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Season 2, Episode 6: Hannah Mathews and the Place of Contemporary Arts, with guest interviewer Ricky Arnold
70 Plays9 days ago
Following a circuitous, serendipitous path, Hannah Mathews has forged a career in the contemporary arts through strong relationships, trust, and the support to be experimental. As general manager of Western Australia’s iconic Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Hannah has developed a mandate focused on collaboration, openness, and the ability to eschew modesty to properly celebrate the incredible work that is happening in the Perth arts scene. In this conversation with Ricky Arnold, Hannah discusses how boundaries can be broken, how the Perth Cultural Centre is a misunderstood precinct containing magic, and how the long, magnetic force of PICA brought her to a place where the arts can be given room to thrive and support an artist throughout their entire careers. From arts intern to general manager, Hannah Mathews demonstrates how persistence and curiosity can lead to great things.
SHOW NOTES:
Hannah Mathews: https://2023.pica.org.au/pica-welcomes-new-ceo/
Ricky Arnold: https://artonthemove.art/projects/touring-strategy-meet-the-team/
There were so many references in this episode, that they did not fit within this box: for the rest, visit this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lomt0dW2OF9gj1MSWCR_CyCuvii30jBv4EhEy4AbPk8/edit?usp=sharing
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Transcript
Hannah Matthews: Changing Perceptions in Contemporary Arts
00:00:10
Speaker
The perception of contemporary arts is often that it is misunderstood, or underfunded, or too niche to have a broader impact on the world. That perception is blown to bits when you meet an arts administrator who truly understands the reach that art can have.
00:00:26
Speaker
Perth, Western Australia is famously isolated, and making art in the West can often feel like it's happening in a bubble. Until you come across an individual like Hannah Matthews, a curator, a programmer, and now general manager of the legendary Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, one of my sister's favourite places.
Collaborative Energy at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
00:00:45
Speaker
Hannah is bringing a collaborative energy to the organisation that she describes as an octopus with magnetic powers. drawing artists to Perth to do things they would not have space to do elsewhere.
Building Artistic Boundaries: A Discussion with Ricky Arnold
00:00:58
Speaker
In this episode of Georgia Malone's Here Goes Nothing, Hannah sits down with Ricky Arnold, Executive Director of Art on the Move, to talk about the magical peak of building, shifting artistic boundaries, career versus practice, and what happens when we actually invest in our arts.
Fridays in the Arts Sector
00:01:21
Speaker
Good morning, Hannah Matthews. Hello, Ricky Arnold.
00:01:26
Speaker
How lovely to spend a morning with you. I know, a Friday morning. I feel Fridays in the arts and culture sector are maybe the day we try and carve out for ourselves to reconnect with people, think about what we're doing, go and see things. It really is, actually. Yeah.
Reflecting on an Extensive Arts Career
00:01:43
Speaker
I totally agree with that. Most people here, as you know, I work at Art on the Move, but most people here work Monday to Thursday and have Fridays off. So I often get this whole building to myself to work wander around and think and talk out loud to myself. Yeah. It's a very important space to make loud phone calls while I'm walking around the warehouse.
00:02:11
Speaker
Like the headspace and the office space. Yeah. Yeah. I think these Fridays are, I find them increasingly very important.
Family Influence on Art Passion
00:02:18
Speaker
So we're here to talk about you and your illustrious career in the arts and also to have a real reflection, I think, on the role of contemporary arts as we've seen over the course of our careers in Perth and in Western Australia. Your your career obviously spans Perth, but also the whole of the whole of Australia and and and indeed internationally.
00:02:42
Speaker
So your you know your reflections about what that means in Perth now that you're back in Perth is going to be really, I'm really fascinated to hear some great stories. But maybe we should start with going right back to the very beginning when little Hannah was first looking at art and deciding why art was really important to Hannah.
00:03:06
Speaker
Where did all that begin? and i love this question. Where did it all begin? What is the origin story? Do you know what? I would have to say i have to absolutely 100% acknowledge my family and particularly the women in my family. Like I grew up in a small country town in northeast Victoria, Yordi Yordi country near the Murray River, very flat, very footy focused, you know, like one of those small country towns. And, um,
00:03:33
Speaker
My parents were both from Melbourne, but they moved to the country in the 70s to, inverted commas, make muesli, right? Moved from the city to, you know, establish different lives that they wanted from their families. And um i my mother, my father, and I've got three siblings, or all the women in that ah my family are creative. And I would have to say even growing up in regional Victoria,
00:03:58
Speaker
I was, or we were all constantly surrounded by opportunities to engage and participate with art.
Core Art Values and Work-Life Balance
00:04:04
Speaker
So whether it be like local theatre, music classes, often undertaken under duress, but the pathways were there if you wanted to learn.
00:04:11
Speaker
um Brilliant art teachers, poetry. There were all these things that were accessible to us, even in the small country town. And my mum in particular was incredibly active in the community, ensuring that these opportunities were accessible to all kinds of people in the community.
00:04:32
Speaker
And I think, um you know, she was incredibly gifted as an artist as as well um as my two sisters. I don't think it's unfair to say that myself, my brother and my dad deeply ungifted in terms of manifesting things visually or materially, but they they were sort of just naturally talented in bringing creativity to everything that they did.
00:04:51
Speaker
So I would say that beginning made art and culture a really essential part of my life from the
First Major Role at the Biennale of Sydney
00:04:57
Speaker
get-go. And I think it's been a core value in all the work that I've done since, that if people have this opportunity from the very, very beginning,
00:05:07
Speaker
then it becomes part of life and how we live and the balance of how we live. I think professionally probably the first big experience that really ah left me excited and compelled to work particularly in contemporary art.
00:05:23
Speaker
My first kind of like I guess real gig was up at the Biennale of Sydney, a big international contemporary art festival that happens every two years up in Sydney. It's one of the oldest. It's based on the Venice Biennale model in Europe. And I just went up there to like do admin and finance. You know, like you know i I did a master's in curatorial studies. I worked at a scientific software company, selling software, no knowledge of that stuff at all.
00:05:46
Speaker
But like I had these admin and finance skills and I moved to Sydney in that role, but very quickly. quickly, I was actually given the opportunity to work directly with artists on some of the new commissions in Sydney. And in particular, one of the venues was the Sydney Opera House. And I worked with James Angus, who's actually an artist from Western Australia. He's been living in the States for a long time now. But I worked closely with James to have fabricated like a full scale hot air balloon, which we then installed inside one of the sales of the Sydney Opera House, but upside down. And The opportunity to be in conversation with him about this vision, the work was called Shangri-La.
00:06:20
Speaker
The opportunity to be in conversation with him and work closely with him to learn about the steps of making something pretty radical, like a pretty radical intervention into iconic architecture, into people's experience of cultural spaces. I guess that really whet my appetite for like what contemporary art and what contemporary artists could do and how I could work with them to support that.
Curating in Melbourne: RMIT University Experience
00:06:41
Speaker
And I was up in Sydney for a couple of years working with the Biennale and then I came back home, back to Melbourne, and i just thought, all right, I can do this.
00:06:48
Speaker
Like I've got the skills, like the practical skills to work with artists and make things happen, but I've also really got the desire to kind of work in this creative space, make some contribution to this creative space in conversation with artists. And from there I curated curated my first show, which was in this old bank vault at RMIT University with an artist called Rhys Lee. I'd only seen catalogues of works that he'd been making, but I think The Biennale of Sydney gave me the confidence to reach out, start conversations with artists, learn about them and their interests and the ambitions they had, and then find ways to make that happen. And perhaps that Biennale of Sydney experience was matched when I first walked into PECA, so the Perth Institute of
Impactful Time at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
00:07:25
Speaker
Contemporary Arts. like I remember coming over from Melbourne um for an interview, and Sarah Miller was the director of PECA at the time. i remember walking into that space and just thinking, wow,
00:07:36
Speaker
so many things that could happen here. And this director, you know, so skilled, so experienced, such a great advocate for artists. I think coming to Perth and working with Pika in 2005, six and seven as the curator, yeah, being early Sydney and Pika, they've been kind of like really formative professional experiences in terms of working in the contemporary arts and all its possibilities.
00:07:56
Speaker
That's ah such an amazing opportunity, obviously, to work with the Opera House is one of the first things that you do that is just stunning. Can I take you back and just ask you another question on on before that? What was the support that you had to then choose the area of study? So you went to do which university did you go to?
00:08:17
Speaker
okay Because often lots of families obviously put pressure on their children to find other pathways that are going to be real jobs, as we hear over and over again. How much support was there for you when you decided to sort of go that track and actually um down that pathway? Yeah, look, um I mean, my family, my siblings are police, law, teacher.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah. But having said that. That's good. So they've got it covered and you had you you had space. And I'm the youngest. So a youngest of four, you get away with all kinds of things. No, but a yeah, seriously, i was thinking about this this morning. My dad, who was a lawyer by by training, you know, i remember him always reflecting on like his role in this creative household and like particularly in relation to my mum, who was just so vivid and vivacious. And he used to always describe himself as like a stone or a rock, you know, like this sort of like stone.
00:09:12
Speaker
static inert thing and actually what realized on reflection is that he was actually like the ground on which all these other these other things could happen and I think I'm probably a bit the same you know I'm kind of like the ground on which artists ideas artworks organizations can kind of happen That's and just something I've been thinking about more recently as I get older and he gets older and we reflect back on how things begin. So I bring that up because we were really supported to do whatever we wanted to do, wherever we were drawn or compelled. And I think, you know, I got sent away to boarding school, which at the time I was very cross about, but
00:09:51
Speaker
My high school got burnt down just a couple of years later. Like it was a good call to send me away to Melbourne to study. And from my high school time in Melbourne, I then went on to Melbourne University and really just to go into a Bachelor of Arts.
00:10:04
Speaker
And I followed my interest. I did like medieval history, architectural history, political science, Chinese art. I did a whole range of things basically. But I slowly found myself most engaged and curious in art history and architectural history and political science. I guess through, like like I mean, I grew up on the sort of like east side of the city, a little bit judgy part of the city when I was sort of in high school. But my, yeah, I had a lot of friends on the north side and I guess I just sort of slowly moved north. And I mean, this is the thing that happens in cities everywhere. But um I found myself going to more art galleries.
00:10:39
Speaker
And Melbourne University, where I studied, has the Ian Potter Museum, which is a really brilliant university art museum. I started going there. i got a job as a gallery attendant because I was looking for casual employment. And then, you know, it's just one of those stories. I met the curator of the Ian Potter Museum of Art over the back fence of a party, like somewhere in Fitzroy. We started talking. She said, come in and come in and see me. At that point, they didn't have a volunteer or or an internship program at the Ian Potter. She asked if I'd like to do so an internship with her, basically, and that's sort of how the kind of practical work in the museum or gallery or visual arts environment began for me. Yeah, say like some, I've taught at university from time to time, particularly in curatorial studies, but also into fine art degrees. And when students are coming to graduate, there's a lot of anxiety about what happens when you leave the kind of embrace of the educational institution and step out into industry. And um I always say to them, like, if you're genuinely interested in what you're doing, and if you're genuinely interested in what others are doing, and you can find that connection, that is such a great spark and such great material to kind of grow relationships and make things happen.
00:11:43
Speaker
And I think finding my way into that internship, which then turned into employment at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, was the beginning of my professional career. Basically, like, feeling, becoming part of a community and an industry, acquiring the skills of, like, best practice in that industry and turning up every day.
00:12:01
Speaker
to a museum or or a gallery or a studio basically. Yeah, I mean, I think those things are incredibly influential, aren't they? um I mean, obviously you were expressing that interest and you were there and learning and in the gallery and being seen and, you know,
00:12:17
Speaker
actually engaging. But those kind of amazing, generous offers that people often, you know, that you find in life can actually change everything and really change the way then that you actually work with other people in the future. Because I think you never forget those kinds of generous offers.
00:12:36
Speaker
offers and and then pay back later. And and yeah you know obviously the way that you work has really kind of paid that back in the future consistently across because that that is you know at the core of what you do in terms of giving artists that chance to have a go and a showcase and a platform. And you know that's amazing.
00:12:58
Speaker
I think relationships are everything, not just at work, but I think in our lives, full stop. Rachel Kent was the curator at the Ian Potter at that time. And Rachel went on to become senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. And then Bala Starr started at the Ian Potter. So she was a second mentor. And both of those women I'm still in conversation and, you know, friendship with today. how fantastic.
00:13:21
Speaker
And then Sarah Miller became the third once I started at Pika. And then Juliana Enberg became the fourth when I worked at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts. So I've always had very strong, creative, political leaders who have, yeah, generously extended themselves and their mentorship to me throughout my career. And it's been foundational, pivotal, important.
00:13:44
Speaker
I wouldn't be here without it. I know that. The industry has changed somewhat, so it's thinking about how to extend those opportunities to others, both artists and arts workers, as I move through my career. Yeah. I'm going to take you back to that lovely time in 2005 when you arrived in sunny Perth. and And we met at that time. I was working in the old Arts WA at the time.
00:14:07
Speaker
and was working very closely with a number of arts organisations at that time, of which obviously Pika was the key contemporary art space. I was very new to working in the sector at that time too, so you and I were both very new in in Perth. I'd been in Perth for a while but hadn't been working in that sector that much.
00:14:27
Speaker
And yeah, Sarah Miller was a tour de force, really. And so my first couple of years, I started in that role in 2002 and Sarah was obviously a fantastic mentor for me as well.
00:14:40
Speaker
yeah um And learning about um the art scene and and the the local environment came a lot through the work that Pika was doing at that time. And 2005 was the the year that she finished a kind of 12 year reign as the queen of the cultural center.
00:15:00
Speaker
and went on to obviously all sorts of amazing things beyond that. But it was quite ah um a unique space at that time, you're right. And Beck Dean had um just finished up as yeah as the exhibition coordinator and you came in as the new new role in the whole thing as the curator. And Katie Major had been there before Beck. Like there was an interesting... Yeah. Curators that have come through PECA, yeah. There are amazing curators that have come through PECA. Yeah. And um what what did you, what were your first roles when you first came in? What did you, what do you recall? I recall, what I recall? I recall the building.
00:15:40
Speaker
I recall Sarah. And I recall like, yeah, Sarah gave me this incredible um gift, which was like her trust.
00:15:51
Speaker
And she was like, just go for it. Just go for it. Look at what's happening. Look at what's happening locally. Bring the things you know. Think about the spaces, et cetera, et cetera.
00:16:03
Speaker
And my first inclination was to calm things down a little bit. Like at Pika, there was, oh, I feel like we used to do like 25 shows a year or something. was chaos. It was huge. And it was carnage on the staff. You know, I think I had a month to put together Hatched, the national graduate show for that year. And there was 51 artists in there. in that exhibition. Now there's 23 or something. Anyway, it was just bigger than Ben-Hur and lots was happening and I loved that.
00:16:31
Speaker
But i I guess I was trying to bring a layer of legibility actually to the things that Pika was doing and a bit more space and attention to the projects that were happening in there. I wasn't working in the performance program so much at that time. That was a big door that opened for me while I was at PICA, have to say as well. You know, just getting a better understanding of dance and theatre and music. That was a really formative part of being at PICA, but it wasn't the space I was working in in that role. That was also the time that I first met Georgia Malone, who was there working in marketing. yeah You know, there was such a great... Which the communications and marketing officer who had just come across from the festival. Yeah, and i think...
00:17:12
Speaker
you know georgia being a few years younger than me yes but having such fierce knowledge and intellect it was good like both being there with really sharp eyes and knowing how to like tighten things up sharpen things up a little bit for the organization so being in that kind of company as a team is really invigorating and motivating because you've got the skills and the motivation and the vision to just like get moving and get things happening One of the big things that you, I think, also worked on that was around at that time was the ah Banquest Contemporary Art Prize, which was a huge part of the calendar at those times. Yeah. As well as then ah create there was a newly created screen program that had been, oh yeah that was a new a new um thing coming in. But you worked on ah an exhibition called Drawn Out, which Oh my God. You had so many, I mean,
00:18:02
Speaker
yeah you know ah that was your first show. Yeah. Going back to that screen space, you know, so Sarah's, sarah's the director's office was in what is now the Pika boardroom. And there was just this space next to it that had a roller door on it. And I was like, this is like bad, like what is, this is such a waste of space and bad vibes to have a roller door shutting off space in the gallery.
00:18:25
Speaker
And I'm like, let's just take it off. It's like perfect proportions for a screening room. Let's just do that. And Sarah was like, let's just do that. Like if you can make it work in the budget, let's just do that. So to bring, yeah, screening program into multi-art contemporary art space just felt like no-brainer and something we could do quite quickly and easily. There was a lot of art prizes in Perth at that time. I do recall that.
00:18:47
Speaker
it was It was a very popular thing. Very popular. And the City of Perth Art Prize changed at that time and came to Pika in your Yeah, did. It did, yeah. And it was, you know, they're great programs for like visibility of local artists.
00:19:02
Speaker
You know, I think they're very good towards that. But I think even when I was back there in 2005, I really wanted to like think locally but connect the special things that are happening in Perth with other conversations happening across the country and internationally. Yeah, i definitely did a bit of work quite quickly in making those sort of bigger thematic group exhibitions that would locate West Australian artists alongside their peers. Yeah, and drawn out. It was incredibly important, Hannah, because obviously getting out of Perth and going exhibiting to exhibit over east was an incredibly big call for our Islam.
00:19:36
Speaker
ah to to do that. So having that kind of juxtaposition and connection that was here and then going out from here was really influential. Yeah. Well, also because there were other spaces in Perth that were focusing more locally. Yeah. So it wasn't like ah in the in the kind of art and cultural ecology, there were other spaces that had that quite local focus. So I felt like it wasn't taking opportunities away.
00:20:02
Speaker
it was actually just providing a different set of opportunities to local artists. Yeah, but I mean, maybe in the haste and frenzy of it all, like, yeah, drawn out. And there was another project, maybe a year or two later, like works on paper. yeah it was all so fast. that That show had the worst title going around, basically, I think.
00:20:19
Speaker
can't remember what it was called, but it was it was not very thoughtful. But, yeah, I think those sort of thematic material, I guess, focus shows, practice focus shows could bring lots of artists together. You'd also been working on a show that was for the Commonwealth Games. Oh, yeah. So that was with the Next Wave Festival. of all Yeah, that's the Next Wave Festival. And in in the end, kind of funnily enough, that was the thing that took me back to Melbourne because I met my partner Tom through doing that project and I ended up going back to Melbourne and pouring beer and working as a freelance curator for a while. But yeah, i mean curatorially, yeah, Sarah just gave me a lot of space to think about what Pika could provide amongst what was already happening in Perth. And Amy Barrett Leonard, who then came on after Pika, similarly so. And I think that really continued for the curators like Lee Robb and Melissa Keys and others who came after me and worked with Amy. I just, you know, the other thing I really remember about coming to Perth those first three years, there was so much...
00:21:14
Speaker
You know, the practices but appeared very experimental to me coming from Melbourne and Sydney. Like there was a real desire for liveness and trying things on that maybe other artists would be more fearful of trying on amongst their peers and audiences. Like I just remember feeling very compelled very early on by some practices that I thought were like really, mean, these are all words that are used too much now, but were really innovative and really experimental and really risk-taking and really challenging. You know, from Pilamada, DuPont, serenading a horse down at the bakery to Domenico DiClario doing his slave pianos, like Marcus Canning. Like there were just lots of kind of exciting practices going on, which also made me feel like this is a good place to be. Like this is a great place to learn about all these other artists and all these other conversations that from the East Coast is so hard to kind of like penetrate and connect with. So I felt like, yeah, Pica was a great home to be supported
00:22:08
Speaker
to think and learn the local arts ecology and practices. And i think I think you're right. I mean, there was an explosion of of new blood and new small organizations and collectives that were being formed. So, you know, out ah of the ah just, you know, before you, that the Jack Sue Gallery and the Curb. And, you know, there were a whole lot of kind of artist collectives being led by really entrepreneurial people like Kate McMillan and Marcus Canning, who then sort of went on to set up, you know, sort of bigger versions of Art Rage in the bakery space, and PVI Collective. And, you know, there was this real explosion of, you're right, of kind of live performance. And I i think Pika was very, as you said, the performance and the visual arts that Sarah brought together so cohesively in programming kind of influenced then how
00:23:08
Speaker
the whole sector responded in terms of losing those boundaries be between between visual and performance, visual art and performance art, I think. And I think you're right, that that that was coming through in in the collective at that time. Yeah, no, I agree. And I think it's still, you know, when i think about Pika in the you know national kind of se art sector, there's still very few places that are like it. It's still pretty much essentially unique.
00:23:38
Speaker
And i think in part that's because of its building and what that building allows to happen in terms of programming and working with artists. I think it's the multi-arts mix. ah Before we move off this topic, because I really want to ask what happened after you met your new partner in Melbourne.
00:23:54
Speaker
i didn't know that's where you'd met him. um But some ah just just a little reflection, looking at where you started as a an intern and as a a gallery attendant um and the start of your career, when you look back at 2005 and see the crew that was on the ground in Pika, It reads like a kind of contemporary art, um you know, who's who now. so So you've got as invigilators, you've got Consuela Cavanaugh, you've got Taryn Gill, you've got Tamara King, you've got Mark McPherson.
00:24:31
Speaker
Hi Jack. You've got Sally Richardson, you've got Leticia Wilson. Yes. And in your admin support you've got Thea Constantino at the time, and installation is Paul Captain and Richie Kuhut. Yes. you know, just a Brandon Van Heek, Rick Verme, you know, just incredible kind of artists that then were working around that space and being supported and then having their own careers outside of it. It's just such ah a wonderful sort of list of looking back and going, yeah, this is such a great career path and a great kind of support structure. Yeah. I mean, I think that is a really ah essential part of what Pika has been actually nearly, nearly over its 35 years. You know, maybe it was finding its feet at the very start and still quite artist-focused, but I think, Pika, I always think but sucker it's like an octopus with magnetic powers, you know, like it draws people in from different disciplines, backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera, but all with the desire to, like, make sure there is space for contemporary practice, right, in all its myriads of forms. And sometimes that's about developing works,
00:25:42
Speaker
Sometimes that's about presenting works. Sometimes that's about arguing about works. But it's like that very important platform where it can just happen, whatever is happening in in Perth, like whatever people are needing to do. I think like that has always been what's really vital about PICA. And whether it was by accident or not, the fact that the West Australian state government has a major contemporary multi-art space in its Perth cultural centre amongst blue chip organisations like the State Gallery, the Museum and the Library and next door the Blue Room Theatre. I've just always thought that was such a brilliant advocacy for contemporary art in this state. you know, on my first day, I do remember walking um walking up William Street towards Pica and they used to have the front or titles from the newspaper at the time. out the front of news agencies. And the title on my first day was like, Lord Mayor Ticklehares Perth Cultural Centre, the dead heart of Perth. And i remember thinking like, what the hell is this place? But then of course I walked into Pika and I went, you know, visited other orgs around there. And like, these are special magical places. Like,
00:26:42
Speaker
The Perth Cultural Centre is like this square or civic space. Yeah, it's always struggled outside, but inside those places, inside those cultural institutions, magic is there and culture is there and people are engaging. But it was a little black cloud on my first day.
00:26:58
Speaker
quickly just Quickly dispersed. Yes. I mean, the I think that was the ultimate time of the Dullesville that happened as well around that time. Yeah. um And I remember the city of Perth was getting a lot of criticism for, um you know, and and the the government for not having ah a lively cultural scene. Yeah, okay. Supposedly. The other thing, Ricky, just to say, because I've just been doing a bit more thinking, looking around the national cultural policy, just side side note, but just thinking back, like, so 2005 was also just a few years after the myer the like Rupert Myers report. and Yeah, that's right. So federally, you had, like, the visual arts and crafts strategy, which was instituted between federal and state governments.
00:27:44
Speaker
you know, there was money, there was like, think it was like 39 million or something across the country, but there was this injection of money across the arts and cultural sector, particularly the contemporary sector, which just introduced stability in terms of opportunity and capacity, but B, just kind of like recognised what this sector did and in recognising it, like giving it the respect and value and lifting it up and, you know, making it feel strong and confident, which is when all these things, great things started happening.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And we haven't had that injection of cash since then. No, that's right. And that that that report was 2002, just as I started in government. Yeah. and And that's right, the money started to flow in 2005. So, um yeah, and and Pika was the biggest beneficiary from that, from in the WA space, along with Form, along with the um the now defunct BEEP, BNR. Oh, BNR Electronic B. Yeah, totally.
00:28:45
Speaker
IASCA and yeah um the amazing things there, Art on the Move, yeah um and so and and the kind of new mid-career fellowship programs and curatorial emerging curator programs which sent people to the Venice Biennale.
00:29:02
Speaker
and And it really did have this amazing kind of injection and ah growth around new opportunities, which also so may gave lots of West Australian artists the opportunity to get out. Because once you were recognised in a way as a Vax-funded artist, you were suddenly part of this national cohort that was viewed as...
00:29:28
Speaker
ah ones to watch you know it's had this other other effect as well which was and the partnerships across the country that opened up was just incredible it was huge you had like mobile states in terms of touring like live yeah yeah the twin play base were yeah been replaced dancers as space eaters picas you know long participation in the ko network but like yeah ah that is such a like vital time of vitality, which has just sort of slowly been kind of like screwed and rinsed out too for lots of different reasons. But, yeah, I've just been thinking about the timing of that and, you know, my reflections on Perth being such a like –
00:30:12
Speaker
hot spot of hybridity and risk-taking. Yeah. Because those foundations were there and people felt comfortable and confident to be ambitious, to take risks and to challenge things. People could apply for funding to publish a monograph. That's right. Mueller, Matt Hunt, Helen Smith, you know, they made these books which then went out into the world to places where they couldn't necessarily go themselves. Yeah.
00:30:38
Speaker
You know, like such valuable opportunities and collaterals and platforms were funded at that time. And the wonderful, do you remember, the wonderful Real Time magazine? Oh, yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah? With Galash. Those kinds of things were all funded through that. Yeah, there was writing being funded. There was visiting artists and curator programs. Yeah, I think that report...
00:31:00
Speaker
And I think the government at the time may have been liberal. it Alan Carpenter? Yes, it was. Yeah. Like there was just this understanding of, and again, this another word that gets used too much maybe, but like the ecology of the arts and cultural sector, like all the parts of the pie that are needed to make it thrive. Yeah.
00:31:18
Speaker
And something has gone wrong since then, i would have to say, because things have definitely changed. let's um um Let's try and um have a look at the few years that you had away from Perth in between going and coming back.
00:31:34
Speaker
where you went and did some other amazing things. Where did you go to straight from Pika? Where did you move to straight away? I moved to Melbourne, to Nam, and I worked at the Edinburgh Castle pouring beer. Basically, like I left without a job. I left for love.
00:31:50
Speaker
And it was a good bet worked out however many years later and two children later. But I followed- that's 19 years, isn't it? Congratulations. Thanks that's very much. Long time, long time. I took, ah yeah, I took a risk. I took a risk, but I think I was back for a couple of months. And then I got this like, what turns out to be very um characteristic email from Juliana Enberg, who's, you know, for a very long time as Australia's most internationally recognized curator and director. It was like 10 words. I hear your back.
00:32:18
Speaker
Do you want to meet? like terrified because she's, you know, equally to Sarah, formidable intellect, formidable energy, formidable capacity. Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
Anyway, I went in and and super quickly I was working as an associate curator with the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, ACCA, in Melbourne, freelancing. So I just worked on several projects a year, which meant that I could also do some teaching at RMIT University and Monash University and Melbourne University.
00:32:47
Speaker
And in that environment, actually, i also started a family. I had my first child, Eve, who's actually turning 14 tomorrow. While I was working at ACCA, I used to take her in like a little bassinet and like... She'd be there for the installs and everything that was happening. But ACCA was, you know, like Pika, it's got such a long, incredible history for bringing people together and making opportunities happen.
00:33:10
Speaker
Also for like argument and contention and controversy and all those things that happen. But, you know, i guess similarly to, yeah, that sort of that starting off at Pika, like Juliana was very much you know she as soon as she had assessed in her mind who i was and what i was able to do and bring She was like, all right, well, you're with Joanna Billing and I want you to do a contemporary collage show and these are three things.
00:33:34
Speaker
Go and do them. Come back and like touch base when you need to. It was always like the trust is there. Go and do your thing. Come back to me if there's any problems. And to be honest, that's kind of how I work still, you know. someone is doing what they need to do, I'm like, just come back to me. Just come back to me if you need my help or if you can see something's coming up on the horizon that you're concerned about. But like, you know, follow your path. Yeah, so, you know, this I think it was nearly 10 years was seven to 10 years i was at ACCA and I did so many great projects with Australian artists like Michaela Dwyer and Lyndall Jones and a new like lots of commissioning of of younger contemporary artists as well but then also ara at that time was quite internationally focused so working with people like oh Ryan Gander, Joanna Billing, Douglas Gordon like a whole range of people like the opportunity was incredibly abundant I also learned, Julianne, I hate this, but I also learned, you know, like there's a lot of international travel. And so i also learned how to travel very economically. It was if you're going, you're going with carry on luggage only and you're on and off the plane, you're able to rush around and do all the things you do. And I still travel internationally and domestically like that.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah, me too. Just tricks of the trade. But it was an incredible time and like, you know, ACCA at that time was probably similar to Pika. Like I worked with colleagues like Charlotte Day, Rebecca Coates, lots of guest curators, the younger team like Mark Fiery, Lear Adams. Like it was a really strong time of lots of people, creative people coming into the organization and working together. And I also ended up working on ACCA's 30th archive, so like the anniversary archive.
00:35:08
Speaker
going through that archive, digitizing and making accessible a lot of material, but also recording a lot of interviews with former directors and curators and board members just who, you know, who are entering into their 70s, some of them. So just to record, but also make accessible some of the histories that were really important to that organization.
00:35:26
Speaker
i loved my time at ACCA. And from there, I moved to Monash University Museum of Art. So MAMA, which is out in Caulfield University Art Museum. and really advocate for the work that university art museums do. They're much more sort of longer term research scholarship focused, but very, yeah, they can work at a kind of depth that many contemporary arts organisations can't. And my time at MAMA was really brilliant. Charlotte Day was the...
00:35:49
Speaker
director there and we had again a really solid team, um really skilled, really committed and all of the kind of personality type where we just jumped in together and agreed on what were going to do and got things done. Invested a lot of time in the artists and looking after them and hosting them and introducing them to things happening in Australia that perhaps if they were visiting from overseas you know, like trying to make a big whole experience inside the museum through publishing, but also the kind of community in Melbourne. I was there, yeah, i was there for seven years. I had another kid, my son Gus, and realised a lot of incredibly important projects with artists like Vivian Binns, a big retrospective, who's a Canberra-based painter, now 86.
00:36:28
Speaker
eighty six And that was a survey that I worked on with Annika Jaspers and in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Another really important project to me was a project with the First Nations artist Dee Harding. It's based up in Brisbane. They now live in Paris.
00:36:42
Speaker
But a big project with Dee and their mother Kate. And that was really a very special project of, you know, at the time, a young artist, a First Nations artist, acknowledging the learnings basically that they work that they received from their mother in terms of the practice and giving opportunity to their mother, also an artist,
00:37:00
Speaker
and to think of themselves as as an artist through this exhibition. Anyway, yeah, lots of projects that felt important to me in the museum but also had real resonances with the artists and audiences. And, yeah, so I was at Mama for seven years, so through COVID as well actually, and then, yeah, Pika came knocking again.
00:37:19
Speaker
um You seem to have it through that time also so that ah looking across art forms a lot more as well. Oh, yeah. You were involved in a lot of contemporary dance forums around that time. so Yeah, yeah, that's true. So Sarah kind of really lit my interest in dance and theatre. Like I saw my first back-to-back theatre performance at Pika. Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
Small metal objects. Yes. Yes. It's carrot, you know, like. Amazing. Yeah. So when I came back to Melbourne, my partner Tom was working at Arts House in North Melbourne. So it's a local council organisation that works across art forms. Yeah, I think I was really compelled by the liveness of dance and performance and things that can only happen in that moment or in that space.
00:38:02
Speaker
And so when I came back, I really spent a lot more time with contemporary dance in Melbourne and also music and also performance, but contemporary dance primarily and started, yeah, started making a range of projects, some of which were presented as part of the Dance Massive Festival that Melbourne used to hold, some of which were workshops, some of which were publications.
00:38:24
Speaker
We brought over the American choreographer Yvonne Rayner. can't remember what term they use now, transmitter instructor, but... A younger choreographer that she works with, we brought her over to teach artists in Melbourne and artists in Sydney and Perth, I think. I think she went to three different cities in the end, but to teach them Trio So this very iconic um choreographic work that Yvonne Rayner had made, which is very widely known through documentation, like still documentation, a little bit of video imagery,
00:38:53
Speaker
But yet i I kind of was just thinking about how to create different opportunities for visual artists, for dance artists to learn these iconic works, to kind of move beyond the documentation that we're often limited to in Australia, to actually have primary experiences with those works. And Trio is like a complicated work. It's like three different scores of gaze, movement and, you know, kind of spatialising. And I did that workshop. I can...
00:39:20
Speaker
I can remember a few things, a few phrases from Trio A, but like, yeah, the the group of people that I brought together, maybe it was a little bit like when I was a picker. You know, lots of different artists sharing interests but bringing their own disciplinary practice to the conversation.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah. And from that time also I've formed an enduring relationship with Shelley Lassica who is a you know choreographer, choreographic artist who's been working in Melbourne gosh, 40 years. And so I ended up also with Shelley and a group of other people interested in in this sort of dance visual intersection. we ended up undertaking this Australian Research Council funded project called... um Whoa, that's bad.
00:40:00
Speaker
Am I going to remember? Carious movement. Carious movement, sorry. This chapter back here, it's the name of the book. um But we were all so deep in this conversation and like the Biennale of Sydney, I think 2016 had a big quite a big focus on sort of dance and visual culture intersections through Stephanie Rosenthal. Anyway.
00:40:20
Speaker
There was a lot of national interest and people were doing lots of interesting things. And through this ARC funding, we got this opportunity to actually like work with artists and commission works that sort of really existed at that kind of hybrid point.
00:40:36
Speaker
And so making, this is while was at MAMA actually, but making this sort of survey exhibition, of a choreographic practice was a bit of a new thing because it wasn't, you know, Shelley was like no documentation, you know, like it wasn't about, so you know, showing the past through still imagery.
00:40:52
Speaker
We bought incredible selections of costumes and props and all these things from Shelley's archive together, but they were alive in the space through a new choreographic work that was performed by eight dancers whenever the gallery was open.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah, fantastic. So anyway, it was. It was a really, that time in Melbourne was a very rich period in terms of working beyond just contemporary visual arts to think about how it and intersected with movement and liveness. And it's been, ah that yeah, that was the many nourishing, stimulating conversations ah in that space, which I was able to sort of find opportunities for while i was but working at both ACCA and mama ACCA did a big show called Framed Movements and this was before the ARC project even began. But Maria Sabi, who's a Cypriot artist um who was at the Venice Biennale, she's a choreographer but she's very interested in photography and sculpture and she came and performed this amazing work in the main hall of ACCA again, unfolded all the hours or the ah opening hours of the gallery. but you know being able to bring that work to Melbourne, it's not like an object that gets freighted
00:42:00
Speaker
It's a choreographer. It's the four dancers who train with them. It's local dancers who train with them. Like it's such a big, the economy of those projects is so different. And to have a space like ACCA and I think to have a space like Pika that's willing to go there and understand the complexities and needs of that and still go there, it's really important for cities to have and for artists to have those kinds of spaces, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So wait where what brought you back to Perth? What made you decide to step from where you were into the role of a leader of an organisation like Pika?
00:42:33
Speaker
Great question. Great question. I had been at MAMA for seven years. I'm a believer of not staying past that time. I think seven years a good bracket to get into somewhere and understand it and do some good and then leave it in a good place.
00:42:46
Speaker
really advocate for people moving around in jobs, particularly within one city. Yeah, yeah. I had stayed very connected with Perth, so I sat on the board of International Art Space, IASCA, IAS, for a long time. Yeah, right. Under the directorship of Marco Marcon. I had stayed in relationship with many, many artists from Perth that I met while working at PICA or showed while working at PICA. Yeah. In fact, actually, when I first moved back to Melbourne, I made this project with like 25 West Australian artists. It picked up on that really, another really amazing part of Perth's history. Ben writing was making projects like Hotel 6151. And Office 6,000.
00:43:25
Speaker
six thousand Yeah. You know, they were taking over spaces and bringing artists into those spaces to just like make incredible short-term work. Awesome. Yeah. You know, like that was a big part of Perth that other places weren't doing at the time. Yeah.
00:43:39
Speaker
And so we kind of took that model, and this was in in partnership with Ben Writing, we took that model to Melbourne to this a place called Linden Contemporary, which is down in St Kilda. It's an old Victorian home. It was a boarding house back in its day.
00:43:53
Speaker
Anyway, we did Linden in 1968. So we took the place, the boarding house, we went back to the year 1968 and we brought the work of 25 artists and I think probably about 15 artists from London Perth to Melbourne for the exhibition because we had performance, we had installations. Tom Mueller worked on this amazing publication which took the form of like a National Geographic from 1968. Just all the parts and bits i think which Perth was doing so well at that time. But yeah, like Brendan van Heck, Bennett Miller, Bevan Honey, Simon Perisic, Rebecca Bauman, Eli Smith, like there was stuff.
00:44:30
Speaker
Everywhere. But I really wanted, and and DCA, I think it was at the time, supported that project. I really wanted after leaving Perth to like make more evident all these amazing practices from the West Coast on the East Coast.
00:44:42
Speaker
I got to do that little bit. I curated Primavera in 2008 at the Museum of Contemporary Art and that involved new like new work from Pilamada Dupont and Taron Gill. And then I was also, and when i was at ACCA, they have had this series called New, which was sort of major commissioning and Through that, i was also able to commission Brendan Van Heck and Rebecca Bauman. So they were, i would say, actually for like a lot, that time in between, often looking for opportunities for West Australian artists wherever I was because I really believed and do believe in those practices. Coming back, well there was a little black there was a little black cat, Domenico DiClario, like turned up in Mama's Gallery one day.
00:45:21
Speaker
So Domenico, artist, educator, you know, senior person in the Australian arts world, was the head of art school at Edith Cowan University when I first came to Perth in 2005. And I really haven't seen him since I left Perth.
00:45:36
Speaker
And I'd been called about by the recruiter about the job at Pika and I went into the gallery for something and there was Domenico DiClario. So I felt like it was a little bit Black Hat, Deja Vu, you know, the world kind of pointing me to sort of stop and think about what was happening and what, you know, what I was sort of being asked to consider in making a move. It was also the end of COVID. So Melbourne COVID was pretty bad. And like, um I wanted my children to live in places beyond Melbourne.
00:46:06
Speaker
So actually being able to take my family to Perth felt felt like a really good opportunity for them. You know, it was piquing. I don't think I would have come back to WA and uprooted everything for anything else but Pika.
00:46:18
Speaker
Yeah. It's that long magnetic force that it has so many people that have been part have been part of its history. And what did you see that was was different, do you think, when you first got back?
00:46:31
Speaker
What was the best thing you noticed? Yeah, look, I mean... The context obviously is like COVID, but, you know, COVID covid being a bit different in WA, but COVID being the global situation that it was, I feel like everything's kind of somewhat coloured through that lens. It felt a bit quieter maybe when I first...
00:46:50
Speaker
came back like in the gap in the building, felt a bit quieter. I knew there were still lots of great artists, both in performance, dance, sound, visual arts. I knew there was lots of great artists still here. And actually that a lot of great artists and arts workers have also returned to Perth, like during and after COVID. i think that was also really encouraging for me. People like...
00:47:09
Speaker
Annika Christensen, who's a curator that I've worked with at ACCA, and then um Stephen Gilchrist, who's a First Nations curator and and academic who's at the Berndt Museum at UWA.
00:47:20
Speaker
I'm a bit of an intuitive person, I have to say. Like I kind of, that's for better or worse. That is a bit of my energy. And I just, what I was conscious of is that Pica is this pretty enormous building, iconic building. There's incredible spaces for like private spaces for making, public spaces for showing,
00:47:38
Speaker
spaces for gathering it's centrally located next to Perth train station it's part of that Perth cultural center which I mentioned before it's such a great place to be located and co-located with other cultural institutions I just thought we've really got to like use this building actually we really have to put this building to really good use because for us just to be doing our own own thing in here is it probably needs to be more at this in this time and place when Rent, particularly in Perth and places like Darwin, it's a nightmare.
00:48:07
Speaker
Cost of living is just an increasing problem for everybody, let alone artists. We have so much space. Let's open things up a little bit. Let's get artists back in here, and in here using the spaces for experimenting, taking risks, breaking things, making things.
00:48:24
Speaker
Let's try and think about how to make the this the the architecture and the building itself a little bit more permeable. I think have been concerns of all of Pika's directors. I don't think that's unique to me by any means, but I think, yeah, I just felt very strong. I mean, you could see that straight away as soon as you arrived and that you, you know, you brought in the residency program, but you also had, you brought PVI in to be kind of in...
00:48:47
Speaker
residents in the building and you know sort of really opened it up to some of those really core contemporary groups that had been growing through that time yeah look I think you know one PICA's greatest qualities and again this has been a long-term thing but I think perhaps we've just put a little bit more resourcing and energy into it at the moment is that PICA through the Hatch program the Hatch National Graduate Show We work with artists from the time they graduate and then we work with them like several times throughout multiple decades of their career.
00:49:18
Speaker
It's like a lifelong, lifelong relationship. Yeah. And whether it's emerging artists, whether it is commissioning work, whether it's giving studio space, whether it's sending them overseas, whether it's teaching them how to hold a workshop or create a learning resource. Like I think that's a really defining part of what Pika is about and does is a long-term relationship with artists and being in conversation with them to understand what they need to continue their practice and career and responding to that with opportunities opportunities that we can provide through our staff,
00:49:53
Speaker
through our building and through our different program levels. I would also say this career career versus practice, like there are artists that just want to have a practice, right? They're not necessarily so interested in audience or commercial or these things.
00:50:09
Speaker
And Pika is a space for both. It's very important to keep space for practices which are much more interior but really vital for understanding what is going on around us and highlighting what is happening in society.
00:50:24
Speaker
And equally, it's really important to support those artists that are wanting to have careers, you know, the who are wanting to become more commercially viable, who wanting to develop markets and audiences. So we we we keep both in mind and I think that's also quite specific to pick up what What really excites you for the next year or two ahead? what's What excites me is 2027, the conclusion of the Perth Cultural Centre Rejuvenation Project. Yeah.
00:50:55
Speaker
All in hoarding going and there have been some very beautiful landscaping. Yeah. Returning our entrance to the north, getting our performance space back. Yes. Look, there's been good opportunities in using the performance space as our interest for the entrance for the last two years. But quite frankly, not having it is just such a... yeah It's absent for Pika, it's absent for the performance community, it's absent for audiences. And while we've worked with performance companies in different ways, getting that space back is like on the top of my mind. We've also received some significant support from Lottery West in returning the performance space and returning the foyer and doing some back-of-house work, which Pika really needs to do. So we're looking forward to 2027 just...
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah, kind of yeah reorientating ourselves back to the origins, I guess, of Pika, but also refreshing ourselves a little bit more sector-wise and more, yeah, perhaps longer term. so I was reading this morning from, the you know, the think tank and your approach.
00:52:02
Speaker
This is actually the first time that all jurisdictions of Australia have a cultural policy in place. First time ever in Australia's history. And that's a good sign. And we have the revive national cultural policy.
00:52:15
Speaker
It's about to be reviewed in preparation for a new cultural policy to be released in late 2027. But I feel, yeah, feel like it's potentially a good time for better alignment between national, state, local.
00:52:28
Speaker
You know, perhaps this art and cultural, a national art and cultural strategy that helps align those things and their priorities and their investment. i Yeah, I'm optimistic about the next 12 months in terms of policy, which is not sort of sexy or exciting, but is important in terms of how we think and work with government. And 2029 is Pika's 40th anniversary.
00:52:49
Speaker
peakka's fortieth anniversary Very excited about that. And you know, Art on the Move, you mentioned, is also having its anniversary. Yes, yeah. Awesome. Yeah, art Art on the Move. um Its incorporation was in 1987. So yeah, 27 is the official 40. But this just this year, there was the first meeting in Williams of all of the um ah interested regional arts partners got together with the Australia Council. and talked about how does WA become part of a national touring structure.
00:53:26
Speaker
so this year is the kind of start of those conversations leading yeah only 27 when it was uh to 1987 yeah it was first incorporated yeah so i mean like all these conversations are very important they're the place where ideas begin and and take seed and i think yeah for out on the move for pika mara geck who's had their race i mean there's a number of organizations that are kind of coming of age or middle age, I'm not sure which one, but they're exciting times and they're testament to the people who had the vision to form them, but they're also a testament the people who have kind of carried them through over those decades. It's extraordinary.
00:54:08
Speaker
It is extraordinary. Yeah, looking back from here, a Maggie Baxter. Oh, yeah. And ah was the first curator commissioned to do the first West Australian artist tour. Right. Yeah.
00:54:23
Speaker
ah Peter Daly. So Maggie Baxter and Peter Daly, one did a ah show that was from the now Curtin collection. And Peter Daly did a ah show that was ah celebrating West Australian sculptors.
00:54:37
Speaker
They were the first two tours commissioned in 1987. Pretty good. Yeah, it's really exciting. Those archives, we've just been looking at our PECA archive and... um you know, the abundance of like printed material and documentation, like there's a lot of great reminders in there of all the special yeah work and projects and people that have happened. And so now i'm really setting my brain to how we can honour and acknowledge those key points and bring you know existing networks but also younger generations into PECA and the PECA archive to have a look at what's in there as we turn 40. Connect the young and the old.
00:55:18
Speaker
Very important. Relationships are very, they're everything. Hannah, thank you so much. It's been really fascinating talking with you and hearing about your history and what you've brought to Perth. And thank you so much for everything that you've done. And I look forward to a continued work environment together where we get to celebrate our birthdays together.
00:55:45
Speaker
That's very kind, Ricky. And that's very, very nice invitation. I look forward to that too.
00:55:56
Speaker
What a great chat between two people really making things happen in our industry. We can't wait for 2027 when Pika can emerge from its construction cocoon to continue doing the extraordinary things that most cities could only dream of incubating.
00:56:11
Speaker
Georgia loved her time at Pika and was a massive advocate for the contemporary arts. So to complete the circle she set up to have this chat with Hannah and Ricky was a true pleasure.
00:56:22
Speaker
I'm Toby Malone, proud to continue moving the ripples of Georgia Malone's life one episode at a time. See you next month.
00:56:32
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Georgia Malone's Here Goes Nothing. This podcast is dedicated to the enduring, impactful and dynamic memory of Georgia Lindsay Malone. We produce and maintain each episode in Georgia's honour to keep the ripples moving.
00:56:48
Speaker
Georgia Malone's Here Goes Nothing is produced and engineered by Toby Malone with the support of co-producers Joe Malone and John Carter. Original theme music by Lyndon Blue.
00:56:59
Speaker
As for where this podcast is based, let's let Georgia get the last word. This podcast was made on Whadjuk Noongar Budja, a place I'm very privileged to call my home. And I acknowledge and honour all Noongar people that have been making art on this land for tens of thousands of years and will continue to do so for generations to come.
00:57:17
Speaker
Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This is a GM Productions Project.