Encountering a dance work in the context of a museum can offer new frames of context, inspire unexpected connections and/or propose timely critique. In this panel discussion, hosted by curator, producer and Precarious Movements research team member, Zoe Theodore, three of Australia’s leading artists working with dance in the gallery will discuss how artists are leading the way, exploring new ways of collaborating with and forging new working methodologies. Artists Alicia Frankovich, Amrita Hepi, and Rochelle Haley, who have each contributed new and original work to the Precarious Movements research project will discuss their experiences bending form, working between structures and embracing plasticity in an institutional context.

Moderator
Zoe Theodore is an independent curator, creative producer and researcher living and working on Gadigal country. She regularly works directly with artists on the realisation of new work for museums, the public realm, performance programs and commercial galleries. She is a current PhD Candidate at the University of New South Wales, researching the intersection between dance and the museum, and is the Project Coordinator of Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, an Australian Research Council project in partnership with the University of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria, TATE UK, Art Gallery New South Wales and Monash University Museum of Art. She was the Co-Editor of Dissect Journal’s third issue and has held professional roles at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Firstdraft, Sydney; and MoMA PS1, New York.

Speakers
Alicia Frankovich was born in Tauranga, Aotearoa New Zealand and is currently based in Naarm, Melbourne. She holds a PhD from Monash University Melbourne and a BVA in sculpture from AUT Auckland. Frankovich is a multi-disciplinary artist interested in the potential for imaging and experiencing new modes of imagining bodies, their behaviours, atmospheres and environments, both human and non-human. Her work queers nature in seeking to find new ways of imaging what has been called Nature, with all of its assumptions, through artmaking. Frankovich has presented numerous solo exhibitions and performance commissions, such as Rich in World, Poor in World for NGV’s Melbourne Now in 2023; contributed to many group shows in Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Europe and North America; and undertaken residencies in Melbourne, Berlin and New York.

Amrita Hepi (Bundjulung/Ngapuhi Territories) is a multidisciplinary artist & choreographer based in Naarm and Bangkok. Her interest as an artist is in the idea of archive; particularly in relation to the body and how it is organized by ancestry/people/events and environment. By coalescing fact and fiction,memoir and ethnography, the local and the singular into the performance/art work she makes. Amrita trained at NAISDA & Alvin Ailey NYC. A critically acclaimed artist she has twice been the winner of the people’s choice award from the Keir Choreographic Award, was a Forbes 30 under 30 for artist, and has shown and been commissioned nationally and internationally.

Rochelle Haley is an artist and Senior Lecturer at University of New South Wales, School of Art & Design Sydney who engages with painting and choreography to explore relationships between moving bodies and physical environments. Her painting installation and performance works explore intersections between colour, gesture and light, discovering harmonies between audiences, performers and architectures. Haley is interested in painterly and choreographic modes of composition, experimenting with abstract form and colour embodying temporality within space.

Speakers
Shelley Lasica’s practice is defined by an enduring interest in the context and situations of presenting choreography. Making solo performances that function as a mechanism and a commentary on making work, her practice provides the basis for generating ensemble works with a network of artists working in dance and other media, that question the collaborative and interdisciplinary possibilities of choreography. She is a lead research associate with the Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Gallery. WHEN I AM NOT THERE will be presented at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art in June 2024. Over 2023 and 2024, Lasica is undertaking a residency at Callie’s Berlin though which she is making a new iterative work, RENDER.

Hannah Mathews is Director/CEO of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). She was formerly Senior Curator at Monash University Museum of Art, where her projects included Shelley Lasica: WHEN I AM NOT THERE (2022); Vivienne Binns: On and through the Surface (2022), Dale Harding: Through a Lens of Visitation (2021), Agatha Gothe-Snape: The Outcome Is Certain (2020) and Shapes of Knowledge (2019). Mathews has held curatorial positions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts; Next Wave Festival, Melbourne; and the Biennale of Sydney. She has edited numerous publications and is currently a chief investigator on the ARC Linkage Grant Precarious Movements: Choreography in the Museum.

Speaker: Jimmy Robert
Jimmy Robert is a multidisciplinary artist working across performance, photography, film, and collage, and frequently collapsing distinctions between these mediums; his work often investigating how the body can be personified through materials. His performances are meticulously choreographed within exhibition spaces or in dialogue with existing architecture, drawing inspiration from historical performances and layered narratives that reference art history, film, and literature. Born in Guadeloupe in 1975, Robert currently resides between Paris and Berlin. He has been the subject of a mid-career retrospective at Nottingham Contemporary in 2020, this exhibition has travelled to other international institutions in 2021. Recent solo exhibitions include presentations at Moderna Museet, Malmö (2023); Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2022); and The Hunterian, Glasgow (2021). His most recent work Joie Noire, premiered in 2019 at KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin, and was restaged in March 2023 at Palais de Tokyo, Paris. A comprehensive monograph of Robert’s work is set to be published in 2024.

The participation of Jimmy Robert is made possible through a cooperation with Artspace Aoteaora and Goethe-Institut New Zealand. Jimmy Robert is represented by Tanya Leighton Berlin and Los Angeles.

Moderator: Pip Wallis
Pip Wallis is Senior Curator at Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA. She has recently curated exhibitions and performances by Sung Tieu, Steven Rhall, Bouchra Khalili, Adam Linder and Hito Steyerl. Pip was previously Curator, Contemporary Art, NGV. She is a chief investigator on Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, an Australian Research Council Linkage project (2021–24) and a member of Matter in Flux.

NGV International, Great Hall

INNOCENCE was commissioned by NGV as part of the NGV Triennial 2023. With additional support from the Australian Research Council through research and commissioning partner Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, a research project hosted by University of New South Wales, with Art Gallery of New South Wales, Monash University Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Tate.

Please note this part of the event is free and open to the public.