APHIDS
(est. 1994, Melbourne)

APHIDS is an artist-led experimental art organisation with a history spanning more than twenty-nine years. At once collaborative, intersectional, angry and humorous, APHIDS’ work brings artists into meaningful exchange with audiences through performance, screens, critical dialogue and unpredictable encounters in the public realm.

DEAD RICH, 2023, is a two-part performance lecture by APHIDS co-directors Mish Grigor and Lara Thoms. In two discrete and interlinked segments, DEAD RICH explores how lived experience infiltrates art practice in strange and unexpected ways. The lecture takes its cues from autoethnographer and performance scholar Tami Spry’s concept of the ‘textualising body’ – or what Spry describes as an unhierarchical ‘collaboration between body, page and stage’. Here, the work of research flows through a series of manifestations that equally produce knowledge. Through this lens, DEAD RICH attempts to use liveness, image, words and bodies to portray and unpack the performance of class and death in present-day Australia. The piece will be segmented into two discrete halves. In the first half, Lara Thoms examines a life spent making art about death. In the second half, Mish Grigor takes on class consciousness. Throughout the four performances of DEAD RICH, Grigor will, over time begin to replace herself with another actor, dancer Sarah Aiken, to contribute to this performance of abstraction.

APHIDS was first founded in 1994 by artistic director/composer David Young, writer/musician Cynthia Troup, visual artist Sarah Pirrie and fashion designer Kath Banger. In 2010, Willoh S. Weiland joined the company as artistic director, bringing with her an experimental and innovative program fusing music, performance and new technologies. In 2019 APHIDS entered a new era led by co-directors Eugenia Lim, Lara Thoms and Mish Grigor. APHIDS continues to be led by Lara Thoms and Mish Grigor, alongside executive producer Anna Nalpantidis.

Since its inception, APHIDS has presented works in major venues in every state and territory of Australia, as well as more unexpected places such as elderly homes in Finland, industrial zones in Bulgaria, union headquarters and even beamed into outer space. Collaborators have ranged from funeral directors and Uber drivers to scientists and pop stars, with each project promoting accessible yet complex, rigorous encounters between artists and the public.

DEAD RICH appeared in Community Hall on 5 Aug – 19 Aug 2023.

CREDITS
Created by APHIDS
Lead Artists/Performers: Lara Thoms, Mish Grigor
Performers: Alice Dixon, Sarah Aiken, Stefan Grudza
Voiceover: Catherine Ryan
Outside Eye: Jason Maling
Dramaturg: Zoey Dawson
Producer: Anna Nalpantidis