BORDERS Swan Hill Lab
Event description
BORDERS Swan Hill Lab: 17-19th February 2023 **new dates!
BORDERS is a creative enquiry into people and place – exploring the relationship between creative communities in Victorian and New South Wales cross-border towns and their Murray River environment. The project offers a series of online gatherings, as well as place-based research labs along the Murray River, concerning creative enquiry into place.
The Lab will pursue the question: what is a border? We will consider the notion of border towns, the Murray river as a border, and our bodies as borders within our environment. We will investigate how individually, and as communities, we can connect and respond to the river.
The Lab is free to attend and is for artists and researchers in any discipline, and anyone curious about our relationship with place - with a particular focus on the Millewa-Tongala (Murray) river. Those interested in investigating their relationship to the environment will benefit, such as people who are actively engaged in an artistic practice, eg visual artists, dancers, performers, writers, craftspersons, sound and video artists. Also people who are engaged in environmental work would benefit. No movement training is required. The physical work will be low - medium intensity
There are limited spaces available. If you have any queries please contact Rach Kendrigan, Creative Producer via borders@regenerativecommunities.com.au
Our venue, the Speewa Town Hall will be our base for the weekend. There is free camping onsite with a kitchen and toilets available. Please let us know if you plan to camp. If you prefer to book your own accomodation, the venue is an easy 15 minute drive from Swan Hill. Friday night dinner is provided, please bring your own food for the remainder of the weekend.
"(The Lab experience) was a revelation to change my perspective from seeing myself as separate to the River to becoming the River. I think the Lab enabled me to see myself connected to others and to the environment after a period of disconnection." - Kelly Leonard, Mildura Lab 2022
"Connecting with new people in this environment was a real highlight. Hearing how we are connected to each other by how we individually felt connected to the River was special to me." - Win Moser, Mildura Lab 2022
PROGRAM
Friday 17th February, 6.30pm
Dinner & yarning circle
Speewa Town Hall
We will begin to understand the story of place of the Millewa-Tongala River through story sharing with artists, First Nations, and farmers. Meet the artists who will be facilitating the weekend workshops and find out more about their methods of inquiry.
Additional dinner places are available if you would like to bring someone- please email Rach at borders@regenerativecommunities.com.au
Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th February, 10am – 4pm
Creative enquiry workshop
Speewa Town Hall & surrounds
A physically exploratory workshop in which we experience how our bodies and imagination meet and mingle with the myriad textures, shapes, energies, movements, temperatures of the river and surrounding environment. We will do a series of activities that tune our awareness of time, sharpen our senses, and bring our attention to the ecology that constitutes our body, and the ‘body’ that is the environment.
Much of workshop will take place outdoors by the Murray river. Please bring a light lunch (we won’t be near anywhere
to buy it), water bottle, all weather clothing, good shoes, a hat, mozzie repellent, notebook and pen/pencil.
The Lab facilitators
Linda Luke
Peter Fraser
Rach Kendrigan
Rach is a practicing artist, community development worker and regenerative practitioner from the Mallee. With fifteen years experience working in arts, culture and community development they bring systems thinking, creativity and collaboration to everything they do. Their creative practice explores the intersections between body and place, with a practice grounded in Body Weather. Using performance, video, drawing and installation their art serves as a process for understanding systems awareness.
Peter and Linda’s artistic practice is also grounded in performance and Body Weather. They both have danced and performed for De Quincey Co, Australia’s Body Weather dance company, as well as creating and choreographing their own performances.
Body Weather is an experiential, exploratory practice that investigates the intermingling of body, mind and nature. It was developed as a dance training, by the legendary Japanese butoh dancer Min Tanaka, but it is useful for anyone wanting to sharpen their embodied awareness of place and ecological entanglement.
Peter and Linda, each in their own way, have worked extensively with artists and communities beyond dance and performance. For the Borders project, Peter and Linda will share their respective processes. They will work physically, gently and playfully, often in partnered work where we share what we discover and how we discovered it.