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The Cinemas Project
Still standing, in use, abandoned, re-purposed or existing only in memory, The Cinemas Project addresses movie theatres as spectral sites full of spirited visions, ghostly images and the theatre of memory.
Traditionally the cinema has been a place of information, entertainment and community; a frame through which social tensions and divisions, as well as dreams and desires, have been played out. The cinema therefore provides a context to discuss different modes of participation, from spectatorship and immersion in image-worlds, to participation and involvement in forms of performance such as amateur theatre.
Taking these various possibilities as a starting point, The Cinemas Project is an exciting new framework for the commissioning and development of projects by contemporary artists in relation to the sites of historic cinemas across regional Victoria.
In short:
- A project curated by Bridget Crone with NETS Victoria
- Six individual artists’ commissions of new work
- Six cinema sites – existing cinemas, destroyed or repurposed cinemas – one artist’s work matched to one cinema site
- A focus on contemporary art that involves performance and/or moving image, and which takes place outside of the gallery context.
More details:
The Cinemas Project will focus on commissioning new contemporary art work that involves aspects of live performance or the moving image in order to address the type of work initially presented in these spaces.
Six artists will be matched to six locations across Victoria. Partnerships with regional museums and galleries, local history societies and artists’ groups will be essential to the successful development of The Cinemas Project, and artists’ work will be developed through a short residency period.
The work developed might be a film or video, a live performance or a participatory art project. Artists will be invited to engage with the cinema-site through dialogue with local history, living memories or the physical structure of the building itself.
The initial focus of The Cinemas Project is on the development of new contemporary art and the simultaneous development of audience participants, the artists’ engagement with locality and the production of the commissioned work.
To express your interest, please contact:
- Bridget Crone, Curator, bridget_crone@mac.com
- Georgia Cribb, Director, NETS Victoria, Georgia.Cribb@netsvictoria.org
Bridget will be travelling across the State during the next couple of months in order to develop partnerships (with regional museums and galleries, local history societies and artists’ groups) for The Cinemas Project. If you are interested in finding out more about the The Cinemas Project and meeting Bridget, please get in touch.
BRIDGET CRONE is a curator working internationally, and with a particular interest in contemporary art practices that involve artists’ film and video, sound and performance. She has a broad experience in commissioning and producing artists’ work inside and outside of the gallery context. Bridget was the director of Media Art Bath – a publicly funded commissioning organisation based in South West England for the last five years producing new work for exhibition in a variety of contexts including the Institute of Contemporary Art, London and the Arnolfini, Bristol. Bridget has lectured widely including presenting papers at Tate Britain (2008), Whitechapel Art Gallery (2010), and The Photographers Gallery, London (2011). For more information on MAB, visit their website and go to the 'Projects' section.
THE CINEMAS PROJECT is an ambitious multi-site project that will include new commissions of single works produced on-site or in relation to the history of the cinema-sites by a roster of well-known and emerging Australian artists including Tom Nicholson and Mikala Dwyer, as well as an exciting roster of international artists working with artists film and video, and performance practices. Tom Nicholson is a Melbourne based artist who works with archival materials, drawing and public actions. His work often engages with ideas of monument and the formation of individual and collective histories. Mikala Dwyer lives and works in Sydney. Her work uses live performance, video and sculpture to investigate themes including magic, memory and ritual. Both artists have exhibited extensively throughout Australia and internationally.
