2021 PUBLIC PROGRAMS

LAUNCH
’NOT BORN DIGITAL’ CORINNA BERNDT & ‘BOLÉRO: A TAIL OF TECH SUPPORT’ SOPHIE PENKETHMAN-YOUNG
THURSDAY 23 JANUARY 2021

Verge was open on Saturday 23 January to view Corinna Berndt’s Not born digital and Sophie Penkethman-Young’s Boléro: A Tail of Tech Support.

LAUNCH
’PALLAY YUYAY: TO GATHER, TO REMEMBER’ PAULA DO PRADO & ‘RITUAL MY BEAUTIFUL CURSE (CAP GO MEH)’ JAYANTO TAN
SATURDAY 6 MARCH 2021

WORKSHOP WITH PAULA DO PRADO
’MATERIAL MEMORY’
WEDNESDAY 17 MARCH 2021

“Material memory” was a multi-sensory workshop about remembrance developed in connection with the exhibition pallay yuyay: to gather, to remember. This workshop was an opportunity to gather and connect through making. We explored ideas about ways of remembering as they relate to creative practice, plants and culture. This was a reflective, experimental and hands-on workshop with a focus on textile and fibre materials using thread, yarn offcuts, fabric remnants and everyday materials with non-tool based techniques such as wrapping, knotting, binding, assembling and arranging. Workshop facilitator and artist Paula do Prado guided participants through the materials and their symbolic connection to remembrance as well as demonstrated the techniques and shared the story of her process. Participants took home what they have made during the workshop along with leftover materials in their kits allowing for further exploration and making beyond the workshop.

SCREENING
’IN PROCESS’
THURSDAY 18 MARCH 2021

Kuba Dorabialski, “Broken English is my Mother Tongue,” 2K video with sound, 2020.

Co-presented with Sydney Review Books, Verge screened two new video works, presented in conversation with the artists.

KUBA DORABIALSKI
”Broken English is My Mother Tongue”
2K video with stereo sound, 2020

Language as process of culture, family and un/familiarity. A first person navigation of linguistics delivered from the bathtub.

AKIL AHAMAT
”Dawn of a day too dark to call tomorrow”
2K video with stereo sound, 2021.

A looping vignette featuring two characters, Akil and a CGI snail. The vignette features the two characters in an intimate dialogue talking about artificial scarcity of time and their inability to see a future.

Works commissioned by the Sydney Review of Books as part of a new program devoted to the experimental essay.

LAUNCH
’ABRIDGE’ WEI LENG TAY
SATURDAY 17 APRIL 2021

Verge invited all to the opening of Wei Leng Tay’s Abridge.

IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN YOUNG & WEI LENG TAY
’IMAGE HISTORY MEMORY PLACE’
THURSDAY 22 APRIL 2021

Abridge began with a series of interviews with migrants to Hong Kong from southern China, which led Wei Leng Tay to revisit a body of photographs she made while living and working in Hong Kong from 1999 to 2015. In this conversation, Australian-Hong Kong artist John Young AM joins Wei Leng discussed how their practices confront history, memory, identity and displacement. John Young’s series 1967 Dispersion (2008), based on the circumstances prompting the artist’s migration from Hong Kong to Australia in 1967, marked the first of Young’s History Projects (2007-2019), which have explored the imaging of historical trauma and transcultural solidarity as a form of ethical and social practice. For both artists, Hong Kong has been a site of personal experience yet also a catalyst for exploring such complex issues more globally, and from the present. 

BIOGRAPHY

WEI LENG TAY

Working across mediums including photography, audio, installation and video, Wei Leng Tay’s practice focuses on how representation is used in image-making and how difference can be negotiated through perception/reception, and the materiality of photographs. She uses formal strategies in installation, in the relationships between the visual and audio, image and text, and bodily experiences in encounters to question ingrained modes of perception and representation. One of the ongoing topics in Wei Leng’s practice is displacement as a result of movement and migration, focusing on emotional and psychic uneasiness related to ideas of agency, home and belonging. The works begin with the personal, in the realm of the family, and then build to consider ways the personal interacts with society, the state, the geopolitical. Tay has had numerous solo exhibitions including the 4-part Crossings at NUS Museum, Singapore (2018-2019) and The Other Shore at Australian National University CIW Gallery, Australia (2016). She has collaborated with institutions such as ARTER Space for Art, Istanbul, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan, NTU CCA Singapore and Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film, Singapore. Her works are in museum collections including those of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan, Hong Kong Heritage Museum and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art. 

OLIVIER KRISCHER

Olivier Krischer is an art historian, curator and translator interested in the relationship of art to social change in East Asia. From 2018-21, he was Deputy and Acting Director of The University of Sydney China Studies Centre. He is currently an Honorary Associate in Art History at The University of Sydney, and convenor of the Sydney Asian Art Series. Krischer’s recent curatorial projects include Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s-80s Taiwan (co-curated with Shuxia Chen, 2021),Zhang Peili: from Painting to Video (co-curated with Kim Machan, 2016), Weileng Tay: The Other Shore (2016), and Between: Picturing 1950-60s Taiwan (2015). His publications include: Shades of Green: Notes on China’s Eco-civilisation(co-edited with L. Tomba, 2021); Zhang Peili: from Painting to Video(2019); the special issue ‘Asian Art Research in Australia and New Zealand: Past, Present and Future’, Australia & New Zealand Journal of Art (co-edited with S. Whiteman, 2016), Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders (with F. Nakamura, M. Perkins, 2013). 

JOHN YOUNG AM

John Young AM has dedicated a four-decade long practice to the investigation of Western late and post-modernism from a bicultural perspective. He has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including representing Australia at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; as well as in large-scale touring exhibitions initiated by Australia in the Asia-Pacific (1998-2000).     

LAUNCH
’CHIMERA FLUSH’ NEIL BEEDIE ‘THE SMUSHING’ KIERAN BRYANT & SAMUEL HODGE
THURSDAY 3 JUNE 2021

Verge invited everyone to the opening of Neil Beedie’s Chimera flush and Kieran Bryant & Samuel Hodge’s The Smushing.

CHOLTEMOGA ONLINE LAUNCH PARTY
’AFTERSOUND’
THURSDAY 28 OCTOBER 2021

On the 28th of October 2021, Verge Gallery and CHOLTEMOGA launched their soundscape alongside a Q&A session with the artists.  

LISTEN HERE FOR CHOLTEMOGA SAMPLE PACK

ARTISTIC DESCRIPTION

CHOLTEMOGA is an interdisciplinary group made up of five individuals, CHristie Lucas, OLiver Harris, TEgan Berry, MOrgan Huggins and GAbrielle An. All from various musical backgrounds, they have created a work that highlights the notion of growth: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and of course, musically.

CHOLTEMOGA’s eponymous soundscape explores the concept of growth through experimentation, adaptation and repetition. Highlighting the journey of growth with multiple ups and downs, the piece reflects their year-long collaboration in the midst of adapting to new norms and ways of living impacted by COVID-19. They collected field recordings mainly from Verge Gallery, which became the root of their musical ideas and experiments.

Even though CHOLTEMOGA’S members all have musicianship in common, their individual disciplines are worlds away. The two horn players, Tegan and Oliver, took this opportunity to test their limits and create musical experiences foreign to their expertise in classical music, adapting these skills to a more contemporary and electronic sound. Over a series of recording experiments, Oliver and Tegan were able to share the tonal range of the French horn and explore extended techniques. During one of these sessions, Morgan discovered that when the French horn plays directly into the opening of a piano, a beautiful resonant sound is created - a combination of both French horn and piano. This process essentially allows the French horn to be played polyphonically; when the horn hits a note, it resonates with the correlating string on the piano with the sustain pedal held down. Gabrielle, on the other hand, became obsessed with the valve clicking sounds of the French horn. They would record Oliver and Tegan performing this action up close, resulting in a super intimate sound.

Despite the initial struggles of navigating different musical notation, disciplines and genres, it was the little moments of discovery and experimentation that inspired CHOLTEMOGA throughout their creative process. Expanding on the concept of growth, CHOLTEMOGA have collated their raw recordings from Verge Gallery into a downloadable sample pack for others to use.

BIOS

CHristie

Across multiple artistic disciplines, Christie brings vocals, music composition and dance elements to CHOLTEMOGA’s depiction of growth. These practices are spread across several stages of the work, utilising each skill to depict different expressions of growth.  

OLiver

With over 15 years of being a French horn enthusiast, Oliver is one of the performers in this project. He is well in tune with classical music, and has brought a flair of tradition to this creation. As a performance student, he has taken this opportunity to explore new soundscapes and develop his musicianship in a new setting.

TEgan

As a French horn performance student, Tegan is one of the performers in the project. She has transferred her knowledge of classical music to adapt to a new genre. Also with an interest in visual arts and design, she has been able to create artwork for the project.

MOrgan

Morgan is gently obsessed with sequencing, sampling, synthesising and mangling sound. He tries to work in a space where organic and synthetic noises combine for maximum emotional impact. He often gets lost doing this, but always tries to enjoy the journey.

GAbrielle

As a self described sculptor of sound existing and creating on Gadigal land, South Korean artist, works under artist name AnSo. Working mainly on the production for CHOLTEMOGA, their love for field recordings and found sounds is a prevalent part of CHOLTEMOGA’s works.