landscapes. Over a few months the artists teased out very personal and shared responses to “drought” in its broadest sense – a potent mix of the emotional, bodily and environmental. Implicit to their exploration was an aching absence - akin to what one experiences in social and cultural displacement. The artistic collaborators, each of whom had considerable personal and professional histories through their major bodies of work, captured human majesty and grace in the face of difficulty. In being brought together through the Seedpod sponsorship, they hoped to build an enduring work that struck a deep, resonating chord in regional Victoria. The Drought Within was a cross-disciplinary performance that was documented with film to form an integral part of a touring exhibition DROUGHT- Creative Cross Cultural Collaborations, curated by Lella Cariddi, an exhibition that was first presented at Federation Square in Melbourne on August 22, 2008, as part of the Melbourne Writers festival, before touring to Mildura for Palimpsest 2009.





Deluge SeedPod #3
Andrew Goodman and Tara Gilbee
11th and 12th of July 2008

Get your ears wet while immersing yourself in this haunting environment of surround sound and multi media works.
Using a plethora of paper, projections and surround sound, Andrew Goodman and Tara Gilbee converted the ICU into an overgrown, haunted territory. Shadows and multi media works drew the audience into to a dream-like deep-sea forest where the sounds and effects of water submerged audiences and inundated the space. Goodman and Gilbee used the Live Arts Incubator to develop their installation for the exhibition of the same title at Bendigo's Latrobe 121 Gallery in later 2008 but for the final weekend of their incubator period they threw open the doors of the ICU so that audience members can slide into the dreamscape and provide the artists with feedback on the project. Gilbee said: 'As live arts incubator Seedpod grant recipients, we've elected to use our time at Punctum's ICU to research and develop a work that's at odds with "dryness". Amongst other things "Deluge" explores immersion and dampness and responds to dry times using the technical expertise of Punctum's creative artists'.





Posted – It’s what was written! Seedpod #2
Sandra Tobias
13th 14th and 15th of June 2008

Posted - It’s what was written! was a creative collaboration between visual and installation artist Sandra Tobias and residents of Central Victoria. Tobias spent 10 months interviewing and photographing remote and rural residents with their roadside letterboxes, as structural symbols of the difference between city streets and the countryside. Lost in landscape, they’re a mixture of unique home made quick fixes, quirky re invented found objects, standout colour combinations, shabby kitsch and chic. Found at the communication crossroad of lonely dirt stretches and dust blown tracks, rural letterboxes are pointers to our past. These “structures of communication” were for over 100 years depended upon for important news, deliveries, pick-ups, and sometimes provided the only real connection to the outside world. All of these recording and photographs will be exhibited in an intimate, interactive installation at the ICU that incorporates a clustering of reinvented letterboxes, images, and voices.
Tony Falla was technical advisor, Jacques Soddell assisted with sound, and Jude Anderson assisted with the installation concept.





Uke ‘N Dance SeedPod #1
Carl Pannuzzo
16th and 17th of May 2008

‘Uke Duke’ Carl Pannuzzo retuned his ukulele to compose original music and songs that invite us to refuel our dance drive. For ‘Uke ‘N Dance’ Pannuzzo created a sparkling original musical score for a spectacular 13 piece disco band of big time players in Victoria’s music scene, including local experimental percussionist Justin Marshall. With uke in hand, big band, brass, and backing vocalists, Pannuzzo’s score and song cycle dug deep into disco’s history revealing its humble underground roots in a war-torn Paris through to dizzying New York jet set heights, and final crash and fizzle in the hands of hungry global production giants. Pannuzzo is an accomplished international musician, singer, teacher, and composer now based in Central Victoria. With already 4 solo CD’s and 40 other recordings as an ensemble musician/singer and guest artist, Pannuzzo is relishing this new investigation into our impulse for dance and music making.

^ page top

Punctum Projects

The Gas Connection – 2003/4: Punctum occupies 19th century industrial sites with a gallery, a guided tour, and a performance. An ex Gasworks engineer takes us on a guided tour and is haunted by the last performances and contributions of the Gaswork’s Social Club members. A work about change, place, dispossession, and hope. Presented at the Gasworks Art Park, the ancient Bendigo Gasworks, and the Furphy Factory. The Gas Connection received funding from the Australia Council, Arts Victoria, Regional Arts Victoria, The City of Greater Bendigo, Riverlinks Shepparton.


 

Shed (The Morris Shed Collection) – 2005: Punctum occupies country halls and a National Gallery of Victoria storage space with an installation and performance inspired by a collection of hundreds of catalogued objects from the Morris shed.
A photographic exhibition, an installation, and a performance.
A work about constructing and metamorphosis that places metaphysics in the banal and the banal in metaphysics. Shed received funding from the Australia Council, Arts Victoria, Regional Arts Victoria, The City of Greater Bendigo, Riverlinks Shepparton, The Castlemaine State Festival and the National Gallery of Victoria.


 

Ephemeral Emporium of Christmas Ephemera – 2005: Punctum occupies Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space with a new shop. A sweetly subversive work that re-interprets Christmas ephemera, consumerism, branding and “bottom lines”.
Supported Allan’s Walk Artist Run Space.


 

Softly Softly Cycles – 2006: An outhouse, a garden, and a film on compost behaviour. With Punctum occupied an ancient Chinese market garden site in building a Chinese outhouse and garden. A work that links Australian outside toilet pratice to an investigation in recycling, compost, and the 2000 year old Chinese practice of ‘night soil’ gathering. This project was in collaboration with Hansen and McCallum Landscape design.


 

Ode to Mr. T. Hirshhorn – 2006: Punctum occupies a shipping container in the Next Wave Festival’s “Container Village, with friends from Space In Between and Allan’s Walk. A cardboard customs booth, questionnaire and alarm, built with the carton boxes and plastic used in the artistic director’s move back to Australia.
An interactive work emphasizing the inane and sometimes terrifying ‘game’ of crossing frontier zones. Installation artist Thomas Hirshhorn’s caverns, paperwork, and use of cardboard and plastic inspired the project. Supported by Melbourne Next Wave Festival and Allan’s Walk.


 

SHACK (endangered species) – 2007: Shaped by necessity and built with what’s at hand, shacks are an endangered species. In SHACK – (endangered species), Punctum occupies prime real estate with an endangered settlement of shacks .
SHACK is an installation of “future shacks” containing multiple performances that celebrate this maverick dwelling. SHACK investigates the poetics of space, place and how we are where we are in a world where our relationship with nature and trust is becoming increasingly complex.
Supported by Arts Victoria, Regional Arts Victoria, City of Greater Bendigo, Shire of Mt. Alexander, Castlemaine State Festival, The Capital – Bendigo’s P.A.C., Workspace Australia, Sutton Grange Winery and Victoria Carpets.


 
 

^ page top