Yvette Hamilton: upcoming artist-in-residence

Yvette Hamilton, You're Here no.2, 2014, archival pigment print

 Yvette Hamilton is a Sydney based artist working in photomedia, film, video and installation. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney, and is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Arts by research, at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. 

Yvette Hamilton, The Path of Totality, 2014,
solo exhibition at A-M Gallery Sydney


 She has exhibited widely in Australia, at galleries such as Australian Centre for Photography, First Draft, Gaffa and The Centre for Contemporary Photography and she has also exhibited in London and Slovenia. In 2011, she co-curated 'Expanded Architecture' at Carriageworks in Sydney. In 2012 she was awarded residency at FraserStudios in Sydney, was a finalist in the Marrickville Contemporary Art Award was selected for the Blake Prize Director’s Cut exhibition. In 2013 she has two solo exhibitions in Sydney, ‘A Loved One Sleeping’ at Articulate as part of the Head On Festival and in ‘The Path of Totality’ in November at A-M Gallery. 
Yvette Hamilton, Dark of Lightness no.1, 2013,
animated lightbox with LED lights, microprocessor, duratrans

"My work focuses on the resonant links between place and consciousness, primarily concentrating on the ineffable, the immaterial and the temporal. My practice explores the porous boundaries between place and consciousness and the temporality inherent in the state of ‘being’ - a topography that encompasses the individual, the collective and the sense of human trace that is held in ‘place’."

Yvette Hamilton, Towards the Light, 2013, video installation

"The title of my current Masters Research project is, ‘Expanded Portraiture’. My aim for Expanded Portraiture is to interrogate the hemmed in boundaries of portraiture and to push the discipline outwards beyond the parameters of the face and body and to create an understanding of portraiture beyond the body, beyond the visual senses and beyond the likeness of specific people."

Yvette Hamilton, Light of Darkness no.2, 2013,
animated lightbox with LED lights, microprocessor, duratrans

"During my week at Gunyah I plan to immerse myself in developing my latest body of work, based around the notions of ‘Expanded Portraiture’, which will form a large part of my end of year exhibition at Sydney College of the Arts. I need to continue editing my new video piece and new sound piece, and also build lightboxes and an interactive robototic piece. The interactive piece is a collaborative effort with my partner Peter Danckwerts. As I have a young son, this residency would allow us to travel as a family, allow me to work solo during the days and will also allow my partner and I to immerse ourselves in creating the interactive piece in the evenings. Most importantly, this would afford us the space to plan out and create the technologically challenging new interactive work together without having to pack it away each night - our current collaborative practice ‘studio space’ is our kitchen table!"

Yvette Hamilton
To see more of Yvette's work go to www.yvettehamilton.com

Karin Mainwaring and Michael Ramsden: artists-in-residence May 2014

Michael and I swept into Gunyah, from the F3 like two pieces of wreckage! Flotsam and Jetsam we may well have been called. Three dozen fresh Karuah Oysters did we arrive with.

Gunyah deck - Karin Mainwaring and Michael Ramsden, May 2014

The restorative power of this house was immediately apparent. Not only was it peaceful, and stunningly sited. Gunyah is so deeply imbued with a collective sense of good-will, and a near utopian sense of trust, that is difficult for one’s darker self to flourish. Hope flourished here for us.

Our arrival coincided with an unseasonably warm spell of high pressure weather. The water and sky duelled over the intensity of their respective blues. The leaves of the trees barely stirred. The smoke from the BBQ snaked straight up into the air. The Gin and Tonics slid down.

Michael on the Gunyah jetty, May 2014

Work? Michael and I arrived as two deeply committed, but equally disillusioned, artists. Michael secured himself a spot on the dock and fished. I made a home for myself, high in the trees, on the sundeck, and knitted. We committed ourself, fully, in our contemplative activities. We made delicate forays into each other’s worlds. 

The creatures Michael hauled from the deep, those that weren’t returned, made delicious forays into us!

The peace and the beauty worked their respective magic. The house too, offered a magic of its own. Michael’s love of painting, my love of words and writing gained found oxygen. Our love for each other also.

Karin's knitting, Gunyah May 2014

It rained on the last night and I was gifted with an image, the end, a piece in the jigsaw of my baby novel.

Underpinning everything was the collective endeavour, vision and generosity of the families who came together to build this place. One of them, now gone, lives on in Gunyah, through the generosity of the people who loved him and made this residency possible.

Many thanks,
Karin Mainwaring

Michael's squid, Gunyah May 2014


Upcoming artists-in-residence: Jane Grimley and The Deconverters

Jane Grimley and her collaborators - The Deconverters, are a group of diverse theatre makers and experimental artists working in live art and performance.

The Deconverters, Emergency Crash Landing: work-in-progress, 2012,
The Rocks Sydney, performance and multiple choice card - detail view

The Deconverters Gunyah residency project is the fourth stage in the creative development of Emergency Crash Landing… "The year is 3061 and Earth is on the cusp of environmental collapse. The audience enter with the knowledge that they have been handpicked for the last mission from Earth to the new planet - Partha." 
This interactive performance is about fleeing your home for a safer life. An adventure into ideas of what we value about our life on this planet and what might happen if we are forced to leave it behind forever. It’s a 'choose your own adventure' theatre experience, that combines performance, video and gaming to facilitate playful discussion about technology, environment and the future. 

The Deconverters, Emergency Crash Landing: work-in-progress, 2012, The Rocks Sydney,
audience members with Jane Grimley and Carolyn Eccles, photos by Jeremy Belinfante

Emergency Crash Landing is an ongoing project, which began at Word Travels’ Writers Residency 2012 in The Rocks Sydney, where a short pilot version was made - blending installation, performance and multiple choice game. Then in May 2013 The Deconverters undertook a ten day creative development in the Leard State Forest in north western NSW, to live in an anti-coal mining blockade camp. They worked with families, activists and farmers, inviting a range of contributions to the process of investigating the issues facing a community on the brink of change. This was followed with a Metro Arts creative development residency in Brisbane, QLD in July 2013. These three weeks focused on developing the story trajectories, defining the narrative structures and identifying the themes and key conflicts/questions within each line. Concluding in a public performance, Emergency Crash Landing became a rich world to immerse the audience in, with detailed character history incorporated into the narratives. Link 

The Deconverters, Emergency Crash Landing: Leard State Forest, 2013,
audience members and performers Daniel Jones and Carolyn Eccles

2014 brings the next stage of Emergency Crash Landing to Gunyah artists-in-residence program:

At Gunyah we plan to create a new version of the work suitable for performance communities, schools, and team building applications. We will focus on fine tuning the story lines, interactive components, and sound score of the work. Working with site based investigation, we plan to infuse the musical and video score with a strong sense of natural Australian landscapes. This residency would provide a rare and valuable opportunity for us to work together with great focus in a beautiful place.


Jane Grimley


Jane Grimley is the Creative Producer of The Deconverters, and has trained in Australia and Europe specialising in collaborative and experimental theatre practice. She was the Co-Artistic Director of Crack Theatre Festival, Newcastle, 2011-2012. In 2012 she also created The Passenger, a performance for three audience members at a time, staged in the back of a moving car. She directed and produced The Hideous Demise of Detective Slate, a live action radio play, which she developed into a five part radio series and live webcast. This production won the award for Excellence in New Theatre in the Sydney Fringe Festival in 2010. She has a Bachelor of Performance UWS (2004) and has also trained under the imPACT Scholarship for emerging contemporary performance makers (2007).
www.thedeconverters.com/janegrimley
Emergency Crash Landing is proudly supported by Word Travels, Frontline Action on Coal, 
PACT, MetroArts and Gunyah AIR. 

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