The Building Still Lives, image by Mikaela Navia
REALARTWORKS INC
The Building(s) Still Lives 2016 , photo by Micaela Navia
PAST PROJECTS
PROJECTS UNDERTAKEN IN THE NORTHERN RIVERS SINCE INCORPORATION IN 2008.
2008
Wanawa Group Workshops Kyogle NSW
This was a multi arts project developed in partnership with Care Connections in Kyogle people with a disability and emerging artists.. Importantly this project engaged emerging artists as assistant facilitators. These assistant facilitators received an honorarium for their creative contribution towards the project.
http://realartwork.blogspot.com/2009/01/wanowa-group-real-artworks-workshops.html
http://realartwork.blogspot.com/2009/01/puppet-show-performance-at-roxy-gallery.html
2009
ArtStart Kyogle and Tabulam NSW.
Kyogle Digital media and music workshops were conducted in Kyogle with young people by digital media and music professionals with an emerging artist with a disability being employed as an assistant facilitator.
Tabulam Crossing Cultures Digital film and screen-printing workshops were held with a group of indigenous young people at a two-day camp at Tabulam.
Both these projects were showcased at the Lismore City Hall as part of the ArtStart Regional Showcase.
VeryAbility Project Lismore NSW
The veryAbility project was a RealArtWorks partnership with Realising Every Dream Incorporated, Lismore TAFE, and several other disability support services. The VeryAbility Event ran for a week in Lismore City Hall. This highly successful week long event included participation on various levels by over 150 artists with disabilities and had over 1000 attendees at the five events. Importantly 14 artists deemed as having a disability had the opportunity to engage in a 10 week multimedia and performance course at Northern Rivers TAFE gaining and demonstrating a high level of skill in camera operation, live vision mixing, editing and performance for camera.. The project creators were excited to provide the platform for the inaugural Macushla Doyle Memorial Art Award.
2009/2010Band Wagon development.
The musical act bandwagon was successful in applying for the highly competitive Australia Council for the art SoundClash funding for the development of innovative, risk-taking contemporary popular music. BandWagon have played a number of successful gigs including being awarded a Arts NSW grant to play at the Awakenings Festival in Western Victoria and have played at the Mullumbimby Music Festival in 2011BandWagon (or split off bands) have played a number of profile performance including Mazstock 2010 and supporting Kevin Blechdom (USA) in the Lismore performance of her Australian tour. Importantly RealArtWorks Inc. applied successfully to Arts NSW for funding for BandWagon to travel to the Awakening festival in Horsham (Vic) to play at Australia’s only regional Disability Arts Festival
Dec 2011 Lismore regional Gallery.
Aug 2012 Wagga Regional Gallery.
THIS IS NOT WHAT IT APPEARS
Was an investigation into the nature of ‘things’ by about 14 artists with and without disability commissioned by the Lismore Regional gallery.
This is not What it Appears culminated in a ten screen video and sound installation. Developed with Lismore Regional Gallery and Deliniate funding employed thirteen proffesional artists with and without disability to develop the work
MOST TOUR 2014 and ongoing
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2016
The Building(S) Still Lives
The Building(s), 'Still Lives' was a multi-arts and site specific response to the narratives that we form with buildings, as individuals and groups. With over 100 creatives, a 600 strong audience, users of '110 Magellan Street' past and present undertake a series of workshops with professional artists across art forms producing a live performance pieces including live original score, puppetry, movement and more in which the buildings themselves became the canvases for large scale projections.
2017
ARCH. Arts Recovery Community Hub
ARCH was a grassroots creative investigation into the community(s) response to the extreme weather event cyclone Debbie and its aftermath: the resulting Flood that devastated Lismore in March 2017. It was a project for local artists to connect, creatively process, recover and actively contribute to the recovery of the wider community who themselves, are undertaking the steps to recovery ARCH was a partnership between Realartworks.Inc, ARTS NR’s, Social Futures Ability Links FNC and Creative Lismore . ARCH was based on the philosophy that once the initial crisis of The Flood was subsiding, we as individuals and as a community entered the next stage of recovery looking at ways to reconnect, reflect and share our experiences to make sense of what has happened, to articulate our stories of loss and express ourselves in a way that words alone cannot do. Over a period of 6 weeks 30 creatives collaborated with over 500 participants in the community. Nearly 700 people visited the space .The space became a creative lab and the catalyst for THE OVERTOPPING, a RealArtWorks project in 201 for ARTSTATE LISMORE
2017-ongoing
The Overtopping Studio
Dance, performance, multimedia, exhibitions, workshops and more! Lismore’s artists are transforming an empty CBD shop space at Lismore Central into a creative hotbed called The Overtopping.
The Overtopping is a studio that welcomes people to engage as creative collaborators, participants or simply spectators in an inspiring creative response to the recent Flood in Lismore.
The Overtopping is an artist led initiative that invites the public to creatively engage with some of Lismore’s most talented emerging and professional experimental artists to explore the power of resilience, connection and community to create a new, stronger, more accepting and freeing community
The Overtopping is part of the Creative Lismore activated shop space project “The Art of Doing Business in Lismore” and a collaboration between Lismore Central Shopping Centre RealArtWorks, Lismore City Council and Creative Lismore
2017
Waste to Art
The Waste to Art workshops, a collaboration between RealArtWork.Inc and Lismore City Council’s Recycling and Recovery Centre encompassed a series of free community workshops where participants were facilitated by professional artists ‘in residence’ to create exciting artworks from reused and recycled materials on site at the Waste Centre. These workshops relied on using discarded or low value items from the Revolve Shop to repurpose into new art pieces. The focus for participants was to engage in their creativity, learn new skills and learn more about the facilities at the Waste Centre. The workshops were open to all ages and were fully accessible. A sculpture created by master sculptor Keith Cameron using donated and found pieces of metal by Waste patrons and the general public was created to commemorate the role of the Lismore Waste Facility workers in the 2017Flood Recovery process; The Sculpture has been placed on site on the grounds of the Recycling and Recovery Centre.
2017
The Overtopping/ARTSTATE LISMORE
An official event of Artstate Lismore.
A man stands trapped on a bridge as the Flood waters rise. Another escapes from an island of rats swimming through a sea of spiders to reach the rising sun and safety. A community rallies and washes away the mud.
These are true stories based around the extreme weather event Cyclone Debbie and its impact on Lismore. The Overtopping is a creative investigation into disaster and recovery, trauma and resilience. Lismore’s back alleys framed these stories of adventure, bravery, comedy and love to create a site specific performance, combining dance, puppetry, sound art, projection, creative lighting, live storytelling and water art. with a unique epilogue, Not drowning, Waving- a durational performance by Ana Wojak and Cloudbeard.
The Overtopping was an overlapping of collected narratives and images set to original live music, both moving and still like a flood of live art!
The Overtopping showcased some of the best emerging and professional artists of varying ability working in Lismore, and explored the stories of this city and its people.
Supported by Lismore Headspace, Ability Links FNC, Creative Recovery Network, Lismore City Council, Creative Lismore, LightnUp, RA NSW.