Upcoming Artists-in-Residence: You're only half an hour away, Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas

You're only half an hour away: Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas

You're only half an hour away, is a collaboration of multidisciplinary artist and vocalist, Maissa Alameddine, and writer Katie Shammas. They are artists from Lebanon & Palestine, now based in Sydney on Dharug Country, their collaborative practice evokes ancestral stories.   

Maissa Alameddine, A lullaby for a rising, 2024, still from video 


Maissa Alameddine grew up in Lebanon, now lives and works on the unceded lands of the Cammeraygal and Dharug peoples. She is an interdisciplinary artist and vocalist, working across photography, video, installation, sound design and live performance. Maissa’s work explores the idea of migration as a chronic injury. Her work is personal, exploring inheritance and transference of heritage in the complexity of the diasporic experiences. Her work centres on storytelling and community, working through intersectional and intergenerational approaches that challenge normative discourses and prioritise self-determined processes in the contemporary art world. Maissa is co-founder and creative producer of Arab Theatre Studio, an arts collective initiated out of Dharug Land. @maissa

Maissa Alameddine, Song For Sitti- Song for my Grandmother,
video and textile installation, The Blake Prize 2024

Katie Shammas is from Galilee Palestine, now living on Dharug Country in north-west Sydney. She is a member of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and Arab Theatre Studio. Her writing has been published in Meanjin, Povo, Kindling and Sage and Red Room Poetry. She has performed work for Cement Fondu: Better Nature; Word Travels: Chasing Home, and RedRoom Poetry: Speak Australian. She is the mother of two daughters and works in the environmental sector. @kootie75

Katie Shammas reading The song that fills the valley, POVO, Sweatshop, 

Better Read than Dead, Newtown 2023


"... During our residency at Gunyah we plan to collaborate deeply, creating art that navigates memory, resistance, and connection in a space of healing and possibility. Amid grief from witnessing ongoing genocide on our homelands, we seek rest and reflection, and time together to lay the foundations of a long-time project we have been wanting to develop. Our process of collaborating at Gunyah will honour our shared heritage and respond to the tension between urgent creativity and grief. By reflecting on and researching ancestral journeys between Haifa and Tripoli, we plan to harness the stories of our elders who travelled these routes. Then we will infuse these narratives with art and music. ..." 

Katie Shammas, Knowledge of Land, Kindling and Sage, November 2023



You can find out more about You're only half and hour away: Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas on Instagram @maissa and @kootie75.

Announcing the 2025 Gunyah Artists-in-Residence


Thank you to everyone who applied for the 2025 Gunyah Artists-in-Residence program!

And thanks to the selection panel, Danica Knezevic and Kath Fries. 

There will be writers, musicians, curators, researchers, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, storytellers, photographers, collaborations and families; from NSW, ACT and VIC; participating in 2025 residencies at Gunyah, on Worimi Land.

We are delighted to announce the artists selected for the 2025 Gunyah Artists-in-Residence Program:

  • You're only half an hour away: Katie Shammas & Maissa Alameddine 
  • Harriet Gillies & Bron Belcher
  • Elise Harmsen & Nicola Smith 
  • Zipper: Celeste Aldahn & Liam Kenny 
  • The Happy Mondays: Jodi Vial, Josepha Dietrich, Betty O'Neill, Catherine Johnstone 
  • Ren Gregorčič 
  • Catherine Polcz 

You can follow @gunyahartists on Instagram to see posts from their residencies during the year.


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Gunyah artists-in-residence program is located on Gathang Land, the ancestral Country of the Worimi People. We acknowledge them as the traditional custodians of this place, land, sky, and waters. When artists come to the Gunyah to develop and share their own creativity, learning, skills and cultural practices, we respect the knowledge embedded forever within the First Nations Custodianship of Country.



2025 Gunyah residency applications now open!

Calling for 2025 Gunyah Artists-in-Residence applications!
Background photo: Kath Fries, Gunyah waterfront

I'm delighted to announce that applications are now open for the 2025 Gunyah Artists-in-Residence Program!

Since 2011, the Gunyah AiR program has been providing low cost accommodation for short term self-directed residencies for solo, collaborative, family and group projects. 

 

Applications are now open for visual artists, writers, composers, musicians, performers, directors, and other creators, to apply for a 2025 Gunyah residency. 


There will be seven residencies in 2025, each running for ten days. See the APPLY page for the specific dates available and subsided artist rates. 


Please read ABOUT GUNYAH before applying and see the APPLY page for links to the online applications forms. 

 

Applications close midnight 16 December 2024. 

Residency report: Bronwyn Rennex

Bronwyn Rennex, Gunyah Kookaburras 

I’m working on a creative non-fiction project and thinking about birds, so being at Gunyah was a great opportunity to s.l.o.w.d.o.w.n. and observe. I eased myself into a different scale of being, a lovely respite from sitting at my desk in Newtown getting caught up in doom scrolling, bill paying, grocery shopping, clothes hanging…

Bronwyn Rennex, Gunyah fire

 

At Gunyah I listened to unfamiliar birds bring in the day. I watched the pair of noisy miners (… my friend Dave called them pardalotes … I still think I’m right), whose nest is just above the back deck, defend their chick(s) from the daily incursions of bigger birds. I paddled across the water towards the island, where what looked like a pale branch at the top of a tree, ended up being the white breast of a sea eagle surveying its world. At night it was cold enough to have fires. 

 

Bronwyn Rennex, Adam and Bron at Gunyah


I worked pretty solidly each day, whether it was writing, going down Google rabbit holes via famous Bronwyns; through to Welsh mythology; and a story about soldiers carrying the head of fellow warrior back home, where it continued chatting to them for the next 7 years; or reading what Ralph Clark wrote about dreams and birds in his journal. My partner Adam visited for a few days, then my friends Dave and Janet came. It was lovely to be able to share the experience with them and enjoy the added bonus of their excellent cooking skills.

 

Bronwyn Rennex, Gunyah reading


I’ve come back to Newtown refreshed and inspired to continue working. Thanks so much Kath and Gunyah for the gift of space and time.


Bronwyn Rennex, Gunyah jetty selfie panorama


Gunyah residency report, October 2024
Bronwyn Rennex

Residency report: Karlina Mitchell and Lee Mitchell

Gunyah was a time of rest and productivity. We started by working on individual projects, I spent time writing and reflecting on work and exhibitions I have been part of over the last 12 months. Lee found an amazing resource at the local Hawks Nest tip and finished a series of zines made from reclaimed books and paper. We went on bushwalks around North Arm Cove, I took photos and we worked on developing ideas for our collaborative project. The project explores our childhood experiences and we found this being reflected in the adventures we had with our kids when at Gunyah.


Gunyah residency report, September 2024
Karlina Mitchell & Lee Mitchell


Karlina Mitchell, photograph.

Lee Mitchell, zine.


Upcoming artist-in-residence: Bronwyn Rennex

Bronwyn Rennex

Bronwyn Rennex is a writer, artist and arts professional, living on Gadigal Land, in Sydney's inner west. Her creative non-fiction work combines pictures and words - sometimes her own, sometimes others' - to consider how history resonates in the present. Bronwyn is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle and 2024 Visiting Scholar at State Library of NSW.


Bronwyn Rennex, Life with Birds, 2022


Bronwyn's first book, 'Life with Birds' was published by Upswell in 2022. It's a delicate commonplace book that invests in the small scale, the domestic and the ordinary as an essential and overlooked part of Australian military history.


Bronwyn Rennex, No, No, No, 2004, cyanotype



"... During my residency I plan to continue my work with the idiosyncratic First Fleet journals of Ralph Clark who, as his transcribers suggested, might be 'the original whinging Pom'. I have collated extracts from his journals and plan to use the residency to respond to and riff off them, thinking about dreams, women, colonisation and birds ..."


You can find out more about Bronwyn's work on her website bronwynrennex.com and Instagram @frombron

Residency report: Obscuria Deaf Collective


Obscuria Deaf Collective: Irene Holub, Angie Goto, Sofya Gollan and Riona Twomey


Irene Holub: "This was my first arts residency and my first experience sharing Deaf Arts space over 10 days. I would wake up every morning for long walks and be inspired by the beauties of nature and then work all day making art. It validated the need to access space that allows us to connect, create and engage on an intellectual, creative and emotional levels with other deaf artists. It inspired us in many ways to collaborate and envisage a pathway of Obscuria Deaf Arts. Thank you for this opportunity." 

Angie Goto: "My time at the Gunyah was healing and full of inspiration surrounding nature. It was particularly special to fully conversing in Auslan with my creative Deaf women friends. It was so special to have the time and Deaf space to decompress from the fast pace of hearing world and life. We all enjoyed learning from each other in a few creative activities and brainstorming on ideas for our future exhibition. Also during our stay, we visited the Creative Incubator in Hamilton which was valuable to bounce off ideas and feed off one another's creativity."  

Sofya Gollan: "The opportunity to dream by the river, walk through bushland and watch pelicans chase boats from the loft window was a beautiful hiatus from my usual push and pull of everyday concerns. I wrote every day on my screenplay, cracking the spine of the story to make significant progress that I was able to continue on my return home. Having that dedicated time to explore, write dead ends, and track back to start again was invaluable. The spare time was used in exploring disciplines I am not used to , such as painting, collograph printing, and personal vision writing to create a blueprint for the next few years. In short, a creative to-do list was largely conquered, in a beautiful tranquil setting with three other deaf artists. The chance to check in every day with other Deaf Auslan users meant we were able to create a safe and sign language rich experience, where we did not have to ‘code-switch” between having to lip-read and speak, and then back to Auslan again. It was a rare opportunity to be simply and fully Deaf."

Riona Twomey: "The ten day residency allowed our group to refocus and talk together, dream and plan pathways in which to grow and strengthen the aims of the groups objective. Doing art, exchanging art skills, sharing and educating each others in their creative processes, the walks together have brought us closer together."

Gunyah residency report, August 2024

Obscuria Deaf Collective

Irene Holub @ireneholub 
Sofya Gollan @bolshiebird 
Riona Tindal @riorioartist 
Angie Goto @turbly 

 


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