Zoë Bastin
Body Politics, 2018
About
‘Body Politics’ was a free workshop series presented in the gallery space at Bus Projects that invited artists to experiment and explore the dynamics of performance. Devised and convened by Melbourne based artist and curator, Zoë Bastin, this program was developed to respond to the growing interest in performance within the gallery space and to foster emerging performance-based work. Body Politics was a free series of workshops facilitated by artist mentors Shelley Lasica, Bridie Lunney and Torie Nimmervoll, and Eugenia Lim, who use gallery spaces in performative ways. Body Politics experimented with new formats for showing and viewing performance at Bus Projects.
Interested in how bodies become in gallery spaces, participants explored the social and cultural dynamics of exhibition spaces, how they are activated, what happens to bodies in an encounter with an artwork and what happens when performing in a gallery. The workshops themselves were a combination of discussions, physical exercises and group development.
Bios
Bridie Lunney:
Combining practices of sculpture, jewellery and durational performance, Bridie Lunney
acknowledges the body as a conduit between our emotional and psychological selves
and the physical world. Performative and sculptural gestures in the works suggest
psychological shifts and a reconfiguration of hierarchical relationships between
architectural space, objects and the body.Recent projects include From Will to Form, Tarrawarra Biennale, New Histories at Bendigo Art Gallery, 2018; Fold for Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture, Federation Square, 2017; An Imprecise Science Artspace, Sydney, 2015; This Endless Becoming for Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, 2014; Drawing Weight for 30 Ways with Time and Space, Performance Space, Sydney, 2012. Lunney is a lecturer in Contemporary Practice at Monash Art Design and Architecture and in. Sculpture and Spatial Practice at Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne University. She is currently a PhD candidate at Monash University.
Torie Nimmervoll:
Torie Nimmervoll is a Melbourne based artist who has been exhibiting for 17 years. Her practise is object and performance based often working collaboratively with other artists. Predominate collaborates are Bridie Lunney and Jason Maling. Lunney and Nimmervoll received funding for an arts residency in Japan in 2014 through Arts Victoria. They are have an evolving/developing relationship with their practises.
Shelley Lasica:
Shelley Lasica is an independent choreographer and dancer whose practice is characterised by cross-disciplinary collaborations and an interest in presenting dance in various spatial contexts.
Image credit:
Body Politics at Bus Projects with Bridie Lunney and Torie Nimmervoll, performed by (Eugenia Lim, Evan Loxton and Shelley Lasica), photo by Zan Wimberley