for ash, from meghan

I want you to pick a way you feel connected to Sydney, but not near your home. You can explore this with any medium in any way, but I'd like you to avoid 35mm if possible. So once you respond in the medium you choose, I want you to literally live with that item for at least two days. If it's an image, hang it somewhere you'll see it a lot...audio, listen to it for an hour a night...ect. Think about steps to take it further and re-do the original piece. Repeat the same process again, living with both steps for a few more days. I realize this may take longer than a week and a half, especially since you're at the end of the term so maybe just post as far as you've gotten by next friday. HOWEVER...I want you to go one step further and re-do the piece another time, pushing it even further.

much love.

A Short Film from Team Jimone

Instructions for Caitlin from Jessie

my pinky darling, I want you to extract the core concepts from the video "Spit Ballet" and resolve them in a new and entirely two dimensional way.

No video stills.
No performance.
No performance in photography.

A series of five to six images in a 2d form. They must be bigger than 11" x 14" in their final incarnation for hanging.
cacaw!

out of your comfort zone (i hope) jessie.

concept - go to a place in Sydney you've never been before, whether its as close as an apartment in your building or as far as a 3 hour drive away, and liken it to an experience you had in New York. breathe new life into an otherwise inanimate space.

weather the space is small or large, others should be able to recognise a sense of New York city, or at the least, a detatchment from Sydney.

documentation of the process can not be performative, if you choose to use images they can not be fragmented in any way; physically, during the process of taking the image, or making the image.
strictly no text.

=)
much love!

creative instructions for mark, from amy

okay mark, you knew this was coming :)

i want you to think about this period of transition between sydney and new york and make a work based on your reflections about that transition.  here are the stipulations:

1. you are not to use a camera of any sort to make this work.  no film, no digital, no video, nothing.

2. to document the work, you must find someone else to do it for you.  you can not give any suggestions or instructions to the person documenting the work.  you are not allowed to look through a camera of any sort during this entire project.  it can be documented however you see fit, whether the other person uses stills or video, or if you can document the work and post to the blog without using a camera you get bonus points.

that's all.  i don't care if it is visual, auditory, tactile, performance, text based or whatever else, just no cameras :)

When I saw Watsons Bay I thought about this...

He came dancing across the water
With his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world
In that palace in the sun.

On the shore lay montezuma
With his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls he often wondered
With the secrets of the worlds.

And his subjects gathered round him
Like the leaves around a tree
In their clothes of many colors
For the angry gods to see.

And the women all were beautiful
And the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice
So that others could go on.

Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones.

They carried them to the flatlands
And they died along the way
But they built up with their bare hands
What we still cant do today.

And I know shes living there
And she loves me to this day
I still cant remember when
Or how I lost my way.

He came dancing across the water
Cortez, cortez
What a killer.

Responding to Sydney

so, yesterday was the trip around the rocks and then the ferry ride to watson's bay to see the gap and the heads of sydney harbor.  there is a strange mingling between history and nature and urban.  the rocks are right there in the heart of the city, right on the harbor and are very much a part of the urban landscape.  yet there was this transposition between the modern landscape and the fragments of the history of the place.  i seemed to be very aware of the layers and layers of what came before all day yesterday.  history of the land, history of the people interacting with the land, the stories that make up a location.

there was a poignancy that was palpable with each of the spaces.  not even really knowing any of the specific stories, there was a heavy sense of something having come before, people interacting with the space that i found interesting.  i was thinking how similar australia and the us are in that sense, that the history of the place adds so much to experience since there are such varied and unusual pasts for both countries being settled by outsiders, colonized and developing into something different.

Response to today...

As requested by Simone...

While waiting for the ferry to head to Watson's Bay, Simone mentioned the Gap and that it's a popular place for suicides. I remembered stories I just read in the Peter Carey book I read the first week here, and how he described the history of this spot. While approaching and walking up the long, narrow, windy path I couldn't help but think about the significance this walk has held for so many. I imagined if I were going there to end my life that each of those steps would be so significant as I neared the top. I can imagine that each shrub and flower and patterns in the sand stone would hold an importance never meant to be placed upon them. The pathways almost force you to slow down and recognize the surrounding area and that only made each of my own steps hold a greater importance in my own journey to the peak.

The view from the top literally pulled a "wow" out of everyone, one by one as we caught our first glimpse of the gap. The drama of the waves crashing and water flying up before being pulled back out into the endless ocean was more than enough to understand the appeal of making this your last memory. (aaaaand I also just finished the Bell Jar and her descriptions of possible suicide strategies are still fresh and swimming around)

Our Fearless Leader, 1/2 of Jimone

Doors and water corpse

Alright. So...Mark gave me this project last week and I fell in love with it straight away:

"Think of how many doors you walk through during the day and night. Think of how easy/ difficult it is for you to get through them or to access the place they lead to.
Do you walk through these doors consciously? Do they relate to the water that surrounds Sydney?"

I approached this one by selecting my Dads apartment in Cronulla and the doors there, and the way they all lead to the water in one way or another. The beach is at the end of our street, and all the doors lead to the beach, or at least to a balcony with a view of the water. And when the doors and windows are open you can smell the salt, and when they are closed the sea salt sits heavily on them, streaking them into a fogged haze.

So then I started thinking about the water I am surrounded by and how it makes me feel...to me, water washes everything away both inside and out, and it's sway relaxes me. Much like my Dads place relaxes me because it is home.

With these images, I have tried to show this connection between the doors of home and the water surrounding it to show that they are always a part of me.

I think the first one worked the best for what I was trying to achieve, but I want to keep trying and do some more. I'm sure I can get something better than this happening!

x Ash