Photo by Mirjam Siefert

Here is a photo by HILS FOUNDATION founding member, Mirjam Siefert taken the following day of the 150 year party at Claudio's place.

We were tidying up the barn. Kalaman, the mirror sculptor who had set up the super sculptures and disco balls was bringing down the installation - with the shining sun, Mirjam started snapping the reflection and I jumped in the image and got the mirror ball swirling... this was the effect... magical eh?

And... now I am the proud owner of a disco ball - it's hanging in my berlin studio.

Thanks Mirjam for the photo ! (I have the extraordinary luck of having Mirjam and her bloke, Ede as neighbours down the road, also in Kreuzberg... I feel like they are my home base here in Berlin, they know the city really well and I can call them up anytime. My Berlin guardian angels...)

Love it and Leave it - the book

I just got off the phone to Gianni, publisher of

LOVE IT AND LEAVE IT - AUSTRALIA'S CREATIVE DIASPORA
Published by
T&G Publishing +
Australian National Portrait Gallery
2007
157 pages

It took Gianni's eagle eye for design and a load of love, faith, commitment and madness to get this book into being materialised within a very short amount of time. (He agreed to do the book in dec 06 and we were printing it early april 07 in Singapore... and launching it at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra early may...).

An example of the absurdity and extraordinary aspect of the situation was that Gianni had never met me. And we made the whole book with Gianni in Sydney and me in Paris and LOADS of emails, and hours and hours of phone calls with little respect to time difference (I was often woken up at 4 am...Do you know what time it is?????)... We met for the first time in Singapore the day before the book went to print.

There was an extraordinary wave of support to get this book happening - I have so many stories involving synchronicity and people's support. I'm grateful to each person.

I realised I haven't put the book on this blog - so here we go.

I'll be doing book signings in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Paris + New York over the next 12 months - so will keep you posted...

For those in Australia still wanting a copy, write direct to Gianni (gianni@tgpublishing.com.au) or ask at a bookstore where you can order it.

There are only 1000 copies in print - and they are going...

Berlin - my new home exterior

I need to get a cable for my camera so I can hook up my own pictures... but in the meantime, here is a pic of the exterior of my house....

I'm sending this to show you that I live in something that resembles a castle... in the middle of berlin - it's pretty mind blowing everytime I walk up the park to this entrance and then up two flights of stairs and a long long way down the corridor to my studio...

t-shirt design for orphans

This is the design I made for a set of t-shirts I am preparing for Amma Narayani's orphans in Southern India.

I'll pick them up the finished work on Thursday.

It's my birthday next week and the idea is, for one's birthday - give (rather than receive) because there's more joy in the giving than the receiving.

150 years - the day after

the day after celebrating 150 years...

all a bit sleepy...

the hanging chairs were my favourite location to zzzzzz -
like a cradle for big people.

chilling after lunch and after having done a chunk of the cleaning up...
and then back to Berlin 720 km direction : north then east.

Claudio's 150 years - the barn

Here are some snaps of the barn which was the dancing zone -
with Kalaman's installation with disco balls and sculptures (http://www.kalaman.de/).

The mirror-sculpted phrases are from Winnie the Pooh.

The photos were from a book Claudio put together of a local photographer's work, which was found in the photographer's attic by an antique collector-friend.

August Sander type portraits, same intensity and era.

And on another screen was Eva's, Claudio+Ede's and my work,
finishing off the night with some great Serge Gainsbourg clips from the 60s and 70s.



the later hours of the morning -
most of the guests have gone to bed
and the sun will rise in about an hour's time..

The blue series

Here is the blue series from the 150 year party. There was this fabulous blue light at the entrance of the barn :

so here is Eva, a fellow Berliner, a Hils Foundation founding member and fab photographer.

Two more founding members from the Hils Foundation, and Berlin neighbours, the lovely Mirjam and Ede.
Here is Kalaman with EJ chatting to Claudio in the background. Everyone thought this was going to be Kalaman's next album cover (the day he decided to drop mirror sculpting and become a rock musician).
Here now we can see EJ and C chatting. Ooooh Lovely moment of suspension.
And this is the gorgeous photo of Roger being an angel after a few vodkas.

Get this for a connection : Roger represents Claudio in his gallery in Berlin AND after they had met, agreed to work together, they worked out that Roger grew up in the 100 year old house where Claudio now lives!!! So he told me a lot about the trees he climbed and the best places to hang out in the garden and barn.

Celebrating Claudio's 150 years

I came back at 2:30 this mornin from the south of Germany (thank-you Wolfgang for driving safely) as this weekend Claudio accumulated 150 years of celebration : his house is 100 years old this year (see pic), he is 45 and he has lived in the house for 5 years.

I had told him all week that I wasn't going to come as I was just TOOOOOO exhausted from my travels and moving.

But ol' Claudio has a knack of getting his vision materialised: and somehow, the night before he got me enticed into going (how did he do it??? i would say a handful of persistance and a pinch o' magic).

So, the following morning there I was driving 800 kilometers with fellow HIL FOUNDATION member, Wolfgang to the the southern part of Germany.

Here are pix of the preparations on Saturday: Ede putting together his super 8 installation.


Claudio and Eva putting images together for the screens in the barn (dancing zone).

The most impressive traveller was EJ who sneaked away for the night from her M.A. studies clan who were visiting the Venice Biennale and flew from Venice to Stuttgart... I had met EJ briefly in both Houston at Fotofest and then in Birmingham last year. So it was a real surprise to see her and good to re-connect. I exhibited with Claudio last year in Houston and EJ exhibited with Claudio this year at Darmstadt's festival (where I exhibited last year)... so these connections just keep on...

Installation for ze food...



Juliane preparing clown activities for the children. Juliane is about to head to Indonesia to work with street children.
Mirjam with last minute preparations on ze phone.

Berlin house warming

On my second night here - Lindy, Sophie Jo + Jack Map, Anna + James, Coco Chanel and Max came over to warm my new home. Max was in town for a few days, Lindy lives here, Sophie Jo, and Jack had arrived in Berlin the day before, Coco had arrived that morning and Anna + James were about to leave.

So it was pretty amazing to have the Pam connection happening and to be together.

(Max, Jack and Soph had all been with me in Canberra for the national portrait gallery show). And Lindy is in the book (as iz Max).

In the pic, Sophie is showing us her wish for her next big hair-do.

Sophie Jo made dessert, with Jack as assistant and Max cooked a chook Maroccan style.


lovely way to bless the home !

Berlin - my new home

I arrived in Berlin this month and feel very blessed to be here.

This is my studio, on the second floor - overlooking the trees in the park of Marianneplatz. I am here as an artist in residence for a year.

The Bethanien Künstlerhaus is in Kreuzberg - the old "west" part of Berlin with a large turkish population and artists from all over the world (rent is the cheapest out of all the captital cities in Europe).

The building is an old ecclestial hospice: there is a chapel now converted into an exhibition space, a whole wing for the Bethanien artist residencies and workshops.

Another wing is a music school and children walking about with violin cases and playing beautifully out of tune. And the third wing is full of squatters (version "we are anarchists".)

It's got a great vibe and there is everything here to do great work so I am looking forward to getting my teeth into life, work and the german language.

for the official info check
http://www.bethanien.de/en/

international women's day - paris

... well this blog is TOTALLY out of order. But better outta order than not at all.

It's been a busy year and I haven't been able to communicate to everyone all that I have been up to - so this is a fine way of doing it. (Thanks Yasmin for getting me onto this...)

These images are from the show we had at the Australian Embassy in Paris to celebrate International Women's Day. Three Australian goddesses, Vee Speers and Julianne Rose and myself exhibited our photos, for two months there.

For myself, it was lovely to finally have an exhibition in Paris and share it with family and friends (and their new babies!). All my other exhibitions are in other cities, so the posse in Paris always miss out. And there is really something special about sharing a show with those I love around me.

It was also a tiny little peek at what was going to go down in Canberra regarding the LOVE IT AND LEAVE : Australia's Creative Diaspora series (where I exhibited over 50 images).

I have pix from the evening but not digital... so this will have to do for the moment...

delicious moments in australia

These are some images for my friends who don't know Australia.

The beach is a favourite home of mine in Bermagui, 5 hours drive south of Sydney.

I went after the Canberra show in May and only had the time to spend the weekend here this time, but symbolically each time I return home, I need to stay with these friends, Sheena and Bill and swim that part of the ocean (last time I stayed, whales were heading down south...)

The water was cold but I developed a technique of standing in the water for long enough for my body to acclimatise. Made for an invigorating swim. And also a chance to send offerings to the Ocean goddess.

The National Portrait Gallery show in Australia

I just got these images in this morning from the National Portrait Gallery.
Photographs done by a local photographer David Paterson, (DORIAN Photographics).

For those who couldn't make it - this is the exterior (love those Australian sunsets!)

Entrance with Copenhagen based musicians :
Pete Morrison and Tonya Lemoh.

Entrance with snaps of all those Australian artists living around the world.

I photographed and interviewed over 100 Australian artists
who at one stage decided to pack their bags and head out to other shores
where their work would gather a different resonance/ response.
Some returned. Most didn't.

The exhibition included photography, and video
(both a projection room and a video stack).

All the photos are in black and white,
each artist is photographed in their favourite location.

I photographed and interviewed Australian artists based in cities :
Amsterdam, Beijing, Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, New York, Shanghai.

The series took six years.
I feel like I am doing the voice over of a the-making-of-dvd...

This is the back wall of the Gallery - the second shot to the left is Geoffrey Batchen,
wonderful photographic historian based in New York.
He wrote a powerful introduction to ze book.

The book is worth reading. And I don't say that because it's my work but because it's a great documentation of a bunch of talented people of my generation who received a great education and absorbed an extraordinary landscape growing up in Australian and chose to practise their art globally.

the video projection room


VIDEO 1
hyphenated australians
sound by jack pam.
text by geoffrey batchen.
made in 2007 for the NPG show.

VIDEO 2
unseen yet felt

Music composed by Andrew Byrne.
www.andrewbyrne.com
Dance improvisations by Darren McIntyre.
groups.msn.com/DarrenMcIntyre
Filmed in NYC 2003.

what's been happening...

OK - I'm going to back track a bit - as I haven't been tending to this blog.

TO give you a bit of an update of what has happened in the last few months... this is a picture that I took before I made my speech at my show at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, Australia which took place in May.

If you double click on the image - you can see it better.

To the very very left is the wonderful Aunty Delmae Barton, who flew from Brisbane to bless everyone and the show with her singing. She's a national treasure and mother to the very special William Barton, who featured in the show and book. (www.williambarton.com.au)

Jack Pam gave a fab live performance, dj-ing selections of the interviews with music.

There are also some orbs floating around the image too - the joy was definately present that night and the amazing thing was how inter-connected everyone was to eachother. Hephzibah Rendle-Short from London (www.rendle-short.com) Justin Benn came from Beijing, Karen Jacobsen from New York (www.karenjacobsen.com). Antonia Pesenti (www.antoniapesenti.com), Samantha Lang, Sarah Lambert, from Sydney. Max Pam and his crew from Freo.

A lot of family or friends of those who were in the show or the book turned up. So it was just lovely to meet everyone and see how all the individuals, spread across the world were represented by loved ones that night.

The Portrait Gallery, (I was told) had never had so many people at an opening nor had they sold so many books on an opening night !