THE LANE ART SPACE LEAPS INTO LIFE
Koulla Roussos, artist and independent curator, has developed a project that is a dynamic series of art interventions. Koulla’s project invites local artists to make tantalising temporal art, luring the public into new experiences of Darwin’s CBD. These temporal interventions are a part of NT Government’s initiative, Live Darwin Arts, to revitalise Darwin.
At the launch event, the public audience were treated to an experience of sucking salty plums, co-producing music with the Darwin Laptop Orchestra, mesmerising Territorian-style video hits, and prints by the Prince of Prints, Franck Gohier. Gohier's life-size poster-print of an out-of-this-world Luke Skywalker at Uluru, is visually stunning evidence of Gohier's shrewd humour.
Q: Koulla, what inspired you to instigate this fantastic project?
My curatorial objective ever since starting the independent curating caper four years ago, was to activate spaces one does not associate with art into contemporary art happenings. In 2013 I set up “Flash Art-The Don Hotel” exhibition inside the Cavanagh Hotel, and invited artists to respond to the Don Hotel, an old Darwin institution which used to inhabit the same location.
In 2014 I activated the NT Library to local contemporary artists with “Origin of a City” an exhibition which involved artists in the journey of discovery around how the city of Darwin got its name, whilst in the same year I activated Mayfair, and then a disused commercial shop front in Harriet place, with an exhibition called “D.evolution”.
I walk and drive through my city, constantly examining the public space carefully, always looking for new ways of displaying contemporary art. I am also someone who has a love/hate relationship with museums and traditional white cube galleries. I believe it is imperative to get art off the walls, and outside the institutional structures, and into the public sphere, accessible to the passing throng at street level. I was looking at ways to exhibit contemporary art at street level that was not a one off performance, or using techniques traditionally associated with graffiti and stencil. As an ex-Melbourne sticker artist myself, naturally I was drawn towards the exhibiting potential of vinyl affixed to a wall.
I believe that art can serve a higher purpose, more than just object of possession or of aesthetic gratification. It is my view that an artist’s method invests an object with “aura”. The art object is transformed by the artistic processes, and gains a value beyond use. I also believe that these processes can transform a place, a location, a building or a monument. By turning our streets to the kind of art, the gatekeepers of contemporary art museums hold in high regard, and turn our laneways into open air galleries, I am hoping to invest the place, the location with the aura of art, thereby persuading audiences as to the location’s inherent value, meaning and worth. Darwin, more than ever needs its artists to invest it with the aura it deserves.
Q: The Lane Art Space has an impressive line up of Territorialised talent. A number of artists have responded by creating video works. Why has this time-based art form been used?
Darwin is crying out for the development of an enthusiastic performance based, experimental video culture. Everyone can be an artist with today’s technology. Certainly, there is a process of discernment which astute curators of contemporaneity do enforce, after all we care for the end result presented and for the reputation of the artists, but I am not going to be able to utilise my full arsenal of street activation strategies without doing my bit to encourage experimental video art (EVA). I aim for diversification and encouraging our emerging artists to experiment with technology. What good is an exhibition or an arts and cultural festival, or a film festival if it is not contributing to the local community’s skills development? It is my curatorial objective to encourage emerging artists to experiment with technology. I don’t want to stifle participation by inviting only “professionals” to occupy public space. My role is to activate and harness talent as well as space.
EVA is versatile, requiring only projectors and video monitors and blank walls. EVA can be shown anywhere at any time as many times as the equipment allows (assuming classification board compliance). Conceptual, installation and performance based art are the zeitgeist of our common era. There is huge intellectual property potential in the moving image, and I consider it necessary for Darwin in the 21st century to become an innovative city, a creative city, a city in charge of developing and showcasing its unique hybrid cosmopolitanism in an international (as opposed to regional or frontier) context. I believe EVA can be used to develop our nascent film and documentary industry and provide the foundations from which an international culture making industry can be forged, one which could provide creative products and services to our huge overseas northern markets.
Q: You’re a long-time local, growing up here in Darwin. You must have seen many attempts at harnessing the power of art in this city. What do you think works for this context?
I have been an active producer of art and exhibitions in Darwin since 2013. This is the first occasion where we have had such a huge public policy announcement which recognised the important role that artists can play in revitalising the CBD. However, I remain sceptical. I have written an opinion piece just after the Live Darwin Arts policy was announced, in which I outlined the medium-to long-term strategic issues confronting our city’s cultural psyche. We need to find a way to stem the constant transiency. Good people come and go talking of Michelangelo, but they don’t stay here long enough to give back to the community what they gain from experience and exposure.
Funding in the arts is ridiculously difficult to obtain. It is imperative that more funding actually make it in the hands of the arts and culture makers. So much of it is swallowed up by administration. We need more generous funding models that are versatile and responsive to the commercial and other realities of art and exhibition making. It is also important to cultivate our business and administration elites to the symbiotic benefits of patronage and philanthropy. It is time for artists to persuade us all why we need them.
I also urged government to look at other key public planning issues such as: bringing back the Architecture and Visual Arts School into the CBD, situating an arts hub and artists’ studios in the CBD, opening up exhibition spaces to our contemporary artists, and venerating their work through rotating exhibitions and by improving cultural institutions like CDU Art Gallery and Collection greater capacity to acquire paid works. I also wrote about how crucial it is to develop a critical culture. Artists need to be written about, talked about, and receive critical feedback. Why is it that with so many humanities trained professionals we do not have an annual critical/culture magazine/journal open to and available for the general public?
Why is it that in 21st century Australia’s northern jewel does not have a Darwin Art Prize? This is a serious lacuna in our cultural fabric which needs to be remedied as soon as possible. I also highlighted how the Darwin Festival business model needs to be re-examined so that greater emphasis is placed on the engagement of local producers, local content makers and engaging local talent wherever possible. If being “local” is good enough for local builders to receive recognition and support, then local creatives, who contribute to the economic and spiritual well-being of our community, are good enough to receive equal support too.
We need a medium to long term strategy which will be serious about erecting the strong cultural scaffolding we need for our artists and our community to thrive.
Q: How would you like to build on this project? Or have you set your curatorial sensibilities on a completely different ‘next adventure’ in the domain of Darwin art?
I am always looking at increasing opportunities for me to curate local artists. We have so much great talent here that I feel like I need 10 life times to appreciate, nurture, and support. While I continue to work as a Barrister, I will continue to look for paid funding opportunities to broaden my vision over my city.
I am also looking for an institutional partner to assist me to produce the 30th Anniversary of the 1988 Utopia Batiks, 1988/9 first acrylics, watercolours and first woodblock prints. I have consulted widely and sought and gained the consent of the artists, and prepared and budgeted a strategic plan. I have the support of the Janet Holmes a Court Collection, but I am still looking for an arts/cultural institution to back me. It is regrettable MAGNT and CDU have each rejected this fantastic exhibition proposal developed after 9 months of consultation with the original batik artists of Utopia.
I should say, that I have been invited to curate for the Biennale of Australian Art in 2018, and have chosen to work with two terrific Darwin artists: Matthew van Roden (currently undertaking Masters studies in Visual Arts at CDU) and Tara (Tarzan) McDonald (currently part-time employee in the Visual Arts school at CDU). This is my opportunity to bring attention of our dynamic culture makers to national and international audiences. I expect 2018 will be an amazing year full of promise and opportunities. I can’t wait to apply my curatorial activism, with my exquisite art radical project management skills to work with these two irreverent artists, (les enfants terribles!) to queer perspective, composition, content, form, materials, display, corpus, discourse and presentation!
The Lane Art Space runs until end December 2017. It is located at 22 Mitchell St, Darwin.
Next exhibition: From Friday 27/10/17 J Saunders and K Roussos in “The Return of Tantrum” and D Collins, Wrestling Illustrated 1977-1982
For more information visit Facebook and Instagram: The Lane Art Space @thelaneartspacedarwn; #thelaneartspacedarwin www.koullaroussos.com. Check it out in the lane (unsurprisingly) between Cafe Del Art and Deck Bar.
Image caption: From left Koulla Roussos, Jason Hanna, Franck Gohier, Marian Simeon at the opening of The Lane Art Space
