Firstdraft Screening Program
Dawn Beasley; Peter Blamey; Emily Norton; Miška Mandić
Gallery 4
Roomsheet
The Screening Program is a new initiative that supports artists working across video, film, and screen-based practice to present work in a dedicated screening space at Firstdraft. It runs from August until November and offers multiple perspectives responding to two curatorial premises.
All four films will screen at our October 13th Exhibition Opening, for one night only. After that, visit Firstdraft at the individual screening dates to view the films.
14 October - 3 November
Anthropocene - Dangerous Goods
Seed by Dawn Beasley
Watch here
3 minutes and 20 seconds
In Seed, porcelain artist Beasley ventures into digital territory, intertwining her delicate porcelain forms with a momentous act performed by a silent dispassionate waif-like figure. The shattering of these valuable sculptural creations symbolises a distorted value system, human interference with nature, and an irretrievable loss, prompting a contemplation of life's fragility.
De-energised by Peter Blamey
Watch here
9 minutes and 26 seconds
De-energised examines the relationship between energy use, technological waste and the urban environment, contemplating the fate of storage devices and attitudes towards their disposal. It is a process-based work of fairly modest means, shot vérité style while walking in Sydney’s inner west suburbs (Chippendale, Redfern, Darlington, Newtown, Camperdown, Glebe, Forest Lodge, St Peters, Marrickville, and Alexandria) between 2021 and 2023.
4 November - 26 November
Anthropocene - Embodied Waste
Kitchen Kabaret by Emily Norton
Watch here
16 minutes and 14 seconds
The Kitchen Kabaret features a group of people dressed as vegetables as they undergo the cooking process, from the fridge, to the chopping board, to the oven; singing and dancing at each step. A hopeful carrot, a seductive eggplant, excited tomatoes, the bad boy potato, a scared garlic, and an organic leek attempt to escape their fate, narrated by a witty blackberry jam. Various logics are courted but ultimately disregarded. Overt optimism is played against a disconcerting deadpan. Conceived as a kind of advertisement without a product, 90s children’s program, community theatre musical production or DIY sitcom, dissociated elements are made associated through song. The performance utilises humour to highlight the social and economic issues that surround our food and its production and distribution.
The Fold by Miška Mandić
Watch here
20 minutes