James is an artist-composer, writer and emerging cultural theorist working on the unceded Gadigal Lands of the Eora Nation. As someone who grew up in a social-housing community, James’s practice examines the hauntings, spectres, imaginings, and ghostly refrains of social-class through via the ear of the sonic as radical sociological praxis.
Drawing upon lived and authentic working-class experiences, utterences, vocalities, and imaginaries to explore what it means to listen, love, live, labour and ‘make do’ in a world that is increasingly characterised by economic instability, automation, and social inequality - via a politics of labour and precarity.
James’ work and research overflows through pre(care)ious and transversal modes of collaboration and fabulated inte(ar)vention - via a range of lo-fi ‘scored’ and bricolage’d interventions and agitations, via documentary, community organising, ethnography, workshopping, essaying, pedagogy, critical fabulation, fieldwork, conversation, writing, song, performance - among works for radio, and instrumental/electronic music.
As the co-founder of Danger/Dancer, ADSR ZINE, (under)scoring the commons, and poor opera(tions), Hazel has collaborated with and/or comissioned many artists. In particular, James’ recent focus has aimed to contribute to spaces for the innovative practices of intersectional working-class artists to be heard Additionally, Hazel conducts sound and performance oriented workshop programs and community organizing initiatives, working closely with CLASS ACTIONS COLLECTIVE - co-founded with Gadigal/Bidgigal/Yuin Elder Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor, Kaz Therese - and other community groups in NSW.
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James’s compositions have been performed at various international festivals and venues, including HighSCORE in Pavia, Italy, Gaudeamus/Screendive in the Netherlands, Arts Incubator in Seoul, Impulse New Music Festival, and Charlotte New Music in North Carolina. James’ music has been played by leading ensembles such as Ensemble Offspring in Sydney, Gondwana Choirs; Ensemble Mise-en in New York, and individuals such as Grammy-nominated violist Diana Wade, and saxophonist Sam Gill. Hazel has also composed music for renowned dance practitioners such as Dancemakers Collective, International Video Dance Festival of Burgundy, Sydney Dance Company, Kristina Chan, Omer Backley-Astrachan, James O’ Hara, and Rhiannon Newton.
More generally, Hazel's work has been exhibited, presented, and/or performed: at various art spaces and institutions, nationally and internationally including The Ethics Centre; CASHMERE Radio; Kings Artist-Run; PACT Centre; Speak Percussion; Mutant Radio (Georgia); Liquid Architcture; Museum of Contemporary Art; Brand X; Metro Arts; Firstdraft; Performance Space/Carriageworks; March Dance; Collingwood Yards Arts; ABC Radio National; Pinnacles Gallery; CEMENTA; Crawl Space Radio/Bus Projects; Maitland Regional Art Gallery; VIVID; Global Week in Seoul; Bundanon Trust; Metroarts; Sydney Conservatorium of Music; The Ethics Centre; The Lockup Gallery; Sydney Fringe Festival; National Young Writers Festival; Crawl Space; DLUX Media Arts; Gaudeamus/Screendive Festival; Sydenham International; World Acoustic Ecology Forum; The University of Helsinki; Gosford Regional Gallery; Australian Music Centre; Limelight Magazine; Backstage Music; Seventh Gallery; The West Australian Ballet; and Critical Path.
James’ writing and research has been published with: Acoustic Ecology Review; ABC Radio National; Limelight Magazine; Firstdraft Gallery; Carriageworks Journal; ADSR ZINE: Australian Humanities Review; Resonate Journal; DISCLAIMER/LIQUID ARCHITECTURE; Resonate Journal; and Act: Zeitschrift für Musik & Performance (peer-reviewed).
In recognition of solid work in the experimental sound community, Hazel was awarded the APRA-AMCOS Art-Music Award (Experimental Category) in 2022, together with Elia Bosshard, for their work with ADSR ZINE - and in 2021, was selected as an ABC Top 5 Researcher (Arts), a program supported by the University of Melbourne and the Australian Council for the Arts. In 2023, James was one of four composers from throughout Australia selected as a finalist in APRA-AMCOS Professional Development Awards (Classical/Experimental).
In 2024, James’s work was selected as a finalist in the Incinerator Art Award: Art for Social Change for which he received an honourable mention by the judges for the work “underclass(auto)theology.”
James has studied composition with Johannes Kreidler (Berlin); Peter Ablinger (Berlin) and Ceceilia Arditto (Amsterdam) among others.
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Currently, James is an artist-in-resident at Cité Internationale des Arts. James is developing a new audio work for ABC Radio National, and new music for the West Australian Ballet; as well as a new work in collaboration with CLASS ACTIONS for CEMENTA FESTIVAL (2024).
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contact: precarioustexts@gmail.com
(under)scoring the commons (2022-)
Gosford Regional Gallery; University of Helsinki; World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, Avant Project (Poland)
Ongoing sonic research and performance activity exploring the relationship between shared lives and livelihoods across working-class social spaces derealised by precarity, and development working with local ensembles, brassbands, community volunteers and interviews with youth in the regions. Videography by Jeremy Elphick.
underscoringthecommons.com
Atmosphère Commune
(Comoning Atmospheres)
(2024-)
Supported through HAIR AIR Cité Internationale des Arts Residency; and CREATENSW
Exhibition documentation by Cristea Zhao
𝘼𝙩𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙝è𝙧𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙚 (𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘼𝙩𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙨)
investigates the (counter)economies of ventilation shafts, originally installed as part of the Metro system
in the early 20th century, when gentrifying social engineers sought to ‘breathe fresh air’ into the city, displacing working-class communities in turn. Beyond their ‘practical’ function, these sites also operate as more-than-weather systems of atmospheric ‘commoning’ for precarious communities and individuals in Parisian urban spaces during the extreme forces of Winter.
para(sitic)opera
(2022-)
PACT CENTRE; Cité Internationale des Arts; CASHMERE Radio; Critical Path’, LIQUID ARCHICTURE
POOR/PARA OPERA(TIONS) is an exploratory ‘poor’ opera company concerned with making ‘cheap performances within one’s means’ across the three ecologies. The first iteration B(Z)LOOM ANONYMOU$ was performed as part of Liquid Architecture’s MONO-POLY; the second iteration THE MARINE ROOM, was developed at PACT Centre with mentorship from choreographer Martin Del Amo. Documentation by Jeremy Elphick.
4k or Feral
(2024-)
Bianca Lyla Clifford
James Hazel
Kaz Therese
Kings Artist-Run-Initiative:
14 March 2024–13 April 2024
︎︎︎Room Sheet PDF
Emerging from discussions and embodiments among the three underclass artists from social-housing backgrounds, 4K or Feral explores the notion of ‘fidelity’ from a working-class, intersectional perspective.
Beyond the idea of ‘lo-fi’ as merely a co-optive or performative strategy employed by the design practices of the so-called creative class, or corporate propaganda, here we seek to examine what it means to work within the limitations of practice in a time of ongoing disaster by returning to what is available to the artists (often cheaply available media) and aligning with the ad hoc emergent.
By ‘tuning in’ as artists adrift between classes and codes, and questioning narratives around professional aesthetics and their imperatives to “overcome” our precarious (human) conditions to “succeed,” the works express nuance in the ecstasy and agony of underclass voices by ‘staying with the trouble’ of contemporary struggles – challenging mythologies of ‘working-classness’ that are often narrated from the outside by extractive social practice(s).
KINGS Artist-Run is generously supported by City of Melbourne through the Arts and Creative Partnerships Program. Exhibition documentation by Seb Kainey
CLASS ACTION$ COLLECTIVE (2022-)
Carriageworks, CEMENTA Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Ethics Centre
https://carriageworks.com.au/events/sleeplessness-2022/
Collective comprised of: Gadigal/Bidgigal/Yuin Elder, Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Kaz Therese, James Hazel
(concerned with intersecting, lived experiences of poverty - across micro-geographies in an era of radical change) with a host of collaborators to articulate what ‘class’ means within the contemporary world.
