Cementa Artist | Gilbert Grace

EVENTS

SPECIAL EVENTS

Whispers in the Grass

08 April 2017 17:45 Duration 45 MINUTES
Annemaree Dalziel with Cheryl Roach, OzScot Dancers, Rochelle Sutherland and local performers: Whispers in the grass uses native grasses and dance to explore a double diaspora. Many thousands of Highland Scots left Scotland for British colonies, displaced by British laws and practices that had shattered their Gaelic culture. They entered a new Australian society that displaced the original peoples and changed the ecologies of their country profoundly. Some came to the Capertee Valley. What became of their language, their grief, their habits? Do grief and trauma mark our DNA and transmit silently across generations, reawaken with singing of the susurrant grass? Grief whispers in the grass and we dance a joyful unforgetting …

That Thing Between Us

08 April 2017 12:00 Duration 40 MINUTES
Delegated performance That Thing Between Us is a spatialised work for community voices, featuring a body of regional participants that has accumulated since 2015. Super Critical Mass (SCM) brings together temporary communities to create ambient sound states in publicly accessible places. Each ‘orchestra’ is made up of one type of sound source, whether musical or everyday: 30 ceramic bowls, 50 voices, 100 brass instruments. That Thing Between Us is a study into interdependence. As is typical for SCM the work is planned but unscored and emerges from internalised instructions. As the human voice is organic, each singer must rely on one other to establish and maintain pitch. This creates a dynamic feedback situation reminiscent of early social works by Pauline Oliveros or Cornelius Cardew, a rich and ever-changing sound portrait of a society in action. 12–12.40pm Saturday 8 April

Written in Cement

09 April 2017 18:00 Duration 40 MINUTES
Poetry performance by Derek Motion, Tanya Thaweeskulchai and Saradha Koirala: a diverse group of poets from New South Wales and beyond read some of their recent works, pondering the permanence/impermanence of the written/spoken word. 6pm Sunday 9 April

Sound Night

08 April 2017 20:00 Duration 2 HOURS
Chris Caines and Jon Drummond – light tracings and sound etchings; Damian Castaldi – solo percussion and electronics – Knock, knock, knocking on Kandos doors; Jasmine Guffond – live electronics; Gary Warner – performance soundscape (with Tess de Quincey and Alan Schacher); From 8pm Saturday 8 April

Future Acts

09 April 2017 10:00 Duration 90 MINUTES
Workshop, tour and discussion Future Acts examines the spatial politics of the travelling stock reserves (TSRs). They contain practical, environmental and cultural resources that are depended upon today as they have been for millennia. We are only now beginning to understand the origins of the TSRs and their relationship to Indigenous trade routes, aboriginal sites of occupation and their significance to biodiversity. We invite you to listen firsthand to the spatial-politics of this land from a local Indigenous perspective with Wiradjuri elders Kevin Williams and Lyn Syme over a campfire damper breakfast. Kevin will give us a tour of TSR55 showing us how to read the landscape for evidence of aboriginal occupation. Lyn will talk about negotiating Native Title and the spatial-politics of land. Lawyer Maeve Parker will introduce us to Native Title, Aboriginal Land Rights, Future Acts and how they play out in this context. This work is part of an ongoing research project commissioned by the New Landscapes Institute, and culminating in an exhibition at Wagga Wagga Gallery opening 5 May 2017. 10–11.30am Sunday 9 April, Rylstone TSR: Bylong Valley Way (1 min drive north of Rylstone at the top of the hill). There will be people waiting on the roadside to meet you. WARNING: You can drive onto the TSR but road conditions are 4WD only after bad weather and are rough in parts. You enter at your own risk and take responsibility for any damage or loss to property while on the tour.
Eventbrite

Tour of Marloo

08 April 2017 09:00 Duration 3 HOURS
A rare privilege: visit Marloo, the property of farmer and educator Stuart Andrews of Tarwyn Park Training. Andrews will demonstrate how he is rehabilitating severely degraded areas of Marloo to a fertile and water-retaining state by employing the principles of Natural Sequence Farming. This is a chance to hear firsthand from an innovative farmer what it means to practice sustainable, economically viable land management. It’s a 10-min walk from the Marloo bus drop-off to the demonstration site. Wear sturdy footwear and bring hats and water. Saturday 8 April. No cars. Bus departs 9am from Buchanan Street, behind Kandos Community Centre Hall. Book the bus at Eventbrite or at C17 info booth. 60-seat limit. Cost: $20 waged, $10 unwaged, $10 local. Children free. Bus returns to Kandos approx. 11.45am
Eventbrite

Pagoda Parkour

08 April 2017 14:30 Duration 45 MINUTES
Parkour, b-boy and tricking performance: PYT | Fairfield presents Pagoda Parkour, a collaboration between Karen Therese, Victoria Hunt and the Dauntless Movement Crew, a Fairfield parkour, b-boy and tricking team. They will create a new work amongst the unique pagoda formations at Ganguddy (Dunns Swamp, Wollemi National Park) near Kandos. This project was made possible by the generous support of Festivals Australia. 2.30pm Saturday 8 April: Take the bus or drive to Ganguddy: limited parking. Bus departs from Buchanan Street, behind Kandos Community Centre Hall 1.30pm. Returns to Kandos via Birds Hut by approx. 5.15pm. Book the bus on Eventbrite or at the C17 info booth.
Booking for Bus

Cementa Official Opening

07 April 2017 18:00 Duration 5 HOURS
Opening night celebrations take place across four venues in downtown Kandos, beginning with a 5pm Evensong service at St Laurence Church; at 6pm progressing to opening speeches, buffet dinner, announcements and performances at the Railway Hotel; moving on to fringe event Six Quick Chicks comedy cabaret at 79 Angus Avenue; then to A Galaxy of Suns, a major choral performance at the Kandos Community Centre Hall before returning to the Railway Hotel to party with The Mumps.

5PM ST LAURENCE CHURCH Evensong service led by Val Warwick

6PM RAILWAY HOTEL Welcome to Country by Lyn Syme; opening speech by Kent Buchanan, Western Plains Cultural Centre; launch of Futurelands2 newspaper by Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation; Pagoda Parkour preview by PYT | Fairfield; cabaret sneak peak by Six Quick Chicks

6.40PM RAILWAY HOTEL Eclectronica with Boris Hunt; Opening Night Buffet Dinner

7.15PM 79 ANGUS AVE Six Quick Chicks Comedy Cabaret

8.15PM KANDOS COMMUNITY CENTRE HALL A Galaxy of Suns with Michaela Gleave, Amanda Cole, Warren Armstrong & the Cudgegong Choir: a vocal chorus will sing the motions of the stars

9PM RAILWAY HOTEL Opening Night Party: The Mumps (Tina Havelock Stevens, Liberty Kerr, Adele Pickvance) – Post-rock transcendental power tunes with Super 8 visuals by Tina Havelock Stevens

Cementa17 Salon Opening

06 April 2017 18:00 Duration 2 HOURS
The opening of an exhibition of works by local painters and artists: the Cementa Salon. This popular social event begins the festival, with a speech by Mid-Western Regional Councillor Sam Paine. Refreshments will be served. All welcome. This is a great opportunity for visiting artists and local people to meet.

Soft Landing

09 April 2017 18:40 Duration 35 MINUTES
Graham Davis King and Eric Murrawuy Avery present a violin and didgeridoo performance.

Artists

Gilbert Grace

Artwork:

The Hemp Initiative (KSCA)

Land+Art residency and outcomes

Realising Ian Milliss’s Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation from Cementa13 became my idee fixe and project for Cementa17. Long before 2017, KSCA took on a life of its own, including a Land+Art residency. I am working alongside Ian Milliss, Laura Fisher and the other members of KSCA to achieve some, if not all, of Ian’s ambitions for Kandos (the ersatz Lithgow that provided the research impetus). We are navigating bureaucratic hurdles to obtain a licence for Stuart Andrews to grow a crop of low-THC industrial hemp at Marloo. From a list of prospective outcomes we have completed a hempcrete ceremonial gate on Angus Avenue, a first-edition bamboo and hemp bicycle frame (more to come) … and Futurelands2. The project will contribute to the body of knowledge required for a hemp industry to flourish in Australia as Sir Joseph Banks, The British Royal Society and the British Admiralty intended. Artist’s talk: midday every day except Saturday Book at Eventbrite for the Tour of Marloo: Bus departs Kandos 9am Saturday 8 April

See works at venue

Full Biography

1. Gilbert Grace, The Hemp Initiative, 2017. photo Alex Wisser

1. Gilbert Grace, The Hemp Initiative, 2017. photo Alex Wisser