Latest news with #PerthInstituteofContemporaryArts
The Age
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
The Perth artists using technology to give a new perspective on the city's shot-hole borer toll
Cassandra Tyler's pitch to her fellow Perth creatives couldn't be more madcap: 'I want to make a musical about the shot-hole borer.' However, Tyler's idea for a musical was not the kind that would play at Crown Theatre but an experimental piece using the sounds of Hyde Park, which has lost about 20 per cent of its trees due to the polyphagous shot-hole borer. The work created by Tyler, W. Tse Sang and Catherine Gough-Brady aims to trigger a strong emotional response and make the people of Perth feel deeply for the loss of thousands of trees. 'People know what's happening from a scientific point of view. We understand that thousands of trees have been chopped down,' Tyler said. 'And we know that the battle is lost and all we can do is wait until the trees fall down or they're cut down. But we don't feel that loss. It is something apart from us.' Loading However, there is a lot more going on in the trio's piece ARia Song Unseen, one of three new immersive art works developed under an innovative program created by the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts called boorda yeyi (a Noongar phrase meaning 'future now'). In their project, Tyler, Sang and Gough-Brady work with AR – or augmented reality – in which participants are given a tablet and headphones and invited to circle a bag of woodchips which, through the tech, is overlaid the ghost-like image of the Moreton Bay figs that have been cut down, along with the sounds of Hyde Park. Tyler, a multidisciplinary artist who moved across from Melbourne, was moved to make a work about the shot-hole borer that is wreaking havoc across Perth and is now threatening trees in the eastern states when she saw a connection between the ravenous bug and the colonisation of Australia.
Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The Perth artists using technology to give a new perspective on the city's shot-hole borer toll
Cassandra Tyler's pitch to her fellow Perth creatives couldn't be more madcap: 'I want to make a musical about the shot-hole borer.' However, Tyler's idea for a musical was not the kind that would play at Crown Theatre but an experimental piece using the sounds of Hyde Park, which has lost about 20 per cent of its trees due to the polyphagous shot-hole borer. The work created by Tyler, W. Tse Sang and Catherine Gough-Brady aims to trigger a strong emotional response and make the people of Perth feel deeply for the loss of thousands of trees. 'People know what's happening from a scientific point of view. We understand that thousands of trees have been chopped down,' Tyler said. 'And we know that the battle is lost and all we can do is wait until the trees fall down or they're cut down. But we don't feel that loss. It is something apart from us.' Loading However, there is a lot more going on in the trio's piece ARia Song Unseen, one of three new immersive art works developed under an innovative program created by the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts called boorda yeyi (a Noongar phrase meaning 'future now'). In their project, Tyler, Sang and Gough-Brady work with AR – or augmented reality – in which participants are given a tablet and headphones and invited to circle a bag of woodchips which, through the tech, is overlaid the ghost-like image of the Moreton Bay figs that have been cut down, along with the sounds of Hyde Park. Tyler, a multidisciplinary artist who moved across from Melbourne, was moved to make a work about the shot-hole borer that is wreaking havoc across Perth and is now threatening trees in the eastern states when she saw a connection between the ravenous bug and the colonisation of Australia.
The Advertiser
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Artist wins $100k prize with art of wax, sand and glass
Jack Ball has won the nation's richest prize for young artists for an immersive photographic and sculptural installation, inspired by a scrapbook collection in the Australian Queer Archives. Ball, 39, was announced as the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday. The trans man was among 22 finalists selected from a record field of more than 500 entries for the $100,000 biennial prize, awarded to a contemporary Australian artist aged under 40. Ball, who worked on Heavy Grit intensively for more than a year, said they had a "huge emotional response" to scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives. "I had so many dilemmas, so many curiosities, so many things to grapple with," they said. "In the 1950s-60s, seeing different references to trans experiences was incredibly meaningful and complex and I had a lot of big feelings to process through the experience of engaging with that content." The work includes fragments and glimpses of queer histories, layering archival materials with personal images and soft form sculptures, and creating an interplay between the past and the present. In a prize with no restrictions on materials for entries, the winning work comprises diverse mediums including inkjet prints, textured stained glass, beeswax, charcoal, copper pipe, fabric, paint, sand and rope. An earlier iteration of the work, exhibited at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2024, even contained chilli powder. There are also suspended elements, with ropes anchored by purple silk sandbags that have been coiled into intestinal shapes. "I just had a lot of fun working with these sculptural materials, and thinking about what sort of spatial relationships I can build," said Ball. The judges spent months selecting finalists and landed on a winner after seeing the works installed in the gallery earlier in the week. In the end, their decision was unanimous and they described the winning work as "sensual, experimental and sophisticated". Co-judge Julie Fragar was recently in the spotlight as the 2025 Archibald Prize winner, and said with all the excitement of winning a major award, Ball should expect a few sleepless nights. "I've been looking at Jack this week thinking, 'hang on to your hat' and have fun with it," said Fragar. Due to its lack of entry restrictions, the Ramsay Prize has a unique capacity to reflect contemporary art trends, said Fragar, but it's ultimately an art world prize. "It has great potential to transform an artist's career, but the Ramsay's not 'the horse race', as they say of the Archibald." Sydney-born Ball grew up in Perth and moved back to the NSW capital two years ago. Ball's work becomes part of the Art Gallery of South Australia's collection, joining works by past winners Sarah Contos (2017), Vincent Namatjira (2019), Kate Bohunnis (2021) and Ida Sophia (2023). Finalists are on display at the gallery from Saturday until August 31. Jack Ball has won the nation's richest prize for young artists for an immersive photographic and sculptural installation, inspired by a scrapbook collection in the Australian Queer Archives. Ball, 39, was announced as the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday. The trans man was among 22 finalists selected from a record field of more than 500 entries for the $100,000 biennial prize, awarded to a contemporary Australian artist aged under 40. Ball, who worked on Heavy Grit intensively for more than a year, said they had a "huge emotional response" to scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives. "I had so many dilemmas, so many curiosities, so many things to grapple with," they said. "In the 1950s-60s, seeing different references to trans experiences was incredibly meaningful and complex and I had a lot of big feelings to process through the experience of engaging with that content." The work includes fragments and glimpses of queer histories, layering archival materials with personal images and soft form sculptures, and creating an interplay between the past and the present. In a prize with no restrictions on materials for entries, the winning work comprises diverse mediums including inkjet prints, textured stained glass, beeswax, charcoal, copper pipe, fabric, paint, sand and rope. An earlier iteration of the work, exhibited at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2024, even contained chilli powder. There are also suspended elements, with ropes anchored by purple silk sandbags that have been coiled into intestinal shapes. "I just had a lot of fun working with these sculptural materials, and thinking about what sort of spatial relationships I can build," said Ball. The judges spent months selecting finalists and landed on a winner after seeing the works installed in the gallery earlier in the week. In the end, their decision was unanimous and they described the winning work as "sensual, experimental and sophisticated". Co-judge Julie Fragar was recently in the spotlight as the 2025 Archibald Prize winner, and said with all the excitement of winning a major award, Ball should expect a few sleepless nights. "I've been looking at Jack this week thinking, 'hang on to your hat' and have fun with it," said Fragar. Due to its lack of entry restrictions, the Ramsay Prize has a unique capacity to reflect contemporary art trends, said Fragar, but it's ultimately an art world prize. "It has great potential to transform an artist's career, but the Ramsay's not 'the horse race', as they say of the Archibald." Sydney-born Ball grew up in Perth and moved back to the NSW capital two years ago. Ball's work becomes part of the Art Gallery of South Australia's collection, joining works by past winners Sarah Contos (2017), Vincent Namatjira (2019), Kate Bohunnis (2021) and Ida Sophia (2023). Finalists are on display at the gallery from Saturday until August 31. Jack Ball has won the nation's richest prize for young artists for an immersive photographic and sculptural installation, inspired by a scrapbook collection in the Australian Queer Archives. Ball, 39, was announced as the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday. The trans man was among 22 finalists selected from a record field of more than 500 entries for the $100,000 biennial prize, awarded to a contemporary Australian artist aged under 40. Ball, who worked on Heavy Grit intensively for more than a year, said they had a "huge emotional response" to scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives. "I had so many dilemmas, so many curiosities, so many things to grapple with," they said. "In the 1950s-60s, seeing different references to trans experiences was incredibly meaningful and complex and I had a lot of big feelings to process through the experience of engaging with that content." The work includes fragments and glimpses of queer histories, layering archival materials with personal images and soft form sculptures, and creating an interplay between the past and the present. In a prize with no restrictions on materials for entries, the winning work comprises diverse mediums including inkjet prints, textured stained glass, beeswax, charcoal, copper pipe, fabric, paint, sand and rope. An earlier iteration of the work, exhibited at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2024, even contained chilli powder. There are also suspended elements, with ropes anchored by purple silk sandbags that have been coiled into intestinal shapes. "I just had a lot of fun working with these sculptural materials, and thinking about what sort of spatial relationships I can build," said Ball. The judges spent months selecting finalists and landed on a winner after seeing the works installed in the gallery earlier in the week. In the end, their decision was unanimous and they described the winning work as "sensual, experimental and sophisticated". Co-judge Julie Fragar was recently in the spotlight as the 2025 Archibald Prize winner, and said with all the excitement of winning a major award, Ball should expect a few sleepless nights. "I've been looking at Jack this week thinking, 'hang on to your hat' and have fun with it," said Fragar. Due to its lack of entry restrictions, the Ramsay Prize has a unique capacity to reflect contemporary art trends, said Fragar, but it's ultimately an art world prize. "It has great potential to transform an artist's career, but the Ramsay's not 'the horse race', as they say of the Archibald." Sydney-born Ball grew up in Perth and moved back to the NSW capital two years ago. Ball's work becomes part of the Art Gallery of South Australia's collection, joining works by past winners Sarah Contos (2017), Vincent Namatjira (2019), Kate Bohunnis (2021) and Ida Sophia (2023). Finalists are on display at the gallery from Saturday until August 31. Jack Ball has won the nation's richest prize for young artists for an immersive photographic and sculptural installation, inspired by a scrapbook collection in the Australian Queer Archives. Ball, 39, was announced as the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday. The trans man was among 22 finalists selected from a record field of more than 500 entries for the $100,000 biennial prize, awarded to a contemporary Australian artist aged under 40. Ball, who worked on Heavy Grit intensively for more than a year, said they had a "huge emotional response" to scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives. "I had so many dilemmas, so many curiosities, so many things to grapple with," they said. "In the 1950s-60s, seeing different references to trans experiences was incredibly meaningful and complex and I had a lot of big feelings to process through the experience of engaging with that content." The work includes fragments and glimpses of queer histories, layering archival materials with personal images and soft form sculptures, and creating an interplay between the past and the present. In a prize with no restrictions on materials for entries, the winning work comprises diverse mediums including inkjet prints, textured stained glass, beeswax, charcoal, copper pipe, fabric, paint, sand and rope. An earlier iteration of the work, exhibited at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2024, even contained chilli powder. There are also suspended elements, with ropes anchored by purple silk sandbags that have been coiled into intestinal shapes. "I just had a lot of fun working with these sculptural materials, and thinking about what sort of spatial relationships I can build," said Ball. The judges spent months selecting finalists and landed on a winner after seeing the works installed in the gallery earlier in the week. In the end, their decision was unanimous and they described the winning work as "sensual, experimental and sophisticated". Co-judge Julie Fragar was recently in the spotlight as the 2025 Archibald Prize winner, and said with all the excitement of winning a major award, Ball should expect a few sleepless nights. "I've been looking at Jack this week thinking, 'hang on to your hat' and have fun with it," said Fragar. Due to its lack of entry restrictions, the Ramsay Prize has a unique capacity to reflect contemporary art trends, said Fragar, but it's ultimately an art world prize. "It has great potential to transform an artist's career, but the Ramsay's not 'the horse race', as they say of the Archibald." Sydney-born Ball grew up in Perth and moved back to the NSW capital two years ago. Ball's work becomes part of the Art Gallery of South Australia's collection, joining works by past winners Sarah Contos (2017), Vincent Namatjira (2019), Kate Bohunnis (2021) and Ida Sophia (2023). Finalists are on display at the gallery from Saturday until August 31.
West Australian
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- West Australian
Artist's roll through queer history inspiration for win
Jack Ball has won the nation's richest prize for young artists for an immersive photographic and sculptural installation, inspired by a scrapbook collection in the Australian Queer Archives. Ball, 39, was announced as the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday. The trans man was among 22 finalists selected from a record field of more than 500 entries for the $100,000 biennial prize, awarded to a contemporary Australian artist aged under 40. Ball, who worked on Heavy Grit intensively for more than a year, said they had a "huge emotional response" to scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives. "I had so many dilemmas, so many curiosities, so many things to grapple with," they said. "In the 1950s-60s, seeing different references to trans experiences was incredibly meaningful and complex and I had a lot of big feelings to process through the experience of engaging with that content." The work includes fragments and glimpses of queer histories, layering archival materials with personal images and soft form sculptures, and creating an interplay between the past and the present. Ball would make a "really thorough plan" for the prize money, because "I know just how precious every opportunity is … for example, getting to travel, whether it's in Australia or overseas, meeting new people, new relationships, new communities". In a prize with no material boundaries, the winning work comprises diverse mediums including inkjet prints, textured stained glass, beeswax, charcoal, copper pipe, fabric, paint, sand and rope. The judges were unanimous in their decision and described the winning work as "sensual, experimental and sophisticated". Co-judge and 2025 Archibald Prize winner Julie Fragar said the work evoked "a really good feeling of restlessness". She said the prize was unique in its flexibility to reflect contemporary art trends, unlike other prizes with rigid criteria, and its role as a barometer for the art scene was increasingly important as resources dwindled. "Art prizes are a great way, not just to give artists money to survive and boost their careers, but also to raise their profile and to grow in a long term way," she said. "The Ramsay prize will be a huge boost to Jack Ball's career and set Jack up for the future." Sydney-born Ball grew up in Perth and moved to Sydney two years ago. The winning work featured in a major solo exhibition at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2024. Ball's work becomes part of the Art Gallery South Australia's collection, joining works by past winners Sarah Contos (2017), Vincent Namatjira (2019), Kate Bohunnis (2021) and Ida Sophia (2023). The prize was established in the name of SA cultural philanthropists James and Diana Ramsay. Works by the winner and other finalists are being exhibited at the gallery from May 31-August 31.
Perth Now
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Artist's roll through queer history inspiration for win
Jack Ball has won the nation's richest prize for young artists for an immersive photographic and sculptural installation, inspired by a scrapbook collection in the Australian Queer Archives. Ball, 39, was announced as the winner of the Ramsay Art Prize at a ceremony at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday. The trans man was among 22 finalists selected from a record field of more than 500 entries for the $100,000 biennial prize, awarded to a contemporary Australian artist aged under 40. Ball, who worked on Heavy Grit intensively for more than a year, said they had a "huge emotional response" to scrapbooks held by the Australian Queer Archives. "I had so many dilemmas, so many curiosities, so many things to grapple with," they said. "In the 1950s-60s, seeing different references to trans experiences was incredibly meaningful and complex and I had a lot of big feelings to process through the experience of engaging with that content." The work includes fragments and glimpses of queer histories, layering archival materials with personal images and soft form sculptures, and creating an interplay between the past and the present. Ball would make a "really thorough plan" for the prize money, because "I know just how precious every opportunity is … for example, getting to travel, whether it's in Australia or overseas, meeting new people, new relationships, new communities". In a prize with no material boundaries, the winning work comprises diverse mediums including inkjet prints, textured stained glass, beeswax, charcoal, copper pipe, fabric, paint, sand and rope. The judges were unanimous in their decision and described the winning work as "sensual, experimental and sophisticated". Co-judge and 2025 Archibald Prize winner Julie Fragar said the work evoked "a really good feeling of restlessness". She said the prize was unique in its flexibility to reflect contemporary art trends, unlike other prizes with rigid criteria, and its role as a barometer for the art scene was increasingly important as resources dwindled. "Art prizes are a great way, not just to give artists money to survive and boost their careers, but also to raise their profile and to grow in a long term way," she said. "The Ramsay prize will be a huge boost to Jack Ball's career and set Jack up for the future." Sydney-born Ball grew up in Perth and moved to Sydney two years ago. The winning work featured in a major solo exhibition at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2024. Ball's work becomes part of the Art Gallery South Australia's collection, joining works by past winners Sarah Contos (2017), Vincent Namatjira (2019), Kate Bohunnis (2021) and Ida Sophia (2023). The prize was established in the name of SA cultural philanthropists James and Diana Ramsay. Works by the winner and other finalists are being exhibited at the gallery from May 31-August 31.
