Hossein Valamanesh’s Char Soo comes to Carriageworks in 2016. Image via Carriageworks.
For any arts organisation, collaboration is important. But for Australia’s largest contemporary multi-arts centre, it’s crucial.
In 2016, Carriageworks will present 53 artistic projects and support over 700 artists. Making these works possible are a series of new partnerships, which are quickly establishing next year’s Artistic Program as the institution’s most ambitious yet.
Director Lisa Havilah said collaboration is beneficial to artists and audiences as well as to Carriageworks.
‘Collaboration helps artists extend their practice, and it also helps us be integrated into the arts cultural life of Sydney, New South Wales and Australia,’ said Havilah. ‘We really see collaboration as central to what we do.’
A new on-going partnership with the Sydney Writers’ Festival, for example, will showcase events outside the festival calendar through a four-part Carriageworks Conversations series. The talks, featuring both international and Australian authors, will include literary celebrities Simon Winchester and Andrew O’Hagan.
‘I think our audiences will love it,’ said Havilah.
Partnerships with the Adelaide Film Festival, Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art and the University of Western Australia in association with Sydney Film Festival have also enabled a major new moving image work by Adelaide-based artist Hossein Valamanesh. Char Soo, which opened last month at the Adelaide Film Festival, plunges audiences into the midst of a bustling four-sided Iranian bazaar to consider movement, human interaction and the passing of time.
‘It’s the first time Hossein has worked in moving image to this scale,’ said Havilah.
A partnership with the Sydney Festival is bringing the first major Australian exhibition of celebrated Ghanaian artist El Anatsui to our shores; while a new three-year partnership with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is expected to develop into the creation of some modern masterpieces.
‘Their new chief conductor David Robertson has a great passion for contemporary new music, and we’re really excited about working with David and the orchestra,’ said Havilah.
Havilah is also excited about the opportunities this partnership will create for audiences.
‘I think we will bring new audiences to the SSO, just like the SSO will bring new audiences to Carriageworks. I think that melding of audiences across the board is an interesting thing.’
The 2016 Carriageworks Program is launching on Tuesday, 10 November.
Tickets will be on sale from 9am on Wednesday, 11 November.
