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Green Room: Airport mural, Hills music, illuminating art

SA arts and culture news in brief: Airport mural celebrates Adelaide’s connection to nature, UKARIA welcomes back international artists, new curator announced for OzAsia’s writing and ideas program, Doppelgänger and Zombies exhibition opens in North Adelaide, an opportunity for emerging composers and an illuminating artist talk.

Jul 01, 2022, updated Apr 06, 2023
Lucinda Penn works on her National Park City mural at Adelaide Airport.

Lucinda Penn works on her National Park City mural at Adelaide Airport.

The art of parks

Local artist Lucinda Penn (aka LCND) has created a colourful new mural at Adelaide Airport to celebrate South Australia becoming a National Park City.

The work, at gate 18, was launched yesterday afternoon at an event marking the end of National Park City Month.

Professor Chris Daniels of Green Adelaide, which commissioned the mural, believes it will increase awareness of the National Park City movement and help promote greater Adelaide globally as “a city that connects people with each other and nature”.

The international National Park City Foundation awarded National Park City status to Adelaide last year, making it only the second city, after London, to receive the honour.

“My piece represents Adelaide in an abstract and colourful way, from the hills to the sea: from a vision of platypus in the Torrens, to our iconic hills landscape, as well as parks and wineries and the Mall’s Balls,” says Penn.

The young artist has previously created public murals in locations including the Adelaide Central Market, Festival Plaza and Rundle Street U Park, as well as for wineries and residential spaces. One of her other recent projects was a mural at the Grace Emily Hotel which provided the backdrop for its Ukraine fundraiser.

International artists return to UKARIA

Thirty-one artists and six ensembles will perform at UKARIA Cultural Centre over its winter-summer 2022 season as the Adelaide Hills venue welcomes back international musicians for the first time since the pandemic began.

British violinist Lawrence Power.

The 21-concert program, launched today, features nine international artists. They include acclaimed British violinist Lawrence Power, who will curate the flagship UKARIA 24 long weekend in October comprising five concerts traversing music from the 17th century to contemporary works, with Power joined by colleagues from Norway, Sweden and Italy, as well as Australian artists.

The season will open on August 19 with a concert by Flamenco guitarist Paco Peña and brothers Slava and Leonard Grigoryan that promises to showcase “the precision and artistry of the acoustic guitar in a collaboration that combines the fiery flourishes of flamenco with the harmonies and colourful tones of classical music”.

Other artists in the program include Finnish pianist Olli Mustonen, who will play a concert of works by Beethoven and Bach, as well as presenting a twilight recital with violinist Richard Tognetti; international bassist Avishai Cohen and his Avishai Cohen Trio, who will be in Australia as the headline act for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival in October; the Australian String Quartet; R&B/soul singer Ngaire, in a collaboration with Paul Grabowsky; and singers Lior and Domini, whose show Animal in Hiding was a highlight the recent Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

UKARIA’s full winter-summer 2022 season is online.

Shedding light on art and science

Most Adelaideans will by now have heard of Ouchhh Studio, the Istanbul-based new media artists and designers bringing their Wisdom of AI Light multi-sensory experience to a large pop-up exhibition venue in the East End during Illuminate Adelaide.

Ouchh describes itself as a pioneer of data paintings and sculptures, and for Wisdom of AI Light it trained its artificial intelligence to analyse billions of brush strokes by Renaissance painters such as Leonardo da Vinci to create a new Renaissance-style immersive moving-image work. The second part of the exhibition features works from its other projects, including a 3D projection created in collaboration with NASA.

Studio co-director Ferdi Alici is coming to Adelaide for Illuminate, and in a talk being jointly presented by the festival and Guildhouse at Light on July 18 he will discuss the process of creating cutting-edge works at the intersection of art, science and technology. The talk, from 4-5pm, is free and tickets can be booked here.

Illuminate Adelaide runs throughout July, with the Light Cycles after-dark experience in the Botanic Gardens and Light Creatures at Adelaide Zoo both beginning on July 7.

Doppelgänger and Zombies

Innovative use of 21st-century technology also sheds fresh light on treasured artworks in the David Roche Foundation’s new exhibition: Doppelgänger and Zombies.

The exhibition features a collection of new physical and digital works ­– described as “surprisingly playful and highly crafted” ­– which were created based on 3D scans of pieces from David Roche’s 18th and 19th-century collection of decorative arts objects.

Techniques including 3D printing, 360-degree photography, photogrammetry and digital modelling were used to create the pieces, some of which are manipulated to play with the viewer’s perception. The artworks include the augmented-reality Doppelgänger, for which visitors will be given a QR code that enables them to view it later on their handheld devices in their homes.

Rochus Hinkel and Melissa Iraheta, Fabulations – Manticorus, still from a video animation, after Thomas Hope, X-frame stool. Courtesy University of Melbourne.

Dr Rochus Hinkel, Associate Professor at the Melbourne School of Design and co-director of the Advanced Digital Design and Fabrication research group at the University of Melbourne, led the research and development behind Doppelgänger and Zombies and will present an artist talk at UniSA’s Hawke Building on July 22, as well as presenting artist tours of the exhibition the following day. There will also be an auction of collectibles and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) exhibited in Doppelgänger and Zombies on July 23. Tickets for these free finissage events can be booked here.

Doppelgänger and Zombies is showing at the museum from July 1-23.

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In Other Words

Jennifer Wong.

Writer, comedian and “food enthusiast” Jennifer Wong ­– presenter of ABC TV’s Chopsticks or Fork ­– has been named as curator of the OzAsia Festival’s 2022 In Other Words writing and ideas program.

In Other Words was introduced as part of the OzAsia program last year (replacing the JLF Adelaide events held in 2018-19), with the 2021 line-up curated by former Adelaide Writers’ Week director Laura Kroetsch.

For this year’s event, Wong will be working with guest curators Marc Fennell and Beverly Wang.

“As a book-loving former Asian Studies student who’s been involved in Asian-Australian performance since 2011, I’m delighted that In Other Words will be the place-to-be to celebrate and bring together the incredible range of Asian talent in Australia,” she says. “Whether it’s music or journalism, science or literature, cooking or pop culture, we’ve got you covered… we’re bringing together thinkers and writers from all walks of life who’ll inspire, provoke, and comfort.”

The line-up for In Other Words will be released in September, while the program for the rest of the OzAsia Festival (October 20 – November 6) will be announced in early August. Wong, who created and hosted The Special Comedy Special in 2021, will also appear in the comedy special again at this year’s festival.

New festival seeks emerging composers

Emerging South Australian composers are being offered the opportunity to become involved with a new music festival to be held over three Sundays this November.

The ReClassified Festival will be presented by Adelaide-based Recitals Australia, with president Mark de Raad saying it is about “reflecting and celebrating the living, breathing, classical music makers in our city”.

Expressions of interest are sought (here) from emerging composers interested in producing a new chamber work for the festival; successful applicants will have their pieces workshopped under the guidance of Anne Cawrse and other established composers, then publicly performed and recorded as part of ReClassified.

Professional musicians involved in the festival include Dean Newcomb (clarinet), Mitch Berick (clarinet/bass clarinet), Joshua Oates (oboe), Martin Alexander (viola), Tom Marlin (cello), Josh van Konkelenberg (organ), Cheryl Pickering (mezzo soprano), Melanie Walters (flute) and Helen Ayres (violin).  The November Festival performances will be held in the North Adelaide Baptist Church and Hall, Stangate House at Aldgate and Z-Ward at Glenside.

Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture.

Get in touch by emailing us at e[email protected]

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