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 The upcoming 2010 BARI FESTIVAL seeks to expose Brisbane’s many Artist Run Initiatives, bringing to light the city’s diverse art spaces and practitioners via a host of special events and showcases. Throughout September INFORMER’s ZENOBIA FROST will profile the supporting ARIs each week in preparation for the main event, which runs throughout the month of October.
 BARI Profile #1
Nine Lives
What: Nine Lives is a completely independent gallery in Fortitude Valley that showcases a host of local, interstate and international artists.
Where: 694 A Ann St, Fortitude Valley
Web: www.wehaveninelives.blogspot.com
Q. What’s Nine Lives’ manifesto?
A. We aim to build a platform that not only brings great shows to Brisbane but also allows the opportunity for local artists to show their works on a broad spectrum. There is no theory behind our choices – we choose art we would like to see on the wall and so far this has proven to be a success.
Q. Which artists will Nine Lives be showcasing for BARI?
A. Gold Coast artist Sam Smith, whose work has seen a huge transformation over the past 12 months, inspired by tribal illustrations and interpretive graffiti. With a design and photography base, his skill set is broad. Sam is a great example for younger artists looking to find their own style but still experimenting with a number of media in the search. The second artist for the month is Victorian photographer and filmmaker Ryan Heywood. For years now, Ryan has been working closely with some of the world’s more creative surfers. Heywood’s photography projects and small films capture their energy as snapshots in time.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your artists?
A. This year, shows we are hosting aren’t looking to interact; instead we hope to showcase work that will engage and inspire viewers. We have two young Australians making waves in their respective media and we’re proud to exhibit them, especially at this time.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. Brisbane is an exciting place to be at the moment. There is a rife do it yourself culture apparent. BARI is a great way to celebrate this fact, and show the spaces that are working hard to put us on the map.
 BARI Profile #2
MSSR
What: The Moreton Street Spare Room Project began as an exhibition program of contemporary Australian art in 2006. The project diverges from conventional institutional exhibition programs to re-contextualise the presentation of contemporary art. MSSR has a focus on installation, video and new media-based practice.
Where: 105 Moreton St, New Farm
Web: www.exposuredvd.com
Q. What’s MSSR’s manifesto?
A. Ephemeral Conceptual Social Activist Project
Q. What programs will MSSR run for BARI?
A. We will present a program of performances, lectures, film, discussions and music in King George Square on Saturday Oct 16. From midday to 9pm visitors to the BARI marquee can see presentations by local community groups, artists, activists, educators, naturopaths and film directors. The event will be a kind of Radio National meets Pecha Kucha mixed with the Spiegeltent, TED and Funniest Home Videos.
Q. Which artists will your program engage?
A. There is a diverse mixture of artists, performers, community groups, film makers and DJs. Some of the confirmed presentations are Sam Sharman’s Spiritual Fitness, Matt Dabrowski and the Many Hands of Glamour, DJ Geroitek, a screening of the locally-produced film Food Matters, all about MSSR and a roundtable with local community groups including Vortcs, Brisbane Transition Hub, Local Power, Permablitz, Spiral Community Hub and Reverse Garbage.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your program?
A. Our project fosters discussion, development and participation at grass-roots levels. Visitors will be able to listen to, learn from and watch an array of diverse presentations or actively engage by asking questions, contributing to discussions or simply dancing.
Q. Why did MSSR get involved with BARI Festival?
A. MSSR activates culture. Operated by artists Chris Bennie and Nicola Chatham, the project began in 2006 as an exhibition space in the spare room of a share-house in New Farm, Brisbane. Since then MSSR has produced three feature-length documentaries, curated video show-reels for international and local exhibitions, and operated as a mobile exhibition venue. MSSR considers the BARI festival to be an important forum for the development of culture in Brisbane.
 BARI Profile #3
proppaNOW
What: proppaNOW is comprised of eight Indigenous artists and agitators. The collective’s work confronts the mainstream misconceptions, stereotypes, urban myths, romanticised views and institutionalised racism of colonial Australia. proppaNOW is one of Brisbane’s longest running Art Run Initiatives/Collectives.
Where: 4/24 Brereton St, South Brisbane
Web: www.proppanow.com
Q. What’s proppaNOW’s manifesto?
A. proppaNOW are provocative, challenging, mischievous Aboriginal agitators who challenge people through thoughtful confrontation and by offering new perspectives on how we, as a society, define ‘Aboriginal’ art. Visually challenging, with large-scale works including painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, photography and video installation. All the proppaNOW artists’ works look to overthrow mainstream misconceptions, regarding institutionalised racism, stereotypes, urban myths and romanticised views of Colonial Australia
Q. What programs will run at proppaNOW for BARI?
A. Due to the nature of our space we will be holding a one-night event – featuring film screenings, performance, and spoken word – during the BARI Festival at an alternative venue to our studio, which is yet to be announced but will be up on the BARI website closer to the exhibition date.
Q. Which artists will your BARI event engage?
A. All members of proppaNOW will be part of the public event for BARI, we are also hoping to invite some interstate artists to participate with us.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your artists?
A. We are expanding outside of what we are known for as artists and providing a new platform for work production within our collective – look out for the special guest performance!
Q. Why did your ARI get involved with BARI Festival?
A. Because we are members of the artist run initiative community and believe in supporting cultural production outside of the institutional frameworks.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. It’s a great opportunity for us to get together and showcase what we do. It is also a great opportunity for audiences to experience something that is engaging directly with the artists and the source of our art production.
 BARI Profile #4
The Tidy
What: The Tidy Space is part of Alchemix Studios, a recording studio complex and music resource website. The studio is now also an art gallery and boutique live recording space for underground experimental artists / jazz groups and classical ensembles.
Where: 29 Logan Rd, Wooloongabba
Web: www.alchemix.com.au/art_gallery.htm
Q. What’s The Tidy’s manifesto?
A. The Tidy is a multifunctional art/work space dedicated to bringing sound and vision together. Artist run, we push and create sound events and group exhibitions. Our ARI also sits next to Alchemix Studios, which is involved with recording live sound/art events, documenting many of Brisbane’s underground performers.
Q. What are your BARI programs?
A. The Tidy space itself will play host to an opening night on Oct 15 for an exhibition of local artists. The artworks will then be on exhibit till the end of October. Another related program held on and off location will be the sound event known as Disembraining.
Q. Which artists will The Tidy showcase for BARI?
A. Our Oct 15 exhibition will showcase Chantel Schott, Lucinda Wolber, Claire Kurzman, Nick Simpson, Ky Curran, Jason Chin and Phoebe MacDonald, Nick McGavern, and Leif Gifford. The Tidy being quite a young art space is really about pushing emerging artists who are looking for a chance. We do however also exhibit quite a few established artists. Art in the category of OTHER is also something the Tidy embraces.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your artworks?
A. It’s a free event and the community can visit the gallery most days of the week. Spread over two levels, the space invites people to hang out a bit longer, rather than the traditional white box.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. The focus and effort that goes into bringing culture to a fast growing city is very important. Events like the BARI Festival are needed to keep people aware of our local talents. Artist Run Initiatives make a city.
 BARI Profile #5
Spec
What: SPEC is named after the former project Spec Temporary Spaces. Events include gigs, performances and exhibitions. Members include founding co-directors Alex Cuffe and Helen Rogers.
Web: www.myspace.com/specspaces
Q. What is SPEC’s manifesto?
A. SPEC is an ARI specializing in one-night-only and short-term exhibitions promoting experimental sounds, light and visual art emerging artists.
Q. What programs will run at SPEC?
A. From October 9 to 12, on King George Square, SPEC will have a space where artists are invited to contribute and participate in our obscene zine collaboration. Artists can come in, draw, collage, shit, piss, fart, and collaborate with other artists, to create wonderful, celebratory works of obscenity that will be collated/compiled into zines available for purchase.
Q. What will the artists you engage bring to BARI?
A. This project will bring together Brisbane emerging artists from a diverse range of art disciplines to collaborate and create images of obscenity, profanity and the pathetic. Artists are invited to embrace the lewd, crude and rude and reconnect with their inner child – the one who compulsively draws dicks on their desk.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your programs / artworks?
A. The term ‘artist’ extends to anyone who is keen to contribute to our zine mini-factory. Also, as images are created, they will be collated and hand-bound into a zine that will be available to the public for purchase. Another way of participating is donating anything that can be drawn on and bound.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. Brisbane has a rapidly growing number of ARIs, and so a festival like BARI is a fantastic opportunity to get exposure in the wider community, and for the public to become better acquainted with this particular facet of the arts community.
 BARI Profile #6
Level
What: Informing LEVEL’s approach are models of collaboration and collectivity and a commitment to critical engagement with the diversity of female contemporary arts practices. By strengthening relationships between artists, writers and curators, LEVEL seeks to provide a new platform for discussion – LEVELing the playing field.
Where: Lvl 1, 11 Stratton Street, Newstead
Web: www.levelari.org
Q. What’s LEVEL’s manifesto?
A. LEVEL is an artist run initiative with dedicated studio, residency and exhibition programs providing opportunities and building connections between established, emerging and early career female visual artists.
Q. What programs will LEVEL run for BARI?
A. Broadcast will the first in a series of exhibitions curated by co-director Courtney Coombs that will be ongoing, fluid explorations of feminism’s relevance to contemporary art. Broadcast will survey and question the role of feminism through the work of eight emerging female artists from Brisbane who engage with video practice. Occupying a somewhat ambiguous position in current critically engaged practice, the issue of feminism is both celebrated and undermined in an ongoing conversation that punctuates contemporary art. As an expressive and open medium, video exploits these intense exchanges between the screen and female practice.
Q. Which artists will produce Broadcast?
A. Sarah Byrne, Svenja Kratz, Fiona Mail (Catherine Sagin and Kate Woodcroft), Heidi Stevens, Louise Tahiraj, Danielle Woolbank, and Michelle Xen.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your programs?
A. They will be able to visit our permanent space and the exhibition that is on display, as well as coming along to our forum to engage in a discussion surrounding topics relevant to Broadcast’s aims as a project.
Q. Why did LEVEL get involved with BARI Festival?
A. With so many fantastic things happening around Brisbane at the moment in regards to contemporary art practice, it is important to band together in order to support each other’s diversities as well as to explore the potentially differing models that each ARI brings to the arts community in Brisbane.
 BARI Profile #7
Jugglers Art Space
What: Jugglers Art Space Inc is an artist run initiative that is committed to supporting emerging artists across a broad range of genres. It was founded in 2002 to address the critical shortage of exhibition and studio spaces available in Brisbane.
Where: 103 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley
Web: www.jugglers.org.au
Q. What is Jugglers’ manifesto?
A. Jugglers is about supporting the development of emerging artists via exhibition programs and studio spaces we also have an interest in social justice and street art/culture.
Q. What will Jugglers artists bring to BARI Festival?
A. The Jugglers exhibition of artists, workshops and events will showcase the skills of a broad spectrum of emerging to early career artists from the visual arts and performing arts sector of greater Brisbane, these artists will in turn offer the public a diverse range of creative activities to be a part of.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with Jugglers during BARI?
People are encouraged to book online for Nic Plowman and Terry Summer’s workshops. People are invited to show up on the days of the Open Mic and general Life drawing classes. Artists talks are also free and all are welcome.
Q. Why did Jugglers get involved with BARI Festival?
A. Jugglers is probably the BARI Festival’s largest advocate! We have always had a passion for independent art production and supported the development of artists! We also came up with the idea for the BARI Festival in 2008!
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. BARI Festival is important for locals and visitors to Brisbane because each year it continues to grow and provides a premise for artistic and cultural diversity for the wider community.
 BARI Profile #8
Love Love Studio
What: Love Love studio comprises of two large gallery spaces and several studios for artists to do what they want. They’re open to proposals for solo or collaborative exhibitions and functions. If you’re nice to the old lady next door she might make you a cup of tea and killer banana bread.
Where: 27 Florence St, Newstead.
Web: Look for them on Facebook here.
Q. What’s Love Love Studio’s manifesto?
A. Love Love Studio is a community-based ARI whose purpose to is provide a platform for local emerging artists to display their work in a number of different media.
Q. What programs will Love Love run during BARI?
A. We will run a series of nightly workshops aimed at providing an insight into the workings of an ARI, from their inception to viability and longevity.
Q. Which artists will Love Love be bringing to the BARI love-in?
A. Matt Johnson, Georg Whelan, Andrew Harwood, Shida, Guz, Ben Werner, and many more.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your programs?
A. The events organised are open to the public, during the art show, and artists will be on hand to discuss their works and provide a window into their diverse practices. Artists’ studios will be open for viewing offering an intriguing insight into the skills and process behind the art.
Q. Why did Love Love get involved with BARI Festival?
A. Love Love Studio is committed to promoting local talent and supporting the Brisbane Art scene.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. BARI enables the public to view and understand some the cultural underpinnings operating in and around Brisbane. It gives local artists a chance to communicate with a wider audience and share some of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. BARI promotes growth and learning within the local community.
 BARI Profile #9
Otherfilm
What: Otherfilm is a collective dedicated to avant-garde, experimental, abstract, expanded and other film. We express this dedication through screening programs, performance events, exhibitions, workshops, articles, research, discussions and arguments.
Web: www.otherfilm.org
Q. What’s Otherfilm’s manifesto?
A. Screen, beam; noise, light. Exploded like this, the cinema is more than the sum of its parts: it is a vessel whose contents, uncontained, are freed to sprout new growths. Beautiful mutations, evolving and deliquescing, pulsing and contracting ... expanded cinema threatens to monster its parents, while never actually calling them, unless it wants money.
Q. What programs will Otherfilm run for BARI
A. Brilliant Journeys: extraordinary art films created by Australian artists with specially-commissioned live performances by contemporary noise, electronic and rock musicians. The films will be screened on luminous 16mm, taking the viewer on stunning kaleidoscopic journeys. The filmmakers are regarded as ‘living legends’ of Australian art cinema, while the musicians include high profile contemporary composers and improvisers and brilliantly inventive noise-rock outfits. These unique live collaborations will celebrate beautiful crossovers and chance encounters possible in live film and sound performance.
Q. Whose films will Otherfilm be screening during BARI?
A. Paul Winkler (Sydney), with loud soundtrack by Golden Olive; Dirk de Bruyn (Melbourne), with Joel Stern; Arthur and Corinne Cantrill (Melbourne), with Golden Fur; and George Gittoes (Sydney), with Kitten Party. Our artists will bring history, presence, presents and good times.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your programs/artworks?
A. Through opening their eyes and ears and minds.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. It’s a party with the aim of fostering connectedness and collaboration and also a chance to contrast the distinctive aesthetic positions of Brisbane’s artmakers, organisers and audiences. Has to be a good thing.
 BARI Profile #10
The Fort What: The Fort is an independent, artist-run centre for the arts, established to help protect and promote Brisbane’s vibrant arts culture.
Where: 57 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley
Web: www.thefort.org.au
Q. What is The Fort’s manifesto?
A. The Fort provides an innovative, community approach to the creation and presentation of art. The Fort is managed by artists, for artists and aims to grow many artistic endeavours drawing on collective resources, skills and networks, with a special focus on environmental and community sustainability.
Q. What’s going on at The Fort during BARI Festival?
A. The Fort comprises artist studios; art galleries; a fashion design space; a large, purpose designed function, rehearsals and performance space; project management and event co-ordination services; music production and rehearsal studios; music and art supplies (Rehab Records); a photography and film suite; web, media, graphic design and illustration offices; and more. All of The Fort’s vibrant spaces (nine in total) will be operational and open to engage with the broader community throughout BARI.
Q. How will the community be able to engage with Fort artists during BARI?
A. The Brooklyn-Queensland Expressway Exhibition opens on Oct 28 at 6pm and will run at The Fort Arts Hub as part of BARI until Nov 11, open daily from 1 – 6pm.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. Artist-run initiatives nurture their own. Government and operationally funded arts bodies and organisations often overlook the raw, undercurrent culture of a city that encourages great artistic endeavour. ARIs provide supportive, understanding environments, and a platform for creative collaboration. BARI Festival brings these independent groups and spaces together, providing a voice for these varied, but ultimately united by purpose, culturally significant initiatives.
 BARI Profile #11
Independent Press
What: Independent Press is a free arts newspaper published in Brisbane.
Where: Find Independent Press at Brisbane ARIs and The Outpost
Web: www.independentpress.com.au
Q. What’s Independent Press’ Manifesto?
A. IP was established as an annual publication to document exhibitions by local emerging and early career artists as an alternative to mainstream arts publications. We’d pimp our nanas to make it happen if we had to. Luckily, it’s not that hard. People in the local arts scene want dialogue to chew on.
Q. What programs will IP run during BARI Festival?
A. Along with publishing Issue 2 and hosting a launch party at King George Square on Saturday Oct 9 from 6pm, we’ll be blogging what’s on during the festival throughout October, with behind-the-scenes photos and as much gossip as possible!
Q. Which BARI artists will feature in Independent Press?
A. All artists in the festival will feature in IP Issue 2, with over 40 pages devoted to BARI. Each ARI has contributed self-generated critical and creative responses to their own programs.
Q. How will the community be able get hold of copies of IP?
A. 3000 copies of the newspaper are available from each ARI as well as local favorites like Jamie’s Espresso and The Outpost for FREE, as well as for download from our blog.
Q. Why did IP get involved with BARI Festival?
A. We wanted to participate and contribute and encourage others to do the same. There’s a lack of contemporary arts writing platforms in Brisbane and we wanted to address this.
Q. Why is BARI Festival important to Brisbane arts and Brisbanites?
A. It’s important to take time out to look at the huge effort that artists make to run these initiatives – artist self-organisation is a growing phenomenon in Brisbane. It’s ambiguous but exciting future leaves much to be discussed over some choc chip biscuits and a good cup of tea.
 BARI Profile #12
Disembraining Machine
What: Disembraining Machine is a monthly event showcasing experimental noise, music, film and art from the local underground scene. Disembraining Machine is organised by Joel Stern and Marly Luske and takes place at The Tidy at Alchemix.
Where: The Tidy, Logan Rd, Wooloongabba
Web: www.disembraining.com
Q. What’s Disembraining Machine’s manifesto?
A. To stage aberrant shindigs showcasing experiments in noise, improvised, popular and unpopular, new and old music from Brisbane’s thriving underground scene. To record the experiments and unleash them on an unsuspecting global public.
Q. What programs will your ARI run during the festival?
A. Disembraining Machine’s 13th event will be a special BARI edition held on Oct 10.
Q. Which artists will your BARI program engage?
A. Four amazing acts with the goal of increasing pulse rates: Pastel Blaze – all girl glitter punk action (www.pastelblaze.tumblr.com); Gerald Keaney and the Gerald Keaneys – avant-garde praxis, punk, Marxism, push biking, dressing funny and sci-fi (www.myspace.com/geraldkeaney); KEMIALLISET YSTÄVÄT – impossible, entrancing noises from Finland (www.kemiallisetystavat.com); and Sam Hamilton – avant-pop ecstacy from Auckland, NZ (www.myspace.com/samhamilton0).
Q. How will the community be able to engage with your program?
A. It’s great, weird, and provocative music offered for free. The audience has everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Q. Why did your ARI get involved with BARI Festival?
A. It’s an awesome opportunity to freak out punters in King George Square.
The BARI (Brisbane Artist Run Initiatives) Festival runs from Oct 1 – 30. See www.barifest.blogspot.com for more info.
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