Digital ProgramShortwaveNew Screen Commissions
8 September 2024
Run time
This performance runs for 55 minutes.
Event duration is a guide only and may be subject to change.
Age
Recommended for audiences 15+
Children aged 15 years and under must be accompanied at all times.
Shortwave is our commissioning program that invites interdisciplinary artists to explore their relationship with the screen. This playful and provocative screening will premiere six short film commissions that highlight interconnectedness across communities and generations, through themes of resistance, reclamation and renewal.
Shortwave’s 2024 program of new Australian voices include choreographer and dancer Trà Mi Dinh (Winner of 2022 Keir Choreographic Award); a collaboration between interdisciplinary artist and vocalist Maissa Alameddine and artist and academic Narjis Mirza; and a new work from Blak Social, an Indigenous arts company dreamed into existence by Kabi Kabi / Gubbi Gubbi and Wiradjuri artist and producer Alethea Beetson.
Commissioned artists also include Tahlia Palmer, an artist of Murri and mixed settler descent, working across music, sound art and video; Blue Mountains-based dancer and physical performer Em Yali; and Melbourne artists Harrison Hall and Mat Spisbah in collaboration with Taiwanese video performance artist Li Yi Fan.
This special Unwrapped screening also features short films from previous Shortwave programs by Jazz Money, Feras Shaheen, Riana Head-Toussaint and JD Reforma.
Trà Mi Dinh Nhang Trầm Hương, 2024
Maissa Alameddine & Narjis Mirza Mohabbat, a Lullaby for a Rising, 2024
Tahila Palmer Look Intruder, 2024
Mat Spisbah, Harrison Hall, Li Yi Fan If you cant Larp, You'll cry, 2024
Em Yali Planetether Kin, 2024
Blak Social Gatekeepers, 2024
Feras Shaheen The Bop, 2023
JD Reforma Butterfly 2023
Riana Head-Toussaint Animate Loading: 3, 2023
Jazz Money All a Homeland, 2022
Shortwave is made in collaboration with organisations across the sector. Mohabat, a Lullaby for a Rising was curated, produced and supported by Blacktown Arts. Planetether Kin was produced by the Cultural Development Team at Blue Mountains City Council. The Bop was supported by Sydney Opera House & Parramatta Artists’ Studios. Animate Loading: 3 was facilitated through Critical Path’s digital and choreographic exchange program.
Director, Programming: Brenna Hobson
(Former) Director, Programming: Fiona Winning
Head of Screen: Stuart Buchanan
Senior Producer Screen: Melinda Dransfield
Programming Coordinator: Abby Johnson
Marketing Manager: Adelaide Garner
Marketing Associate: Emily Edgar
Marketing Coordinator: Ashley Santos
Senior Communications Manager: Julia Barnes
Communications Specialist: Natasha Yuncken
Communications Manager: Emily Cook
Senior Creative: Rohan Cain
Senior Creative - Content: Julia Kenny
Event Account Manager: Anna Bennington
Production Manager: Chris Burn
Food and Beverage Contract Manager: Nicole Switaj
SOHP Ticketing Specialist: Ryan Court
Head of Operations and Business Management , SOHP: Phillippa Martin Reiter
Business Analyst, SOHP: Alison Levingston
Corporate Counsel: Jordana Rowley
About the 2024 films
About the work
Nhang Trầm Hương is a cinematic movement piece suspended in a cloud of incense smoke.
In an abstract choreography of body and film, Dinh considers her relationship to incense, identity, and family. Incense smoke is fleeting; always moving, unfurling, expanding. As it curls and wafts through space it acts as a conduit between past, present, and future, connecting us to our ancestors, our body, and the present moment. It is in this temporal space that Dinh pushes at the edges of her identity amongst the expanse of her ancestors, meditating on the notion of interbeing.
Nhang Trầm Hương is a desire to embody, surrender, and embrace the idea that “A cloud never dies” (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Artists
Lead artist, Choreographer, Editor, and Dancer
Trà Mi Dinh
Director of Photography and Videographer
Cobie Orger
Composer and Sound Design
Tilman Robinson
Lighting
Alex Nguyen
Costume
Geoffery Watson
About the work
Multi-disciplinary artists Maissa Alameddine and Narjis Mirza share a practice of working collaboratively with their communities, developing contemporary stories grounded in their diasporic experiences.
Stemming from their recent collaboration at The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre, Maissa and Narjis continue to further explore the sacred practice of the lullaby.
This new work is rooted in the lullaby’s power to preserve and transmit stories across generations. From soothing songs to melodies of resistance, lullabies galvanize us to envision a decolonised world with true liberation.
Produced by Blacktown Arts and filmed by Matthew McGuigan.
Artists
Artists
Maissa Alameddine
Narjis Mirza
Featuring
Katie Shammas
Maissa Alameddine
Narjis Mirza
Rawi
Tamara Alameddine Needham
Vasy
Vocal
Mago Shaheen
Maissa Alameddine
Mumtaz Mirza
Narjis Mirza
Nour
Vasy
Cinematographer & Editor
Matthew McGuigan
Camera Assistant
Eleanor Witt
Audio Recording
Kurt Mikolajczyk, Maissa Alameddine, Narjis Mirza, Safe House Studios
Audio Post Production
Matthew McGuigan
Producer
Verónica Barac-Gomez
Curated and Produced
by Blacktown Arts
Supported by
Sydney Opera House, Blacktown Arts, Blacktown City Council, Create NSW
Filmed on Dharug, Bidjigal and Gadigal lands and waterways.
About the work
Gatekeepers is a hidden bar out the back of Haze Land in Queen’s City. The place where you find all the Indigenous musicians you never get to meet because of the gatekeepers in the music industry.
Gatekeepers is the fourth instalment of Blak Social’s Queenscitiverse project which already includes the plays Queen’s City and Meet Your Maker; alongside the Indigenised Fright Night Blak Friday. Queen’s City is a fictional town that uncovers the truth about the colonial project through the fierce reclamation of pop culture.
Key creatives:
Alethea Beetson
Kelly Cameron
George Coles
Katina Olsen
Neta-Rie Mabo
Moss
Loki Liddle
Joe Geia
Maggie Walsh
Sue Ray
Mark Munk Ross
Kerrod Meredith-Creed
Kerrinne Jenkins
Sasha Parlett
Roger Stonehouse
Harriett Williams
About the work
Planetether Kin follows an exploration of human relationships with the Earth and each other. Through a blend of neo-ritualistic practices and contemporary film techniques, we embark on a journey of intergenerational wisdom and interconnectedness. Soft sculpture and earth materials guide us through a gentle yet profound reflection on our evolving relationship with the planet, reconceiving current ideologies which separate us from our ties to the planet and offering an intimate glimpse into the timeless cycle of knowledge transmission.
Planetether Kin responds to current world events whilst celebrating long-enduring ties between humanity and the Earth, inviting viewing audiences to reconsider their place in the intricate web of terrestrial existence. Showcasing Yali's creative work, and performed alongside art practitioners across generations from the Blue Mountains community, this video sparks a dialogue which echoes the universal language of connection and renewal.
Artists
Artist and Costume Designer
Em Gemia Yali
Filmographer and Editor
Kalani Gacon
Collaborating Performer
Janelle Randall-Court
Collaborating Performer
Emily Cooper
Music
Alia Sharp
About the work
Look Intruder confronts the volatility of Australian national identity, a concept fraught with contradictions, where symbols and narratives of colonial triumph mask harsh realities. The flag’s southern cross and union jack are to be found everywhere, floating above, haunting and hanging. “Australian is a false concept, a made up thing,” opines Yuin activist and community worker Keiran Stewart-Assheton in a monologue cut throughout the work, continuing, “Why would you want to be Australian?”
Footage of parasitic architecture, unending roads, and distorted gumtrees wipe past the screen, overlaid together to form a ghostly glow of destruction and loss. In conversation with the artist, Larrakia climatologist Jackson Browne details the ongoing damage of colonialism to Country and community. The hope of ecosystem regeneration is weighed against the real possibility that ‘the climate might not be suitable by the time these trees are in maturity.’
Questions protrude out from the work, inviting the audience into a space of uncertainty, doubt, and the fleeting chance for renewal. A space of conversation, where the loss of cultural practices like corroboree can be acknowledged, even if it cannot be performed as it once could... Enduring the psychic onslaught of colonialism as an artist of Murri and mixed European descent, Palmer turns to the work as a mode of therapy, a way to express, and tell story beyond linear time. The artist’s own voice and image are included, glancing back self-reflexively from within the car as she travels through Country.
The audio consists of field recording collected through Gunditjmara, Woi Wurrung, Bunurong/Boonwurrung, Djab Wurrung, Wadawurrung, Taungurung and Dhudhuroa Countries, during Palmer’s creative residency with the public records office of Victoria. Music samples taken from The Settlers’ Sing Songs of the Snowy Mountains (1966)
Artists
Tahlia Palmer
About the work
The work scrutinizes the shift in digital media production brought about by the subscription economy and the implications of not owning but merely accessing software. It explores how these tools have changed the way we communicate, and created new desires for understanding and connection. Through the work, the group speculates that services and hacks use video technology could construct a new politics of life by projecting a totality yet to come.
Artists
Unreal Engine Development
Li Yi Fan
Sound & Script
Mat Spisbah
Choreography & Movement
Harrison Hall