I flew to Sydney via Hong Kong where I spent a week just before the big protests there broke out. After arriving at Artspace, I spent the first few days in a jetlagged daze meeting with the staff and some of the one-year studio artists.

Two weeks into my three-month residency period, I took part in an Artspace-organized Blockchain-themed event called Blockathon. It brought together artists and programmers and developers that had an interest in all things internet. We formed teams of about five people from different fields. We developed projects using Blockchain technology during three intense days of lectures, discussions, and working time. At the end of the weekend, the teams presented their projects, and all of the participants voted on a project to win a cryptocurrency prize. My team developed an art work proposal and a proof-of-concept version of it, and our project won the main prize.

The following weeks were spent getting to know Sydney and its surroundings, meeting some artists and curators in the area, and seeing art exhibitions at galleries and museums. I also took a little trip to the Blue Mountains, which is a couple of hours outside of Sydney.

I started planning and working on a new piece made up of a video and a sculpture that was partly inspired by some of the plant life common in Australia, especially a couple species of trees. I wrote some texts and shot some footage for the video piece, and started making a soft shield sculpture to go with it.

Some of the Artspace one-year studio artists and I started planning a two-day studio exhibition to coincide with a symposium happening at Artspace in August. Unfortunately, the studio exhibition had to be cancelled last-minute due to an unexpected reason. Instead, I took a week-long trip north to the Great Barrier Reef to do a scuba diving course. Diving at the Great Barrier Reef was an incredibly inspiring experience. I also attended a lecture in Cairns to learn more about the ecology of the reef, the sea life and the effects of coral bleaching.

At the end of my residency period, I threw a going-away party at my studio, where I invited my newly-found Sydney friends, most of whom were also in the arts field. I displayed some of the work I had done there as well as some of my old video works. After the residency, I spent a week in Singapore, as I had a layover there, and explored the local art scene.

My Artspace residency period was a wonderful growing experience for me as an artist. I learned a lot about myself and about how I work in an unfamiliar environment. Not having a final outcome expected of me at the end of the residency period was freeing as it let me be more open to outside influences while in Australia.

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I exited Sydney’s Kings Cross station very early in the morning in early June and was welcomed to the city by a flock of low-flying cockatoos, whose grating shrieks made my arrival feel really special – that these long hours of travel had really taken me someplace else. This kind of feeling of wonder towards many strange fruits of evolution in the insularity of the continent, its soft sandstone cliffs shaped by the wind and water, stayed with me until the very end of my stay.

The Artspace is staffed with great people and there were many great talks and other public programs that make it an active space for a residency. I don’t know if this is a particularly Australian character trait, but everyone was easy-going and sociable. In the other studio spaces, all along the same hallway, there were 10 artists, mostly local but some visiting, whose practices and backgrounds were varied, yet all very lovely people.

The scene or scenes of art seemed active and fascinating to me. I saw good shows, some in less conventional gallery settings, such as a car park and a private apartment. As I was quite busy preparing works for exhibitions, I wish there could have been another less production-oriented month for seeing more of the country. I’ve thought about this before and thought about it this time around, too, that it often takes a surprisingly long time to kind of tune in and get adjusted into a new context of living and working. In Sydney and at Artspace, however, it was relatively smooth thanks to the easiness of the city, location of the residency, its people, the space provided and the practical support at hand when needed.

Grants for Artists’ Residencies

Artspace