Communiques from 14 days enforced isolation in a hotel in Sydney

I have just returned from a week visiting the remote Western Australia Desert community of Warakurna to visit the Tjanpi Weavers. 

The Tjanpi Weavers are an amazing group of women who weave with Tjanpi Grass and run an empowering program. Their work has been shared around the world and at National Institutions and I have curated them into the next Tamworth Textiles Triennial. The Triennial is called Tension(s) 2020 and will tour the country for three years.  

During my visit, the weavers took me out into the desert and showed me how to collect Tjanpi grass.  We sat and talked, while they shared their practice with me. 

Soon there will be a short video online about the trip, but in the meantime, just a photo or two.

In a drizzly haze of jetlagged wandering in historic Bath in the UK. I discovered good coffee.

So now, I have the energy to prepare ghostly presences from the Specimen project, which has been spanning the UK and Australia for the last two years, taking images from the National Museum of Australia collection and projecting them onto locations related to the colonization of Australia in the UK and back in Australia.

On Monday night I am going to present the work at Bath Spa University in a “double header” with Glen Albrecht.

Image 1 – A dismembered Koala Paw from the Specimen Collection. Image 2 - On the River Thames, where during low tide, archeological relics are uncovered and the old moss covered walls are revealed at a location where first fleet ships had a...

In September and October we are having two outings of DIRt. First off in Sydney we are conducting a week long residency at Critical Path resulting in a showing of work in development. Details of the event are here. Then on October 12th we will be presenting at Artlands Victoria. More info here.

"SHIFT is a one day event exploring the role that creative practice and industry plays in transition and transformation – be it the transformation of spaces, the transition to creative economies, or the power of art to transform lives and communities". I will be giving a presentation alongside Lindy Hume, Esther Anatolitis, Jess Cook and Monica Davidson".

For one night only

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Two performances:

5.30pm Tuesday 28 August 2018

7.30pm Tuesday 28 August 2018

DIRt (Dance In Regional disasTer zones) is a an ongoing project initiated by East Gippsland-based, international dancer/choreographer, Rosalind Crisp in 2017. It asks how dance and arts practice can embody, understand and connect to unfolding environmental devastation in East Gippsland where widespread industrial logging is converting complex native forests into agricultural mono-crops and decimating local wildlife. Rosalind with multi-media artist Vic McEwan and facilitator Andrew Morrish will bring their work from Mt Delusion into relationship to the East Gippsland Art Gallery. They will share dance and video materials developed in response to the logging of Mt D...

Maybe We Can Build You A Smile That You Can Use In A Social Situation

Today I visited the Chris O’Brien Life Centre to attend the Sydney Facial Nerve Clinic. This clinic was set up by a group of surgeons and other medical professionals who decided to donate their time to create a monthly clinic for patients with complex facial nerve paralysis caused by various issues such as Bells Palsy, Cancer, accidents, etc.

It is a unique cross disciplinary clinic that provides an opportunity for a group of highly skilled doctors in various fields to contribute together on the care of a patient. Today they were truly creating a cross disciplinary clinic by inviting me, as a contemporary artist, to sit in on the examinations of patients, to observe and consider the ex...

Wagga Wagga Art Gallery: Friday 20th July 7-9pm.  From the gallery website "From Tate Liverpool to the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery: An international project that brings together a hospital in the UK and a secret government oil tank buried in the highlands of Scotland to discover the longest heart beat ever heard, before using sound and video to explore the memories contained within the rubble of a half demolished hospital.Hear artist Vic McEwan share videos and stories about this four-year project between the UK and Australia, exploring ideas of illness and recovery and the effects that the sounds in our hospital spaces are having on our healing. Book Tickets 

"the museum" is a magazine published by the National Museum of Australia which recently featured a beautiful 3 page spread about the Haunting project. Read it here

20th March Presentation to Medical students at Sydney University. 

27 - 28th March Invited to participate in Sydney Uni "research huddle" followed by a public presentation contributing to their discussions about arts and health. 

6th - 7th April Hosted the NSW/ACT Arts and Health Leadership Group for a 2 day planning weekend at The Cad Factory.   

8th - 9th April Keynote Presentation at the 2018 Patient Experience Symposium.

“Just walk out the studio door, over the waterfall and it’s in the big house” The response from Oli the engineer when I ask him where the toilet is.

I’ve known about Real World Studios for many years. An innovative and beautiful studio space built by Peter Gabriel, surrounded by water with large areas of glass to let in natural light. I never thought I would get to work there though.

As we arrived at the old water mill in which the studio is built, the carpark was nearly full, over 20 cars. They all belonged to staff who run the two studios, the Real World Record Label and the Womad festivals (of which WOMADelaide is a part) as well as Peter Gabriel’s private studio which has its own full time engineering staff.

Inside there is a full time chef who provides fr...

Home Manchester - On January 23rd 2018 I will give a presentation with Clive Parkinson to launch his book Critical Care as part of the Harmonic Oscillator Project. More info here.

Tate Liverpool - On January 24th 2018  I have been invited to give the opening talk at The Tate, Liverpool symposium on Socially Engaged Arts practice. This is an exciting opportunity to showcase the work and ethics of The Cad Factory as part of an International conversation. More info here.

Specimen is a series of site specific photographic and video artworks made with the Australian Institute of Anatomy Specimen Collection from the National Museum of Australia. It is an ongoing project over 2017 and 2018 that travels throughout NSW and the UK.  These Specimens in jars lack any detailed records of their origin, rendering them eternally dislocated from their own histories, from the timescales and landscapes in which they lived. Instead they sit preserved in toxic formaldehyde. Many of the specimens represent species heavily impacted by human activity. By projecting photographs of their ghostlike presences back onto the landscape, Specimen invites audiences to attend to and consider their relationship with their natural environment and its non-h...

In January we undertake a fascinating process of filming and recording in the half demolished old Alder Hey Children's Hospital. From this we have created a 13 minute sound and video piece with a soundtrack created by playing abandoned hospital beds with cello bows.