Animating Principles
2023Animating Principles was a collaborative puppet show; a live performance, an exhibition and a film. The story follows a board meeting at an artist-run initiative, where five board members and one special guest discuss strategies for dealing with termites in the building. Their sprawling conversation moves between celebrating the labour of organising, methods for interspecies co-habitation and whether art might just be
“a little aspiration, or redundant or something.”
Animating Principles was commissioned by Watch This Space in celebration of their 30th anniversary in 2023.
Devised by Beth Sometimes & Charlie Freedman.
Documentation by Martina Capurso & Sara Mariano.
MORE INFO HERE
Ralph (he/him) is a painter and a musician. He is interested in the architectures of sociality and modes of defying the logic of despair. Ralph is intoxicated by the Western Desert painting movement and has supported artistic labours in remote locations including Balgo. Ralph has joined the board of Watch This Space since becoming a father and moving in to town. His philosophy honours thesis was titled “Ontology of the Unbound: A case for abstraction.” He enjoys avant-punk music and barracks for the Brisbane Lions.
Rhonda (she/her) is a Central Arrernte woman who grew up in Mparntwe, Alice Springs. Her grandmother was a significant activist for law, land and liberation. Rhonda started her creative career young, as emcee with 'A-town', before moving through an eclectic career in theatre, performance and contemporary visual art. She has exhibited and performed across so called Australia and internationally. She has settled back in Mparntwe so her four children (14, 10, 7 and 2) can be on country, learning language. Rhonda’s favourite foods are honey ants and Pork Bahn Mi from Red Centre Chinese with extra chilli.
Hattie (she/they) was born into the Melbourne artworld. They grew up listening intently to the gossip and discourse of prominent philosophers and art writers, developing a complex understanding of new materialism from a terrifyingly young age. Having recently become chairperson of Watch This Space, Hattie is interested in how artists govern and in intersections of care, communities and curatorial practice. They moved to Mparntwe a year ago, have a plot at the community garden, host a fortnightly radical reading group ‘Femitopias’. Hattie experiments with concrete poetry, zine-making, field recording and DJs as ‘Hardhat’.
Digby (he/him) hails from the geologically significant, fossil rich monocline of the Isle of Wight. He emigrated to Central Australia in the early 1980s, fascinated by a landscape not completely altered by modern pastoral and agricultural practices. He studied ecology on the job, in numerous land management and Parks roles across the central deserts. Digby is a proud member of local barbershop quartet ‘The Pie-dish Beetles’ and has recently become an extremely active member of the campaign to thwart Buffel Grass.
Louise (she/her) is a serial arts activator, artist, writer, mother and recently; a grandmother. She puts community building at the passionate heart of her practice. In 2004 Louise directed the Regional Trienniale Creative Conference, overseeing a multitude of inteventions, activations, innovations and exhibitions. In 2012 Louise published ‘Burnt out car at the crossroads’, a collection of personal essays on belonging, identity, modern nomadism and exhaustion. In her spare time Louise loves gardening, in particular cultivating rare grevillias, making mosiaced tables and pickling.