Doors at 7pm
Performance at 7.30pm

Created by artist-curator Rasha Tayeh, compost : compose invites artists mohamed chamas, Allara, and Ysk in a shared reflection on the role of art amid ongoing genocide, social unravelling, and climate crisis.

Through a live performance weaving music, poetry, and movement, the work responds to Rasha Tayeh’s ongoing project compost : compose, which asks: how we might compost old structures, tend to grief, and decompose inherited ways of thinking, doing, and being, to make space for composing new imaginaries — rooted in care, repair, and collective liberation.

What might become possible when we gather, listen and compose new realities together?

Join us in an evening of performance-based art of old and new compositions.

These artists will be in converation on Saturday 21 February for the compost : compose Public Program.

Presented at Next Wave in partnership with Blindside and Beit e'Shai.

Photo by Phuong Nguyen Le.

About the artists

mohamed chamas has been called a poet and new media artist {among many other things either erroneous or partially-correct}. Mohamed re-enchants subjective worlds from the space between heresy and miracle, where sacred rage and ecstatic dissolution are invited. Mohamed agitates language, cyberspace, gamification, the military-entertainment complex, occult studies and spirituality. They defy form dancing with hybridity across poetry, live visuals, interactive work, image, video, spatial installation and sculpture. Namely they create interactive VR work that is activated by ceremonial performance and/or spatial altar. Their work has been witnessed through platforms like Debris Magazine, Emerging Writers Festival, Mars Gallery, Incinerator Gallery, Seventh Gallery and 7 news.

Allara is a staunch Yorta Yorta artist - songwoman, bassist, producer and sound-designer. Living on Wurundjeri, Woi-Wurrung Country for almost 15 years, her motivation is driven by a hope of healing and self-determination. Her fire within, is ignited by the resilience of yenbana-l and woka-n mulana. Allara’s unrelenting commitment to collapse colonial structures, inspires her work in all fields, and is based in growing native knowledge resurgence, through wholehearted blak joy... AND crop dusting seeds of resistance, in every corner of every lawn. F**K the colony.

Ysk, born Yusuke Akai, was born in 1983 in Tokyo, Japan. As a guitarist, drummer, modular synthesist, composer, bandleader and educator, Ysk has extensive performance experiences across Eurasia in places such as Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Netherlands, Germany, Scotland, France, Belgium and more. Ysk has been awarded with numerous grants and artist residencies from institutions such as Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland, AsiaLink, University of Melbourne, Melbourne Polytechnic, etc. Their recent composition commissions have been delivered for ensembles such as Australian Art Orchestra, SuperFeather, Taste of Teeth, Sky Voltage, Brett Evans Quartet and various film and theatre projects. Ysk considers their boxing, capoeira, and dance practices as relevant to the musical outputs. Also relevant are the social, cultural, and political worldviews and the continuous learning and analyses of the selves and contexts.

Curator, Rasha Tayeh

Rasha Tayeh is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, researcher, herbalist and founding director of Beit e’Shai Teahouse. Her practice is land-based , focusing on telling stories about people’s relationships in community & ecology. With over 20 years experience as an exhibiting artist in Australia and abroad, and through her pop-up teahouse since 2017, Rasha has curated and hosted a range of art exhibitions, workshops, community events, live gigs and listening sessions, tea ceremonies and poetry nights.

Next Wave
270 Sydney Road, Bulleke-bek (Brunswick)
nextwave.org.au

Accessibility
Brunswick Mechanics Institute is a step-free venue with accessible bathrooms.

Video tour of Brunswick Mechanics Institute

Download the Brunswick Mechanics Institute visual story (.docx)
Download the Brunswick Mechanics Institute visual story (.pdf)

Download the Brunswick Mechanics Institute transport and parking information (.docx)
Download the Brunswick Mechanics Institute transport and parking information (.pdf)

Contact the host of compost : compose Live Performance featuring Allara, mohamed chamas & Ysk