In November, Adelaide Festival Centre's Moving Image Program is exhibiting 'Shiver' by Mark Niehus and 'Healing Truth' by Laurens Tan on our King William Road digital screens.
Mark Niehus (SA), Shiver, moving image, 2:10
Mark Niehus, Shiver, moving image (still), 2:10
Shiver is a Poetry Film presented from the perspective of a woman reflecting on her triumph over childhood domestic violence.
Based on a true story, this honest and powerful poem is brought to life using video, animation and an electronic soundtrack to create a dark but hopeful dream like image of beauty that is segmented but still whole.
The viewer is taken on a journey that reveals an ever-increasing strength of spirit to turn the tables on her abuser, ‘I am not cold and I shiver not for you, I tremble for I am the thunder that troubles you’.
As a multidisciplinary artist Niehus creates and expresses his ideas through moving image, painting, poetry and installations. Always seeking to discover new ways to apply his experimental ethos to engage audiences and push the boundaries of his art, Niehus’ moving image has been screened at numerous international film festivals, most recently at Fotogenia 6 in Mexico City.
‘Writing for me is a very visual experience resulting in vivid imagery which easily translates to film giving the poem another life beyond the page and provides another layer for me to guide the audience’s interpretation of the text.’
Shiver is presented with support from Adelaide Festival Centre Foundation.
Laurens Tan (NSW, China, USA), Healing Truth (excerpt), moving image, 3:11
Laurens Tan, Healing Truth (excerpt), moving image (still), 3:11
Healing Truth is a short film animated by Laurens Tan based on a series of poems by Yuin writer Kaitlen Wellington. Incorporating music, sound design as well as poetry, the work explores themes of intergenerational trauma and healing, acknowledging the difficult history for First Nations people within the Shoalhaven region. In a cultural context, it’s a symbolic representation of clearing out dead language with new language (through ceremony, language and song).
Laurens was born in the Netherlands, where his great grandparents migrated from Fujian, China in the late 1800s. When he migrated to Australia, with his parents in 1962, he lived in Adelaide before moving to New South Wales to take up a position at University of Wollongong, where he still resides. Laurens maintains a studio in Beijing and another in Las Vegas, where he also lives part-time.
Laurens’ work has featured in major international survey exhibitions in Beijing, USA, South Korea, Japan, and in Australia at the Sydney Powerhouse Museum, and National Galleries of New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. Laurens is an academic coordinator in Art & Design at universities in Australia, USA, and China, and has served as Artist Advisory Group Member, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2004-06), as member of the Board of Directors, Asian Australian Art Association (4A), Sydney (1997-2007), the Wollongong City Gallery (2006-2008).