Spanning major contemporary art exhibitions, dance, performance, music and food, Carriageworks has revealed its 2019 Artistic Program, supporting over 900 artists and will present 86 projects, including 7 world premieres, 25 international works and 36 new Australian commissions.
“2019 will continue Carriageworks’ strong artistic growth with a program of Australian and international works, including new commissions and world premieres by Australian and international artists,” said Carriageworks Director Lisa Havilah.
Highlights of the 2019 program include the second edition of The National: New Australian Art is co-presented by Carriageworks with the Art Gallery of NSW and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. The National 2019 at Carriageworks is curated by Director of Programs, Daniel Mudie Cunningham, presenting the work of 18 artists and collectives from across the nation whose work traverses the present moment, through the past, for the future.
Participating artists at Carriageworks are Tony Albert, Troy-Anthony Baylis, Eric Bridgeman, Sam Cranstoun, Cherine Fahd, Julie Fragar, Amala Groom, Tara Marynowsky, Mish Meijers and Tricky Walsh, Tom Mùller, Clare Peake, Sean Rafferty, Eugenia Raskopoulos, Luke Roberts, Thom Roberts, Mark Shorter, Nat Thomas, and Melanie Jame Wolf with Agatha Gothe-Snape online.
Sydney Festival returns to Carriageworks as a major hub in 2019, with a program including rebel icon of trip hop and feminist pop, Neneh Cherry; minimalist experimental composer Ben Frost; Sydney Chamber Opera’s production of Acclaimed Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Le Passion de Simone; and the world premiere of Henrietta Baird’s The Weekend – a one-woman play set in Waterloo presented by Carriageworks resident company Moogahlin Performing Arts; and the biennial Yellamundie National First Peoples Playwriting Festival.
Carriageworks and Sydney Chamber Opera will present the world premiere opera adapted from Australian author Peter Carey’s Booker Prize winning novel of the same name. Oscar and Lucinda questions what it means to be Australian, dealing with the themes of colonialism, religious fundamentalism, marital roles and gambling addiction, as well as more typical operatic ideas of love, fate and religion.
A major work by Mike Parr will premiere at Carriageworks in 2019, in a continuation of his series of tributes to seminal Australian artists. The Eternal Opening will see a one-to-one scale replica of the Anna Schwartz Gallery space in Melbourne recreated inside Carriageworks, to be exhibited as an architectural structure and sculptural object in its own right. This will house a video – with audio amplified – of a previous performance by Parr Left Field [for Robert Hunter] which saw the artist continuously over-paint the white walls of the gallery.
A Drone Opera by Matthew Sleeth with producer Kate Richards and composer Susan Frykberg, is structured around the myth of Icarus and presents a seductive world featuring opera singers and an original libretto, laser set-design, and custom designed drones with live video feeds. This three-channel video installation is a poetic expression of the mythic and contemporary abstractions of unmanned flight, the new reality of constant surveillance and our broader love affair with technology.
Back to Back Theatre Company present The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes – a new work celebrating our civil and social progress in a story of great sadness, import and ultimately, of hope. Shadow is about the changing nature of intelligence in contemporary society. It weaves a narrative through the ethics of mass food production; disability, civic and human rights; the social impact of automation; and the anxiety around the projected dominance of artificial intelligence in the world.
Lemi Ponifasio’s new work Jerusalem, premiering at Carriageworks in 2019, is a collaboration with Adonis, revered as the greatest living poet of the Arab world. Jerusalem explores the image of one of the most contentious cities in human history and will be sung, chanted and spoken in te reo Maori and Arabic.
Burrbgaja Yalirra / Dancing Forwards is triple bill of solo work curated by Marrugeku’s Artistic Directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain. Each work explores the complexities of reciprocity which challenge our understanding of our history and relationship to the land in Australia.
Featuring performer and co-creator Edwin Lee Mulligan with media artist Sohan Ariel Hayes and directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain; performer and co-creator Eric Avery with choreographer Koen Augustijnen; and performer and co-creator Miranda Wheen with choreographer Serge Aime Coulibaly.
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrates the LGBTQI community with Black Nulla Club Night presented by Resident company, Moogahlin Performing Arts; Sissy Ball – a one-night only choreographed Voguing event with a nod to New York’s underground Ballroom scene; My Trans Story; and a series of talks and forums exploring Queer Thinking.
Lawrence English’s experimental label Room 40 presents Marginal Consort – a Japanese collective improvisation group founded by members of East Bionic Symphonia, an outfit assembled from students of Fluxus artist Takehisa Kosugi’s class at the radical Bigaku School of Aesthetics in Tokyo in the ‘70s. Room 40’s annual program of sound and media Open Frame also returns in June.
To celebrate NAIDOC Week, Carriageworks and Koori Radio present Klub Koori – bringing together leading Indigenous musicians and emerging talent. The second edition of South East Aboriginal Arts Market curated by Hetti Perkins and Jonathan Jones presents strength and diversity of south-east Australian Indigenous practice in the region, with a mix of established and emerging creative collectives and independent artists, employing traditional and contemporary materials.
UNTIL – the monumental work by international artist Nick Cave (USA) will continue to present a public program of performances, events and creative responses until March 2019.
Tickets to select events are now on sale. For more information and full program, www.carriageworks.com.au for details.
Image: Lemi Ponifasio’s Jerusalem – photo by Mau