25 March 2020 (UPDATED 29 MARCH 2020) : Statement from Salamanca Arts Centre and COVID-19

25th March 2020 (UPDATED 29 MARCH 2020)
 
FROM: JOE BUGDEN, CEO 
Salamanca Arts Centre
 
The COVID-19 issue continues to develop daily and I have been in contact with the SAC Board daily to develop our responses to a range of challenges as they arise.
We recognise that COVID-19 is a local and global community issue, and whilst the implications to SAC and its operations are manifold, the primary focus needs to be to prevent the spread of the virus in every way we can.
 
Whilst we took early steps to install additional hand sanitiser units in toilets and other appropriate locations within the Arts Centre, and though our contract cleaners have been giving greater attention to hand rails, handles, lift buttons, etc., in the interests of our staff, tenants, residents and the public, we decided to close public access to the Long Gallery, the Sidespace Gallery, the Studio Gallery and the Top Gallery, and most other parts of the Arts Centre effective from 12 noon Monday 23rd March.

At this stage, SAC Administration continues to be staffed, but if you need to meet with us, we ask that you arrange an appointment via email.

I know that some other organisations within the Arts Centre have chosen to have their staff work from home or are meeting with clients by appointment only.
The majority of SAC retail outlets have made the choice to discontinue trading, though where some might continue to trade, the public will be allowed access to those areas and those retailers.  However, if you wish to contact any particular retailer or other business that operates from within Salamanca Arts Centre you should contact them directly, prior to trying to visit their premises.

Should it be the case that all SAC retailers choose to cease trading, then we will close the building at those access points to ensure that security is maintained.

SAC acknowledges that our residents: whether they be artists in studios, retailers, arts organisations, or independent artists with whom we had hoped and expected to work over the coming weeks and months, are also being affected by the social and economic implications of COVID-19. Hundreds of cultural events have already been cancelled, and SAC, mindful that this is causing both enormous and added stress to artists’ financial challenges, is looking to see how we can, in a range of ways, mitigate those effects and continue to support our residents.

Whilst of course the effects of COVID-19 will add to the daily stress that is an inherent part of working in an Arts Centre, we cannot take this most recent challenge personally.

SAC will continue to review and respond, whilst maintaining a perspective between panic and prudence. Prudence is reviewing what we do so that it will have practical and proven ways to reduce, limit or contain the spread of the virus. We are looking at this situation as an opportunity to enact precautions that may, even if indirectly, save someone from being severely affected by the virus.

Knowing that the situation changes daily, and sometimes by the hour, SAC will continue to adhere Government Public Health Directions and Guidelines. They can be found at https://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/publichealth/communicable_diseases_prevention_unit/infectious_diseases/coronavirus and https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov

expect that regular updates will be provided to SAC staffresidents and our public as developments and information relevant to COVID-19 become evident and available.

Whist the movement of people is being affected and this means we are unable to be in the physical presence of art and artists, I hope we all take this requirement to change how we live at the moment, also as an opportunity to engage with art and to support artists in those ways that the current restrictions still allow.

You can purchase (either by download or in a book shop – whilst they remain open) and read a book by an Australian author. You can download music composed and/or performed by an Australian composer or band or orchestra. You can pay to watch an Australian movie, or an Australian opera, or an Australia play that is available to be accessed via the Internet.

There are still many ways that we can support Australian artists, both financially and emotionally; you might be able to send them a message to tell them you have just purchased and are reading their book, etc. I suspect they will really appreciate that at the moment.

So a couple of recommendations from me, for whilst you’re spending some time at home: The novel, ‘Autumn Laing‘ by the wonderful Australian author, Alex Miller. [ go to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12144440-autumn-laing ] or listen to the beautiful ‘Time is a River‘ by Australian composer, Graeme Koehne. [ go to https://www.abcmusic.com.au/discography/graeme-koehne-time-river ] 

If you have any questions, or wish to discuss the implications of Covid19 on businesses or activities within Salamanca Arts Centre, I invite you to contact me at ceo@sac.org.au.

In the meantime, please stay safe and healthy. Please adhere to those ways of behaving that we know will limit the spread of the virus, and please be understanding of each other and smile, even from a distance, if you pass a stranger.

Joe Bugden
CEO

Salamanca Arts Centre

A note from Marketing and Communications:
 

We will duplicate all updates both on our social media platforms and SAC’s wonderful website. We will continue to publish the SAC e-news each fortnight that will not only post the most recent update from us but also be suggesting other ways to support Austrailan artists and of course, top recommendations from SAC staff as Joe has above.

Kind Regards

Tash Newman
Communications and Marketing
Salamanca Arts Centre

 

Dark Mofo highlights Tasmanian artists through collaborations with SAC

During June, as part of Dark Mofo 2017, Salamanca Arts Centre will host a number of exciting new projects – including live music, installations and new text-based theatre.

Salamanca Arts Centre is excited to once again collaborate with Dark Mofo, and we look forward to welcoming local, interstate and international audiences into the Arts Centre,” says SAC’s Acting CEO Joe Bugden. “In particular, SAC commends this year’s festival team for their ongoing commitment to recognising, valuing and presenting new Tasmanian work.”

The Long Gallery will house Outposts, curated by Brendan Walls, in which “lost signals and voices from the electro-magnetosphere seethe and mutter in the dark.” 

Outposts will feature installations by artists Peter Blamey, Eden Meure, Sally McIntyre, Pip Stafford and Brendan Walls/Robert Ashley.

During the festival weekend evenings the Long Gallery will be taken over by The Last Bastion. This live performance, which is also curated by Brendan Walls, is described as a “sonic assault”. The line-up includes Matt Warren, Julia Drouhin, Dani Kirby, Edwina Stevens (Eves) and Jen Tait, SmashHits (Eden Meure, Bethany Sweatman and Tom Robb), Julius Schwing, Alf Jackson, Greg Kingston, Alethea Coombe, Michael Matherson Saunders, Lexie Lynch and Dangerous Game.

Meanwhile the Peacock Theatre will host the debut of two new theatre works by Tasmanian sound-based theatre collective, Radio Gothic, featuring Heath Brown, Briony Kidd, Carrie McLean, Alison Mann, Jason James, Katie Robertson, and Craig Irons. The collective has been supported by the Australia Council through Salamanca Arts Centre’s HyPe (Hybrid Performance) Program to develop new Episodes during 2017.

Presented by Dark Mofo from 7 – 11 June, Episode 2: The Hanniford Tapes, written by Carrie McLean, sees a psychiatrist obsessing over the murder committed by her client, as a woman’s voice consumes her mind.

In Episode 3: The Illustrated Girl, written by Alison Mann, a woman wakes up to find a sinister tattoo on her hand. 

Presented as a double-bill, these stories are created by the collective using experimental live foley and sampling techniques to create a unique theatrical experience.

Dark Mofo presented the first Radio Gothic project, Episode 1: The Pit, to acclaim during last year’s festival.

Also in this year’s Dark Mofo, the Peacock Theatre will host the durational The Second Woman, a mesmerising 24-hour performance in which the artist invites one hundred men to star opposite her in a scene adapted from John Cassavetes’ American drama, Opening Night (1977).

During June Salamanca Arts Centre’s program will also include:

Products of ConceptionEmma Magnusson-Reid’s solo exhibition in the Top Gallery

Windows to the Soul Phillip England’s Tintype photography portrait exhibition in the Studio Gallery

Well, Hello! A site-specific installation by Sanja Pahoki in Kelly’s Garden

 

Image Credits:

Top – Sally Ann McIntyre. Das Grosse Rauschen: The Metamorphosis of Radio (2016).

Bottom – Radio Gothic image by Oliver Berlin

 

HyPE artists honoured with Green Room Award

Salamanca Arts Centre congratulates Tasmanian artists Dylan Sheridan and Sam Routledge on their Green Room Award, announced this week.

Their work, Crush, has been recognised for Sound Performance in the Contemporary and Experimental Performance category. It was presented at Arts House as part of last year’s Festival of Live Arts (FOLA).

“We really enjoyed making this work and it was fantastic to be able to present it in Melbourne at Arts House on the back of the Junction Arts Festival Season, which was supported by the Salamanca Arts Centre,” says Sam Routledge.

“It’s always good to be recognised by your peers, and to receive this Green Room award from a panel of Melbourne-based artists, who see so much good work, feels really special”.

Crush really connects with audiences,” says SAC’s Live Arts and Events Coordinator Kelly Drummond Cawthon. “It’s been so rewarding to be able to nurture this dynamic Tasmanian team and watch the project go from strength to strength.”

Crush is an immersive live artwork for auto car washes that explores new notions of slavery and servitude in a robot age. Audiences experience this work from inside a vehicle as it is being cleaned. Evoking the drive-in cinema, audiences tune into the soundtrack via the FM radio in their vehicle as it is transmitted live on site. As the large automated robot goes about its work, Sheridan’s score syncs to its movements, in a powerful and beautiful examination of vulnerability and power.

The development of Crush was supported by Salamanca Arts Centre’s HyPe (Hybrid Performance) Program in 2015-16. HyPe supports the creation of innovative, contemporary hybrid performance by supporting Tasmanian artists to take conceptual leaps and to challenge the existing limitations of traditional performance and theatre.

Composer and artist Dylan Sheridan is supported by HyPe in 2017 and will show a new work at Salamanca Arts Centre later in the year.

The Green Room Awards were established in 1982 and are regarded as Melbourne’s premier peer-presented, performing arts industry awards.
Crush was originally co-commissioned and produced by Junction Arts Festival and Salamanca Arts Centre through Like HyPe in 2015. In 2016 it was presented by the City of Melbourne through Arts House at the Festival of Life Arts (FOLA).

Searching for Proof of Life during Ten Days on the Island

As part of Ten Days on the Island Salamanca Arts Centre is proud to present Proof of Life: Studio Sessions, which is curated by Elizabeth Woods and Kevin Leong as part of The Homesickness Project.

The Homesickness Project’s thesis is that the role of the world as a home for its citizens is under threat and that collectively, we are increasingly homesick.

Artists, experts, community groups and the general public will participate in a series of events that elaborate on and investigate possible answers to these questions: What does it mean to be civilised within an increasingly market-driven system of social values? What is required from our environment for us to thrive?

“SAC believes in the continuing importance of artists having a key role in provoking, leading and facilitating discussions about the human condition,” says Salamanca Arts Centre Acting CEO Joe Bugden. “We’re excited to see what will develop from this ambitious, multi-faceted collaboration.”

The ensuing discussions, lectures, performances, demonstrations and exhibitions will invite public contribution and form the basis of a major exhibition opening in the Long Gallery in September 2017. This is an opportunity to observe and participate in the creative development of collaborative, socially-engaged art works.

“There is a mission for the arts to address the heightened fears around our global future but there is a shortage of existing tools to do so,” says curator Kevin Leong. “Hobart’s tight-knit, highly-cooperative arts community, where disciplines are fluid, and where broad community contact is sustained, is the ideal environment to develop these tools.”

Featured artists include: Lisa Garland, Paul Gazzola, Laura Purcell, Elizabeth Woods, Kevin Leong, Abdul Hakim Hashemi Hamidi, Dalibor Martinis, Daphne Keramidas, James Newitt, Nick Leitch, Peta Cook, Leigh Hobba, and Hussen Ibraheem and Ameen Nayfeh.

The official launch of the project is this Saturday, 18 March in the Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre at 12 noon. This will be followed by a Curator’s Talk and an afternoon discussion forum entitled “Are We Really Alive?”.

Read More

Handmark and Salamanca Arts Centre celebrate contemporary Tasmanian art

nic-glade-wright-echoes-landscape-exhibition2016_hd-1

Nick Glade-Wright. Echoes (2016). Oil on Board. 138cm x 138cm

An exhibition revealing the strength and diversity of Tasmanian contemporary art opens in the Long Gallery this Thursday, 19 January at 6.00pm.

Handmark: Contemporary Tasmanian Artists features the work of thirty-nine artists from the stable of one of Salamanca Arts Centre’s oldest and most prominent gallery tenants.

“We are thrilled to kick off the year with this celebration of our association with Handmark,” says Acting CEO Joe Bugden.

“Salamanca Arts Centre is looking forward to inviting the community to come and celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. This is a great way to start everyone thinking about the long history of artists working and exhibiting in these iconic buildings.”

Handmark has been resident in the Arts Centre since July 1987 bringing quality art, design and craft to locals and visitors for more than thirty years. They represent over ninety Tasmanian artists in total.

The exhibition – curated by Handmark director Allanah Dopson – features paintings, prints and drawings and includes artists Alyce Bailey, Adrian Barber, Michaye Boulter, Julie Payne, John Lendis, Helene Weeding, Nick Glade-Wright, Mairi Ward, Faridah Cameron, Blair Waterfield, Hilton Owen, William Rhodes, Ella Noonan, Denise Campbell, Andrew Donohue, Emily Blom, Clifford How, Robyn McKinnon, Peter Gouldthorpe, James Walker, Leonie Oakes, Diane Masters, Jeff Gatt, Kit Hiller, Jenny Armati, Olivia Moroney, Corrine Costello, Elizabeth Lada Gray, Jonathan Partridge, Katina Gavalas, Melissa Smith, Chantale Delrue, Mandy Renard, Kaye Green, Linda Keogh, Jennifer Marshall, Lauren Cross, David Edgar, and Tom Samek.

All works are for sale through Handmark.

HANDMARK: CONTEMPORARY TASMANIAN ARTISTS

curated by Allanah Dopson

Exhibition dates: 14 – 29 January 2017

Exhibition venue: Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart, Tasmania

Open 10 am until 5 pm daily

Opening: Thursday 19 January at 6:00pm, to be opened by Allanah Dopson and Salamanca Arts Centre Board member Chris Tassell

 

Salamanca Arts Centre CEO Rosemary Miller announces her resignation

HOBART, 27 October 2016After seventeen years in the role of CEO / Artistic Director, Rosemary Miller has announced that she will be resigning on 2 December 2016.

Read Arts Minister Vanessa Goodwin’s statement here.

Rosemary joined Salamanca Arts Centre in December 1999 and over those years has been able to attract high quality national and international artists, exhibitions and performances to Hobart’s Salamanca Arts Centre.

Salamanca Arts Centre (SAC) is Tasmania’s multi-arts creative hub and an integral part of the State’s arts and creative industries infrastructure. SAC is an engine room for art-making and presentation; a centre for artists and designers in-studios; home to many of Tasmania’s leading arts organisations across live performance (theatre, music, dance), film and writing; cultural and commercial galleries and studios for visual arts, crafts and design.

Rosemary leaves SAC having secured arts funding over the next four years through the Australia Council and with just recently having successfully delivered Salamanca Moves, SAC’s inaugural dance festival.

SAC’s Board takes this opportunity to thank Rosemary for her years of leadership, passion and dedication to the organisation,” says Chair Rebecca Roth.

We also warmly welcome our Acting CEO Joe Bugden. He joined SAC in 2014 as the company’s Business Manager.”

Joe comes to this new role with more than 20 years’ experience in senior arts management and administration. Since arriving in Tasmania in 1999 Joe has worked as Executive Director of the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre, as General Manager and Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Readers’ & Writers’ Festival, and more recently taught Business Skills to art and design students at the University of Tasmania’s Centre for the Arts Hunter Street campus.

Salamanca Arts Centre looks forward to the future, enriching the lives of Tasmanians through the arts.

Inaugural Salamanca Moves highlights dancer diversity and risk-taking

MEDIA RELEASE by Salamanca Arts Centre

Rite of Spring, image credit Whats On In app

Rite of Spring, image credit Whats On In app

Salamanca Moves wrapped on Saturday 1 October, concluding with a public dance party and a closing ceremony with members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Tasmanian and visiting dancers participated in over 60 events, with members of the public, ranging from school children to mature movers, from community groups to acclaimed international artists such as Neta Pulvermacher (Israel), Sannamaria Kuula (Finland), Ana Degues (Portugal), Cari Ann Shim Sham (USA) and Liz Aggiss (UK).

“The feedback from many artists has been very positive with many saying that the exchange of ideas enabled by the festival will influence their practice,” says Salamanca Arts Centre CEO/Artistic Director Rosemary Miller. “That’s testament to both Salamanca Moves Curator Kelly Drummond Cawthon’s planning and to the generous and collaborative spirit of participants.”

“We thank all the artists and the local community for getting behind this inaugural event, and the dedicated team of staff and volunteers.”

The world premiere of Rite of Spring by Tasmania’s Second Echo Ensemble proved to be one of the hits of the festival, with the season quickly selling out. Second Echo performer Luke Campbell was one of three artists asked to re-present their festival work during The A.W.A.R.D (Artists with Audiences Responding to Dance) Show on 30 September.

Dianne Reid and Melinda Smith’s Dance Interrogations was awarded $5000 and a slot in next year’s Ten Days on the Island via an audience choice vote. Smith, a dancer living with cerebral palsy, and Reid, and screen dance artist, develop improvisational dance performance that interacts with video projected imagery. Read More