MEDIA RELEASE: Tuesday 20 May 2014

Cohesions and Disruptions: Art as a Key to Transformation In Honour of Mandela Day On 18 July 2014, the Vryfees in partnership with the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery and the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State (UFS) will co­present a new artist and academic forum on experimental, socially engaged and cross­cultural art. Adri Herbert, Director of the Vryfees says the forum is part of the transformation strategy of the festival, which aims to support more diversity and cross­cultural, contemporary art programming for the event. Herbert comments 'Cohesions and Disruptions is part of the new Program for Innovation in Artfom Development (PIKO/PIAD) which includes both the cross­cultural OPENLab 2014, a new Australian/South African laboratory for early and mid­career South African artists, and a partnership with the Australian based SituateArt in Festivals initiative, managed by Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart, Tasmania.' Given the significance of the Australian/South African connection, it is imperative to commence the inaugural PIKO/PIAD by linking the two countries through First Nation dialogue. The forum’s keynote speaker, Lee­Ann Tjunypa Buckskin, a Narungga, Wirangu, Wotjobaluk woman from South Australia and Victoria respectively and who is well known throughout the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and broader arts communities, will discuss issues around First Nation cultural development, language, heritage and contemporary arts practice. Professor Andre Keet, Director of the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice says 'Given the histories and present experiences of human rights violations and racial discrimination that indigenous people in Australia and South Africa are subjected to, we are particularly honoured to have Lee­Ann as a guest speaker. Together we will explore how social justice for Indigenous and other marginalised groups can be advanced via contemporary arts practice.' Lee­Ann will also be in conversation with Dr Willy Nel, Lecturer at the School of Education Studies, Educational Psychology (UFS) who completed his PhD among the ǂKhomani San in the Kalahari, and who is of Indigenous descent. Other forum speakers presenting their work in the context of cross­cultural engagement and experimental art, include Dr Mari Velonaki, Director of the Centre for Social Robotics at the National Institute for Experimental Art at the University of New South Wales, Sydney; Dr Nigel Helyer of Sonic Objects; Sonic Architecture, Sydney; Bec Dean, curator at Performance Space, Sydney and manager of Time_Place_Space: Nomad, a travelling laboratory program for interdisciplinary and experimental art; Jess Olivieri, co­founder Parachutes for Ladies in Sydney Australia and Cigdem Aydemir, Vryfees visual artist for 2014. Angela de Jesus, Director of the Stegmann Gallery at UFS, said that after the forum, in honour of Mandela Day, there will be a community development art program in a local school in Mangaung, to which everyone is invited. Details of this event will be released closer to the date of the forum. Cohesions and Disruptions: Art as a Key to Transformation will take place on Friday 18 JULY from 9:00 – 13:00 at the Naval Hill Planetarium, Bloemfontein. Admission is free. RSVP by Friday 4 July by to dejesusav@ufs.ac.za or on Facebook www.facebook.com/events/582064155215208/

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Presented by

Principal supporters

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Additional support provided by

This project is supported by Arts NSW's NSW Artists' Grant Scheme, a devolved funding program administered by the National Association for the Visual Arts on behalf of the NSW Government.

Keynote Biographies Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin (AU)

Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin is a Narungga, Wirangu, Wotjobaluk woman from South Australia and Victoria respectively, who is well known throughout the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and broader arts communities. Lee-Ann’s current position is with Carclew Youth Arts in Adelaide as Manager, of the Aboriginal Arts Development Program. She has produced Blak Nite South Australia’s leading Indigenous Youth Arts Festival as part of the 2005, 07, 09, and 11 Come Out Festival. Carclew Youth Arts has a strong Indigenous-programming component, sees her working with community in the metropolitan and regional areas with a strong focus in remote South Australian communities. Lee-Ann is Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Strategy Panel at the Australia Council for the Arts and is the first woman

to be appointed to this position since its establishment in 1973. In July 2013 she was appointed as a Director of the governing Council for the Australia Council for a 3 year term. She is one of seven National Champions selected to support and promote the Barangaroo development site, Sydney. She has also been appointed by the Premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill to Co-chair for the BHP National Indigenous Visual Arts Festival scheduled for 2015. Image: Lee-Ann Tjunypa Buckskin, Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategy Panel, Australia Council for the Arts. Photo Hannah Tunstill Dr. Willy Nel, Lecturer School of Education Studies; Educational Psychology (SA)

Dr Nel is a registered Educational Psychologist who is committed to making an impact in education research in South Africa. His PhD with empirical work done among the ǂKhomani San in the Kalahari, helped him define his scholarly focus on critical community psychology in education. Despite being a late-entrant to academe he produced significant peer-reviewed publications. Among these is his co-authored article (Nel, Lazarus & Daniels, 2010) wherein the influence of community psychology values on the South African

education support services policy was uncovered, with Willy being responsible for the analysis part. A recent article (Nel, 2012) uses critical community psychology as the lens through which the experience of black staff in a historically Afrikaans South African university is analyzed. Both articles serve as testimony to his interest in Basic and Higher Education. Willy served as associate editor of the South African Journal of Psychology (included in the Social Sciences Citation Index) until 2012. Currently he serves on the editorial board of the peer-reviewed South African Journal of Education. As a participant in a symposium at the International Congress of Psychology (held for the first time in Africa, 2012 July, Cape Town International Convention Centre) he advocated on this international platform for the relevance of critical community psychology in the training of Educational Psychologists. His presentation was lauded by internationally recognized scholars, notably prof Sandy Lazarus (Medical Research Council) and prof Elias Mpofu (University of Sydney) as very significant.

Other Biographies: Australian and South African PIAD 2014 Artists and Facilitators Professor Andre Keet (SA)

Prof. André Keet, Director of the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the university, has been appointed as member of the Oversight Committee on the Transformation of South African Universities. He is one of seven committee members that were appointed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Training to monitor progress on transformation in public universities. The committee will advise Dr Blade Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education and Training, on policy to combat

racism, sexism and other forms of unfair discrimination in public higher education. The committee will also advise on the role of universities in promoting the development of a free, fair and non-discriminatory society beyond the world of the academia. Honoured to be elected on the committee, Prof. Keet said he is ready to serve the national interest in the transformation of South African universities. "The appointment is also a compliment to the university and to its exceptional experience in the process of transformation." Angela de Jesus (SA)

Angela de Jesus is currently based in Bloemfontein (South Africa) as the art curator at the University of the Free State (UFS). She is the director of the Johannes Stegmann and Centenary art galleries and is responsible for the UFS permanent art collection. From 2009 to 2012 she established the Lotto Sculpture-on-Campus Project at the UFS. This project has enabled the University to acquire a collection of sixteen public artworks on the main campus in Bloemfontein.

De Jesus obtained a masters degree in Fine Art from the UFS in 2009 and specializes in printmaking and video installation. She has participated in several national exhibitions and received a merit award at the Xpozure Awards in 2003, was a merit winner at the Sasol New Signatures Awards in 2009 and was awarded the Thamgidi Residency Award at Spier Contemporary 2010. In 2012 she attended the Thamgidi Residency in Arnhem in the Netherlands and participated in the IFAA international artist residency and festival in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

Bec Dean (AU)

Bec Dean is a curator and writer who trained as a visual artist, she is currently a PhD candidate at the College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales and Curator at large for Performance Space. She joined Performance Space as Associate Director in 2007 and became Co-Director with Jeff Khan in January 2012 until February 2014. Bec was previously curator at the Australian Centre for Photography (2005-2007) and Exhibition Manager at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (2002-2005).

Bec’s curatorial interests revolve around interdisciplinary and participatory practices, performance, site-specificity, photomedia and art/science collaborations. Notable recent projects include Performance Space’s SEXES festival, co-curated with Deborah Kelly and Jeff Khan, Local Positioning Systems at MCA, Australia with Jeff Khan (2012), Awfully Wonderful: Science Fiction in Contemporary Art at Performance Space with Lizzie Muller (2011). Recent contributions in publications include the books Deborah Kelly & (Artspace, 2013) and Unsitely Aestheticsedited by Maria Miranda. She has written catalogue essays and texts for Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of WA, Artspace (Sydney), the Institue of Modern Art (Brisbane), Artlines for the Queensland Art Gallery, PICA (Perth), Artlink, Art & Australia, Broadsheet, RealTime and many more. Bec has recently co-edited an issue of Artlink, Sexing the Agenda with Johanna Mendelssohn. Cigdem Aydemir (AU)

Cigdem Aydemir is a Sydney based artist of Turkish Muslim heritage. Her interdisciplinary art practice incorporates installation, performance and video. She explores the convergence of gender, religious and cultural identities as well as themes of body politics and consumption. Much of her work interrogates the void between body and dress as well as its social and political implications. Coming from a fashion design background and being the daughter of a tailor, her conspicuous use of fabric simultaneously holds, falls, conceals and reveals, adorns and obfuscates.

Aydemir was recently awarded the Redlands Art Prize in the Emerging Artist category for 2013. She has exhibited in local, interstate and international exhibitions including most recently Cementa13, Kandos NSW, 2013; SEXES, Performance Space, Sydney, 2012; and RENEW: Real Illusions, Hervey Bay Regional Gallery, QLD, 2012. In 2012 she received the Edna Ryan Award for Creative Feminism.

Jay Pather (SA)

Jay Pather is Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town, Director of the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA); Artistic Director of Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, Chair of the National Arts Festival Artistic Committee and Curator for the Infecting the City Public Art Festivals. Since his studies as a Fulbright Scholar at New York University, Pather’s work has traveled widely extending across discipline, site and culture. He has collaborated with visual artists, architects and urban planners, since 1984, taking his inter-cultural performances into public spaces and working with the architecture of Johannesburg, Durban, London, Zanzibar, Amsterdam, New York, Barcelona, Mumbai, Muscat, New Delhi, Copenhagen, Koln and Cape Town.

Pather has presented papers at amongst others the African Knowledges Workshop in Cape Town, the School for New Dance in Amsterdam, the International Leadership Forum at Aix en Provence, the UNESCO Conference on Art Education in Africa, at the Territoires de la creation Conference in Lille, the Metropolis Conference in Copenhagen, the World Cultural Forum in Brazil, the African Urbanism Colloquium in Cairo, Performance Studies International 17 in Utrecht and at the International Theatre Institute in London. Recent publications include articles in Changing Metropolis ll edited by Marie Polli and Rogue Urbanism edited by Edgar Pieterse and Abdul Malik Simone. Pather has served on the executive of the National ACTAG; the Arts and Culture Trust of the President; the Advisory and State Theatre Board; the delegation investigating cultural exchange with Cuba; as Chairperson for the Performing Arts Network of South Africa and as co-curator for the Spier Contemporary Exhibitions 2007 and 2010. Awards include a Heritage Award, a Brett Kebble Award, the Tunkie Award for Leadership in Dance and a University of KwaZulu Natal Convocation Award for leadership in the Arts and Humanities. Recent commissions include: Body of Evidence at the FNB Dance Umbrella, at Theatre Aan Het Spui in Den Haag, for danse afrique danse and the National Arts Festival, Blind Spot for the Metropolis Biennale and Qaphela Caesar at the old Stock Exchange in downtown Johannesburg.

Jess Olivieri (AU)

Jess Olivieri creates work that spans performance, sound, video, dance and installation. Jessʼ practice investigates the social and cultural factors that influence how we inhabit public space. Most recently Jessʼs work made ‘I am an Islandʼ for the 2012/13 Sydney Festival and curated the performance program ‘Hi Friends’ for the MCAʼs ARTBAR project.

Earlier this month Jess created ‘For you the bell tolls’ for the MCA and is the current co-curator of ALASKA projects performance program ‘Restaging, Restaging History’. In 2012 Jess showed at GOMA as part of Contemporary: Women as well as Campbeltown Art Centre’s Transmission in a collaboration with the Sydney Chamber Choir. In 2011 Jessʼs work with Hayley Forward and the Parachutes for Ladies was featured in MCAʼs Primavera 2011, Action Stations curated by Natalie Cursio at Campbelltown Arts Centre, she presented the participatory audio dance project Dance of Death, Perth Cultural Centre and was part of the exhibition Bad Angle, Still Gallery, Sydney. In 2010 Jess and Hayley with the Parachutes for Ladies presented “I thought a musical was being made”, at the 2010 Next Wave Festival and The view from here, West space. Dr Mari Velonaki (AU)

Associate Professor Mari Velonaki, Director,

Creative Robotics Laboratory, National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA) has worked as an artist and researcher in the field of interactive installation art since 1995. Mari has created interactive installations that incorporate movement, speech, touch, breath, electrostatic charge, artificial vision and robotics. In 2003, Mari's practice expanded to robotics, when she

initiated and led a major Australian Research Council art/science research project 'Fish-Bird: Autonomous Interactions in a Contemporary Arts Setting' in collaboration with robotics scientists at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics. In 2006 Velonaki co-founded, with Dr David Rye, the Centre for Social Robotics, a centre dedicated to interdisciplinary research into human-robot interaction in spaces that incorporate the general public. In 2007, Mari was awarded an Australia Council for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship and in 2009 she was awarded an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship. Associate Professor Velonaki is the director of the recently established Creative Robotics Lab at NIEA. The Creative Robotics Lab will provide a cross-disciplinary research environment dedicated to understanding how humans can interact with mechanical and robotic devices within the context of experimental arts and social robotics.

Dr Nigel Helyer (AU)

Dr. Nigel Helyer (a.k.a. DrSonique) is an independent sound-artist who has forged an international reputation for large scale sound-sculpture installations, environmental public artworks, museum inter-actives and new media projects. Nigel trained in the UK graduating with a BA Honours in Sculpture at the Liverpool College of Art (1974) followed by an intensive three year research Masters in Environmental Media at the The Royal College of Art, London (1979). Formal studies were concluded with a

Doctorate at the University of Technology Sydney (1997) which focussed on the relationship of Soundscape, the Body and Architecture. As a direct consequence of this wide spectrum of formal study Nigel’s practice is strongly interdisciplinary, linking a broad platform of creative practice with scientific Research and Development in both Academic and Industrial contexts, as a practitioner he maintains an active interest in critical and theoretical debates and is active in the critical writing and conference arena. Nigel has been a longstanding collaborator at the SymbioticA and CIBER Bee Research labs at UWA, realising such projects as GeneMusiK a biological music remixing system, the insect installation, Host and as the Artistic Director of the infamous LifeBoat project shown in Oslo Fjord 2004, on a Baltic cruise ship during ISEA 2004 and in Zagreb 2006. More recent work include the AudioNomad interactive Sonic-Cartogaphy works EcoLocated, Run Silent Run Deep, Siren for Port Jackson and the Under the IceCap concert series. Paul Gazzola (AU)

Paul Gazzola is an interdisciplinary artist working over 20 years across art, architecture, choreography, installation, performance, set design, video and theory. He has created and curated works for galleries, museums, stages, site-specific settings, print and projection, that have seen presentations and commissions in Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa, South America, the UK and throughout Europe. Originally trained as a carpenter, he has a B.A. in Performance, is a qualified Feldenkrais practitioner and in 2004 commenced studies in architecture. The culmination

of these varied inquiries - each distinctly exploring the spatial and performative relationships between the body, site, place and the built form - provide a unique platform of knowledge in his working life. His working collaborations, designs and performances at the forefront of innovative performance and design practice include such companies as Fieldworks Performance Group, Les Ballets C de le B and MachineNoisy and artists Xavier Le Roy, Nadia Cusimano, Meg Stuart, Tino Sehgal and Joey Ruigrok van den Werven. He is also a founding member and ongoing collaborator of Lone Twin Theatre (UK). His current projects include the Gold Coin Series @ the Festival of Live Art, Melbourne; Curator of Temporary Democracies, Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW; Co-ordinating Provocateur for SITUATE- Art in Festivals, Salamanca Arts Centre, Tasmania and the large scale installation, ENTRANCE, for Mons - European City of Culture, 2015.

Philippa Tumubweinee (SA)

Philippa Tumubweinee is a senior Lecturer at the Department of Architecture at the University of the Free State [UFS] South Africa, a co-Founder and Director of IZUBA INafrica and a Doctoral student at the University of the Free State, South Africa. After completing her M.Arch. Prof degree in 2006 with a notable distinction in Construction, Philippa was introduced to Academia while Teaching at the dept. of Architecture, University of Pretoria as an assistant Studio Master in the First Year Studio from where she progressed on to join the dept. of Architecture, University of Johannesburg [UJ] South Africa. She taught at this dept. of Architecture from the beginning of 2007 to the middle of 2012 working as the First Year coordinator, Design Studio master and was involved in the

recurriculation process and programme development of the department, while co-founding the design and architectural firm IZUBA INafrica alongside Architect Denver Hendricks in 2010. In same year she served on the board for the Gauteng Institute for Architects GIfA and contributed to the re-branding and rejuvenation of the Institute as an active vehicle through which Architects and Architecture are disseminated into the broader society. As a member of this Board, Philippa was privileged to be part of the project team that brought that first international Architectural Festival AZA 2010 to the shores of South Africa. In 2012 she moved to Bloemfontein to join the dept. of Architecture UFS. In the same year Philippa served on the National Judging Panel for the SAIA Awards of Merit and Excellence and presented a paper on one of her projects the Esquared House at the ARCH THEO’12 conference in Istanbul. She was also the co-Master of Programme and Ceremonies at the second AZA 2012 Architectural Conference in Cape Town.