This Thursday night at 6pm, Sydney writer and artist Nick Keys is occupying the Eastside studios to bring us a very special radio art piece, a broadcast version of his performative lecture in Martin Place (Occupy Sydney site) earlier this year.

It’s all about the collision of love, politics and the Occupy movement on Something Else.

6pm this Thursday on 89.7FM or http://eastsidefm.org/listen-online/
Produced by Lauren Carroll Harris

COME ALONG, LISTEN UP, JOIN THE MOVEMENT! https://www.facebook.com/events/426235847401199/

And don’t forget to check out our blog for podcasts and more information: somethingelse897fm.wordpress.com

Walking down the streets of Newtown and Enmore, I was thinking about my guest for Something Else onEastside Radio 89.7FM. Unknowingly, I was making my way, step by step to Plump Gallery in Enmore, and also to my next guest.

As I reached Plump Gallery, the space is now vacant. Only a few months ago it held an amazing exhibition by Primo! Magazine titled “Backyard Play.” I thought back to this radical artwork: vibrant in colours and style and his subject matter was animalistic and visceral but sensitive. It was an artwork done by Aidan Mckenzie also known as “Sprinkles.” Straightaway I called him up wanting to chat with him about his work and street art in Sydney.

Sprinkles, born in New Zealand but raised in Sydney has natural and raw talent. He works are diverse, painting freely on the streets on Sydney to having works hung in galleries, even having his work done on t-shirts. Drawing his conceptual practices of friendship and family he engages audiences on all levels. His intense, wild haired and heavily made up creations ride an evolved relationship between tattoo machines, aerosol cans, distinctive lines and vibrant colours to communicate the bonds we create and break on a daily basis. His artwork portray the many different faces we can find within ourselves, which are complemented by his using animals as metaphors for these ‘faces.’

His work in the international Street Festival “Outpost” 2012 on Cockatoo Island was a huge success creating a well respected name for himself.  Inspired from his Chinese and Maori heritage, he creates original and fresh pieces that bring a whole new level of creativity to the art world. Intense colours and striking form draws audience in to a more meaningful message. Experiencing his work in the streets, galleries or even on t-shirts of people passing by, Sprinkle’s work has a sense familiarity to it. Right now, he is continuing his tattoo artistry at Live Canvas Tattoo Studio in Crows Nest. He is more than happy for you to hang out with him and chat about his work from anywhere from the streets to the surface of your skin!

Check his work out at www.theloop.com.au/sprinkles/portfolio and the exhibition Backyard Play by Primo! Magazine at

www.vimeo.com/33277718

The podcast can be grabbed from the link! http://www.cpod.org.au/page.php?id=308

Also, had a quick mention to the Sydney Writers Festival from the 14th-20th May. Definitely one for the literature lovers.
www.swf.org.au

Review: Down the Rabbit Hole, White Rabbit gallery, Chippendale

By Lauren Carroll Harris

I’d never seriously considered the impact that private philanthropy can have in the art world until White Rabbit Gallery opened in Sydney a couple of years ago. Australia just doesn’t have that longstanding culture of art patronage that’s taken for granted in Europe and the US.

That seems to be changing. In the last few years or so, mega-rich art hobbyists like the Neilson family, John Kaldor and that professional gambler turned art gallerist David Walsh of Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art have really stepped it up with their Oprah-like gestures of luxury altruism. But instead of hybrid cars and best-selling books, these guys give away access to the kind of art that our government-funded galleries could never get their bureaucratic paws on.

White Rabbit is an art utopia in a four storey warehouse in Chippendale which is updated every four months with the latest acquisitions of Kerr and Judith Nielson. The collection is not at the whims of trends, nor is it accountable to a grant-providing body. It’s just reflects the tastes of two collectors who simply don’t have space in their house for all the art they buy.

Recycling, Bai Yilou, 2008

Something very interesting is happening in the Chinese art world. The limited opening up of the country’s political system has meant two things: artists are no longer completely restricted to producing socialist realist propaganda, and there are middle and upper classes, who have stacks of new money and are looking for investment opportunities. Beijing now leads the world in its market share of art sales. In other words, there’s a huge new art market that didn’t exist twenty years ago, and there are far more potential buyers than in a country like Australia’s, where being a blogger is a more pragmatic career choice than being an artist.

This has all meant that artists from the People’s Republic of China are producing some of the most engaging and challenging contemporary art in the world.

Project Rrose: Love and Death, Wang Jun-Jieh, 2011

You really get the sense of a country in flux, of a generation of artists finding their way and busting to really say something. Rather than much contemporary Australian art which is cloaked in layers of irony and self-reference, the thematic trends in White Rabbit seems to be towards artists who are interested in a non-ideological understanding of nature and spirituality, and who are questioning their identity and personal histories in an unstable period. In other words, art is not a cold academic path of inquiry, but a key way that people are understanding the brave new world they’ve found themselves in. Some of these artists have spent much of their careers in exile, and this affects their work in very strange and exciting ways.

Luxury Logico, Chinese art collective

The current show is themed Down the Rabbit hole. Perhaps one of the most stunning pieces is Scripting by artist collective, “Luxury logico”.

In a dark room, a row of fluorescent bars of light are suspended from the ceiling. Accompanied by a chime-like soundtrack, the lights moves very slowly, rippling through the air. Though everything about it is mechanised, choreographed and electrified, the work is an exquisite ode to the natural rhythms and cycles of nature, translated into an arresting gallery installation. I lost track of how long I spent enthralled by the lights and sounds in this room.

I have never not been captivated by a White Rabbit show. It is an utterly different experience from the usual white cube gallery show where people glance at the walls then chat with their friends over a glass of bad wine. The latest show is on until August 1 but it really benefits from a couple of viewings. Cancel your plans for this Saturday arvo, and start exploring this brave new art world.

White Rabbit is in Balfour St, Chippendale. It’s open Thursday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

By Lauren Carroll Harris

For more Something Else news, events, reviews and interviews, tune in to 89.7FMM every Thursday at 6pm or check out blog, somethingelse897fm.wordpress.com  for details on downloading the podcast.

Rhys met up with Griffin Theatre Company affiliate director Mackenzie Steele to discuss the ongoing (and upcoming) Griffin Fringe program.

We also spoke about Mackenzie’s upcoming production at the ATYP, The Hiding Place. Mackenzie also filled us in on how crucial funding is for independent productions and how creative you need to get – as producer, he’ll be putting on a film festival and a scene-read at a pub to raise funds (you can find out more info by visiting Mackenzie’s website and keeping your ear to the ground).

As we all know, theatre can be a bit hit and miss. Word of mouth is often the best way to avoid disappointment, and Mackenzie kindly let us in on where to look – you can find his personal picks listed here.

Tune into 89.7 FM next Thursday at 6pm, Download this podcast by opening  your iTunes ‘Advanced’, ‘Podcast Subscription’ dialogue box and pasting this URL in: http://www.cpod.org.au/feed.php?id=308 

Until recently Sound Series took place at Hardware Gallery, Enmore, supporting a huge host of emerging and established experimental artists including Loopsnake, Pimmon, Alps and Scissor Lock. Romy has also curated PSH Live, an initiative by Anyplace Projects inviting experimental musicians to perform and discuss their work in a critical environment. She has organised for the Dirty Shirlows- and Hardware Gallery-hosted Unpopular Music, and panelled at Newcastle’s 2011 Sound Summit festival.

Get a taste of Unpopular Music by clicking this link:

Unpopular Music 2011 by New Weird Australia

Tonight we’re catching up with Romy to chat about the last year of events and listen to some artists she’s helped bring to us. Tune into 89.7FM at 6pm for your weekly dose of alternative arts and culture, this week brought to you by Reuben.

Get the podcast within 24 hours of airing from somethingelse897fm.wordpress.com

Speaking of Toast, Cardboard Kitchen, Alexandra Clapham & Penelope Benton, 2012

Here’s lots of things to do, make, be part of over the next week:

72 Hours of Art at 107 Projects
Development without gentrification in Redfern? That’s something else. This new hybrid art space is opening its doors this weekend with a three-day artmaking marathon. Drop in to see the results any time this weekend.
OutSpoken #14
Go swim in the murky rapids of spoken word poetry. Next Wednesday, at Hibernian house.
We played Ngairre’s new single Filthy, here’s the clip.
The Cardboard Kitchen
A kitchen made of stuff that’s been saved from landfill. And it works. By Penelope Benton and Alex Clapham, two artists who dare to think beyond the reality of what is, into the realm of what could be. Closes March 31.

LOVE AND REVOLUTION: BECOMING OTHERWISE OCCUPIED

Another artist who is concerned with turning one world into another is Nick Keys. His performative art lecture, Becoming Otherwise Occupied, is about falling in love at Occupy Sydney, the protest that was down the road, and all over the world. It’s about the marriage of politics and love, and it’s delivered in an art-based storytelling framework, rather than a reporting framework. Here’s a preview vid.

Saturday March 31
12.30pm
Occupy Sydney, Martin Place, Sydney

Presented by Occupy Sydney Free School and Serial Space.

Go on! “Get amongst it” and so on and so forth!

PS. Listen at 6pm tonight, or get our podcast!

Carolyn Teo is a multimedia, sound, video, installation and performance artist who builds incredible instruments out of found objects.

Wun Thong is ‘a poet and accomplished BS artist who creates experimental music in the genre of Tropical Western Swing’, check out the event page as Part Two of the NOW now series.

Tune your radio to Eastside at 6pm tonight, or get the podcast from our blog: somethingelse897fm.wordpress.com

-Maren – @marensmith

P.S. Something Else is on facebook and twitter now! Follow us, we are @SomethingElse89

BIG THANKS to the Caravan Slam crew for packing into our tiny studio for the Something Else live storytelling special. It was quite special, I think!

We heard from New York’s Freddy Rowe, Robert Gray and David Kopycinski and chatted to Saha Jones who organises the monthly poetry slam competition.

Come on down to the Something Else blog to find out how to hook up with Caravan Slam’s next event, and a whole other bunch of events you won’t hear about elsewhere…

Amin Palangi is a director, writer and producer and Screen Culture Producer at the Information and Culture Exchange at Parramatta where, among other things, he mentors young filmmakers. He’s the founder of Palangi Productions, he’s made features, shorts and documentaries in Afghanistan, Iran and Australia and he’s a PhD student at ANU.

Sanaz Fotouhi is a producer at Palangi Productions and is completing her PhD thesis on post-diasporic Iranian writers in English at UNSW. Her thesis covers concepts of ‘unhomeliness’ expressed in Iranian expatriots writing in English in English speaking countries. She’s produced documentaries in Iran and Afghanistan.

Join us at 6pm where we’ll talk about concepts of Persia, Iranian and Afghani contemporary cinema and the recent first ever Iranian Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Asghar Farhadi’s ‘A Separation’, yet to open in Australia, which will be screening as part of the Persian Film Festival next Sunday.
Visit somethingelse897fm.wordpress.com for the podcast and more information!