Seventh Artist Cinema.

‍Join us in April and May for our first two sessions of Seventh’s Artist Cinema. Using our outdoor cinema infrastructure, we are presenting curated pairings of artist cinema, video work, short films, or works in progress.

Session 2: Saturday May 16th - Veronica Charmont + Ena Grozdanic.

Veronica Charmont will present a new work titled 'The Calcified Ear'. 'The Calcified Ear' investigates the chemical architecture of our inner ear and the disorder Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. This common disorder evokes brief episodes of severe spinning and revolves around the displacement of microscopic crystals known as Otoconia. The film examines the chemical connections these crystals have to the formation of limestone rocks, and their continual relationship across organisms, land and sea. Shot on 16 mm, a crystalline medium, The Calcified Ear synthesises chemistry and geology whilst contemplating how our bodies are inseparable to the compounds of the universe.

Ena Grozdanic will present a work titled 'Sabotage in Seven Acts'. ‘Sabotage in Seven Acts,’ is an exploration of a rumour of direct action to defend a river system. It takes this rumour, unverifiable, constantly mutating, and wonders what worlds it could birth—whether truth or fiction or somewhere in-between, the rumour forces us to ask: should we not all engage in minor acts of resistance? Does the disappearance of rivers not call for filibuster, for a sustained insurgency?

‘Sabotage in Seven Acts’ focuses on people on the frontlines, away from centres of policy and commerce. It imagines the very first collaborative act of sabotage: how did it feel to join an  autonomous and stealthy riot? What tactics were used to bog down construction? What was the smell of the air that night? The film contemplates the role of art during climate catastrophe, concluding that for disobedience to occur, the conditions for courage must be present - and if they’re not, they must be created. It commits itself to generating such conditions, to making the tools and actions of resistance seductive. 

Hot Compost Home Tour is an upcoming home-based touring exhibition curated by artists and gardeners living in Naarm. Guided by practices in community gardening, the home-based tour uses composting as an approach to exhibition practice, exploring how composting can shape the way we encounter art within community networks.

In this pre-tour workshop, join Emily Simek and Doug Webb to make DIY tour merch. Participants are invited to bring an old t-shirt and screen print a collaborative tour t-shirt design. The workshop explores self-publishing in support of alternative exhibition practices.

Please BYO adult or child sized t-shirt, tote bag, pillowcase or up-cycled garment to screen print onto. All ages and abilities are welcome including children accompanied by an adult.

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Hot Compost Home Tour is an off-site exhibition series by Emily Simek in collaboration with Merri Cheyne, Anna Dunnill, Eric Jong, Mei Sun and Doug Webb. The home-based tour explores composting as an approach to exhibition practice. Using relational ethics as a framework, the project considers the conditions of the various exchanges that ‘create’ compost: how and where does it come to exist? How are different collaborators implicated? Instead of a purely material process, composting becomes about the work of relationships within systems of exchange.

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In the act of reaching out to rub against the bronze sculpture to make a wish, viewers are invited to briefly escape into a constructed world where they have complete control over their circumstances. The allure of wish-making resides not in the fulfillment of the wish, rather in the momentary gratification derived from desiring an altered reality. Recognising the necessity of reverie in a reality filled with uncertainties, Rub You offers bronze sculptures as catalysts for escape.

I would like to thank (in no particular order) Sam George, Kaijern Koo, Zamara Zamara, Mark Friedlander, Julien Comer-Kleine, Sam Holland, Jess Milne, Melanie Cobham, Yvette James, Kylie White, Camille Thomas, Juliette Berkeley, Steven Bellosguardo, Leo Purnomo, Lisa Radford, David Sequeira, KyoungHwa Kim, JoJo, the snail, cicadas, anxiety, random bursts of energy a little too close to midnight, Vyvanse, love, Norah Jones, desire, agnosticism, God (just in case), Google Images, VCA Teaching Workshop, every horny woman that rubbed Victor Noir’s sculpture’s crotch for their generosity (conversations, stories, tangents, understanding, technical assistance and advice, food, emotional support, feelings) because what and where would the works and I be without them.

In this project, I am experimenting with wood to reintroduce a new technique and expression of storytelling inspired from my traditional Serui prau (traditional Northern Papuan canoe) painting within a contemporary context living as a settler in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). I aim to create a series of Seruian prau paintings which reflect contemporary influences, while embracing simplicity and cultural diversity. Not only does storytelling mirror social relations in innovative ways, it is an organic part of the spiritual realm, geographic location, and growth of the Seruian people and Pacific communities. Blue Eden will visualise the geopolitical turmoil that has been led by the major power countries surrounding the Pacific ocean that can determine their future’s climate, socio-economic and international relations. I aim to encourage conversations around the geopolitical risks among the people and the wider community, to draw connections between our lives in the diaspora and what is happening on the ground.

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"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the superhuman, a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal, an over-going and a down-going." — Friedrich Nietzsche

The Overwoman is a new experimental live film by Ari Angkasa presented with Seventh Gallery and commissioned by Multicultural Arts Victoria as part of their Diasporas commissioning series. Through live and archival forms, Angkasa extends the trope of the femme fatale figure in cinema to make sense of trans-diasporic identity in a society edging dangerously towards fascism. Borrowing from the ritual and theatre of organised religion, The Overwoman subverts the famous right wing incel-adopted Nietzschean concept of the Übermensch (Overman)—an ‘ultra-human’ birthed from the pitfalls of postmodernity—as a critique of Western exceptionalism and its sociological effect on queerness.

Anchored in an acute awareness of the body as a cinematic medium, The Overwoman sees Angkasa across live and archival forms performing rituals of nostalgia for the femme fatale. Contextualising Nietzsche’s Übermensch in different realities both on stage and on screen, Angkasa reconciles her transitional dysphoria with the narcissistic guilt of Western exceptionalism. Asking, where does altruistic social responsibility end and indulgent self-preserving individualism begin? Where do they blur together?

The Overwoman is presented by Seventh Gallery and commissioned by Multicultural Arts Victoria through their Diasporas commissioning series. The Overwoman is generously supported by Creative Australia and the City of Melbourne.

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