In July, Adelaide Festival Centre's Moving Image Program is exhibiting "Artist as Animal" by Jen Valender and "Act of Sorrow" by David Foreman.
Jen Valender, Artist as Animal, moving image (still), 8:00 mins
Artist as Animal follows Valender through the pollenated, waterlogged canola fields of Broadacre Farm as a type of performance art involving durational hardship and endurance. The camera follows Valender as she struggles against agricultural terrain and allergens to traverse a field, all the while wearing high heels and carrying a hefty 8kg cattle gut-strung harp. The yellow of the canola creates a lush backdrop to the performance, of which Valender says "embodies a re-enactment of human and nonhuman labour, while echoing the absurdity of culture being forced upon nature and country.”
Jen Valender is an Aotearoa New Zealand-born, Naarm Melbourne-based, multidisciplinary artist who creates performative encounters on and with the landscape that raise questions about the relationship between art and the natural world. Through moving image, she explores the ways in which art may be used as a navigational tool to investigate human and nonhuman connections.
David Foreman, Act of Sorrow, moving image (still), 2:50 mins
Image: David Foreman, Act of Sorrow, moving image (still), 2:50 mins
Act of Sorrow is a collaboration between filmmaker David Foreman and Kangaroo Island artists Deb Sleeman, Ria Byass, and Janine Mackintosh. The film captures images of Remarkable Rocks, one of the great icons of Flinders Chase National Park and the western wilderness of Kangaroo Island, with one of its rocks wrapped by the artists.
Wrapping is an act of homage and reverence. This symbolic gesture may mean an act of love, as one would wrap a small child; a protection for mute wild places; a shroud; or a symbolic mourning for the increasing loss of wild places globally. A precious parcel, a deletion, an erasure. This blank canvas is our action to highlight that these natural wonders and wild places exist for and of themselves.
David Foreman has a professional history in the film industry working as a cinematographer. Since moving to Kangaroo Island, he is active in the local art community working individually and collaboratively to create still and moving image installations and documentaries with themes involving art and the environment. His film, No Safe Space, about the Kangaroo Island Black Summer bushfires, 2019-2020, was named Best Documentary in the 11th edition of the Toronto Indie Shorts Festival and was selected for the LA Sun Film Festival and the Munich Short Film Awards.
Act of Sorrow is presented with support from Adelaide Festival Centre Foundation.
https://www.deborahsleeman.com.au/