Som Chai meets my family & friends
I am so excited that Som Chai is now in Oz and has been granted a partner visa.
He's met my family and friends, and even come along to Uni with me.
It is wonderful having him here with me - no more lonely nights or awkward outings on my own!
I can throw my wish list in the fire now because he fulfils all my dreams. I am so proud of him - he is charismatic, generous and kind, and he is also Budhist and a meditator!
I wondered whether there was a difference between art made by a human and art made by a machine? So I made a fan that painted, and I became a painting human fan.
Conclusion: there was no difference.
Just an Ordinary Peasant is based on my uncle’s experience as an inmate at Treblinka extermination camp in 1944. His memoir recounts that while being forced to carry corpses from the gas chambers to an open-air pyre, he was handed a sack which held little children who were still alive. The guard commanded the sack be thrown into the fire. The woman I play in Just an Ordinary Peasant is a hybrid character created from the memoirs of my uncle, my parents and my own research. She sings and dances and also throws a sack of babies into the fire. This piece explores my own biases as well as questions the culpability of ‘ordinary people’ who were accomplices to the atrocities carried out during the Third Reich.
Cycle of Life
This project touches on birth, ageing and death - the constants of life.
It is a collaboration between myself and Melbourne artist Sapna Chandu. Together, we explore the experience and embodiment of ageing, mortality
and cycles in the life and journey of women.
Que Sera Sera, What Will Be, Will Be.
My mother, my daughter my granddaughter and myself sing (off key) the classic song 'Que Sera Sera'. We are 4 generations that represent the cycle of life. Each generation asks advice from the generation above, until my 94 year old mother closes the circle and asks me to '...Stay a little bit longer, a little bit closer, these last moments are precious to me...'
Facelift
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Facelift is a feminist parody of the cosmetic industry. Our culture/media put youth on a pedestal.
This project explores our experiences as two women ageing in a society surrounded by seductive images, which equate youthfulness with beauty.
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With a widespread boom in the consumption of injectables and surgery — changing expectations surrounding beauty, mortality and death — we ask ourselves: ‘how can we reconcile a mature-age sense of self worth, in an era of ‘hyper-beauty.’
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This is our interpretation of the consultative process involved with cosmetic enhancement, as we use sticky tape to ‘lift’ our faces.
Sleep
Once vibrant, adventurous and independent, my 95 year old mother has wound down and now spends a lot of her day nodding off.
I wonder what she dreams about and whether she thinks about the life she lived.