Issue 31: West
The Art of Failure.
Friday, 10 June, 2016
The Sydney-based collective Get To Work (Tracy Quan, Georgia Taia and Paris Taia) are at my house for an interview. I pour some tea and press record.
Vivienne: Do you have any questions you want to ask me? What do you want to see in this piece, what don’t you think is said that you want said?
Paris: Hmm. What is the premise? What is ‘The West’?
Tracy: It would be good if it were just really open. You know how sometimes you read something, and it is like, this is what they do or they explore this… and it would be good to see more works like this. An open, creative dialogue that is not closed… So when people read it they are like, OH.
Paris: Um, I agree. [Laughter from Tracy and Georgia] It is important you make note of open dialogue, we want people to engage with our works all the time, and I think it is important to start conversations, as opposed to being seen as a 100% personal journey. Because it is personal, but also, it represents more.
Tracy: Yeh, it’s not like we are dead and you’re writing a biography. [Laughter]
Paris: It goes beyond ourselves.
Georgia: But also put yourself in there too, you are as much a part of this piece.
Tracy: Yeh… put your background in there, explain your relation to this… It should be a really flowy conversation. [Laughter from Paris and Georgia] What?
This project started off with thinking about failure. Everyone has a year of failure, a day of failure, a moment of failure. The way I see it, WESTern culture glorifies success as a way of being in the world – it is a mode, means and end result of living. What space then does failure open up? If failure is defined as a forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing form, can it offer a more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world?1
Thursday, 19 May, 2016
I call my partner and tell her – I want to write a project proposal for RUNWAY ISSUE #31[WEST about failure, there is no room for it within Western culture. I tell her I would talk about Sydney-based artist collectives such as Deep Dirt Collective and Get To Work – groups which resist dominant culture and transgressively dismantle constructs of colonialism. She tells me this is a red- flag, she says it does not sound good – a white woman of privilege writing about women artists of colour. Secondly she says, there is room for failure in Western culture, it’s called privilege. I hang up. She is right, I am embarrassed and it makes my face burn red and hot.
Where to go from here then?
I decide to get in contact with Deep Dirt Collective and Get to Work to see what they think about it all. Both are all-women, Sydney-based artist collectives. Deep Dirt Collective’s practice involves collaborative live work installation and uses personal and collective narratives to pay homage to their ancestral lineages. Get To Work explore aspects of cultural identity shared by three women growing up in Australia with Pacific Islander heritage, through their playful practice using the body, amateur dance and performance.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Email transcript
From: Vivienne Cutbush
To: Deep Dirt Collective
I am writing to you in regards to a project I am working on, and as artists of The Deep Dirt Collective I wanted to ask if you’d be interested in being involved.
I am writing a short word piece for RUNWAY for the upcoming issue ‘West’. I want to explore the theme WEST from a cultural viewpoint as opposed to geographical, ie. Western constructs, the periphery, success versus failure…and where art fits in … I think the idea behind “non- participation” is really relevant here too…
The Deep Dirt Collective (and I’ve contacted Get To Work) jumped to mind – you are dismantling colonialism, telling your own story. When writing about this, I don’t want to do the same thing white people always do – write about you. I want it to be in conversation with you from the start. So it’d be great to get together with you for an informal chat about your art practice, the collective, hear what you think about the concept/construct of WEST. I want to hear what you think I should be writing about, you can tell me what you want written, how you want it written… teach me how I can write your story respectfully/in collaboration, instead of me writing about you… Does this make sense?
Let me know if you are interested/have the time to chat to me. Look forward to hearing from you.
Friday, June 10, 2016
Excerpts Get to Work interview.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Something to think about –
Writer and Artist Jessica ‘Coco’ Hansell asks, ‘Are those less represented always obliged to light up dull discourse with their “unique perspective”? Or are we simply playing into the machine that constantly renders us unique?’[2]
Am I using Get To Work or Deep Dirt Collective as a form of tokenism?
Monday, June 13, 2016
This place
which lingers under our eyelids and in the curve of our palms is west
of here
and west
of nowhere.
As artists we look for the cracks that yield a glimmer of hope and transcendence within this imperial capitalist civilisation.
Saturday, June 18, 2016
An interstice is an intervening space, usually very small – like where the light shines in beneath the door. They are the cracks and crevices, breaks and gaps. Although you might not see it at first, look again, look deeper – these are the spaces which Deep Dirt and Get to Work inhabit. It is this inbetweenness where identities are re-claimed, stereotypes dismantled and the illusion of The West is fractured and unveiled. These collectives create works that prick the conscience of those who encounter it.
To live is to fail, to undo, to not know. But to live is also to learn. This work started out about failure, but became a process of dialogue, questioning and collaboration. Through conversations with Get To Work and Priya Panchalingam from Deep Dirt Collective, I came to see, and acknowledge these collectives are not filling a gap nor working on the periphery, they are opening up a valuable space in-between for questions to be asked and voices heard.
All images are provided courtesy of the artists. Comic drawn by Vivienne Cutbush.
[1] Halberstam, Judith. The Queer Art Of Failure, Duke University Press, 2011.
[2] Hansell, Jessica ‘Coco’. Now Is Not The Time, NEXTWAVE 2016 ‘Worm Hole’, March 15, 2016.
Vivienne Cutbush is a writer, poet and multi-disciplinary artist working with thread, film, paper, pen and ink. She is interested in blurring the lines between writing and art – beyond spilling coffee across the page – occupying the in-between space of these two genres. A self-taught artist, Cutbush has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions across Sydney and explores the possibilities of language in her work. Cutbush is also a radio-maker and non-fiction writer, concerned with personal narratives – the stories we tell each other and ourselves. You can see her visual inventory at @antwerpenblog or read her words on Antwerpen. She’s had work published on Overland and AlienSheZine.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.