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

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.

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