FULL PROGRAM AVAILABLE HERE

Supporting the development of new art and performance

Presented by Vitalstatistix

Adhocracy is Vitalstatistix’s national hothouse, supporting the creative development of new experimental and multidisciplinary arts projects. Artists from around Australia join us to create and converse in Port Adelaide, South Australia, over the first weekend of Spring.

2019 is our tenth anniversary, a significant achievement for an experimental arts lab. To celebrate we have mixed things up a little this year. We have selected eleven projects, are offering an expanded program, and will host an Experimental Art Exchange in the leadup to Adhocracy.

Our program of new works-in-development spans sound art, dance, theatre, installation, new writing and sensorial experiences. Strong themes have emerged this year around listening as a political act, dialogue, communing and ritual.

The participating artists and creative team are in the early stages of the process of making; they are experimenting with ideas and art forms, as well as how audiences experience their works. Artists work in an open studio environment throughout our beautiful, heritage-listed venues – Vitalstatistix’s home, the Waterside Workers Hall, and at Hart’s Mill, a stone’s throw away.

Throughout the weekend, engage with the artists and their creative processes through our public program of artist talks, workshops and work-in-progress showings offered across three afternoons and evenings.

Adhocracy is a festival of ideas meets intense art camp meets magic house party.

Get amongst some of Australia’s most exciting established and emerging makers of Australian contemporary culture, art, performance and commentary.

Adhocracy is curated by Emma Webb and Paul Gazzola, with Jamila Main, Hen Vaughan (Early Career Curator interns) and Thom Smyth (secondment).

Adhocracy public program: 6-8 September, Waterside and Hart’s Mill

Participating projects at a glance

A Mountain, a Karanga
A diasporic duet by Māori Australian dance makers Forest Vicky Kapo and Paea Leach, who are experimenting with dialogue, Karanga (calling out and in) and the cosmology of matauranga wahine (women’s knowledge).

CREATION: Sustenance
An experimental, shared food pilot workshop by artist Deborah Kelly, contributing to a multidisciplinary project amplifying crowd-sourced wisdom and senses of the sacramental to challenge climate denialism.

Dorr-e Dari: A Poetic Crash Course in the Language of Love
A new theatre work by artists Mahdi Mohammadi and Jawad Yaqoubi, with collaborators Paul Dwyer and Sean Bacon; inspired by the practice of recitals and curtain shows that takes place in private homes and tea-houses all through Central Asia.

Good Silence
A performance installation by creative collaborators Essie Kruckemeyer and Kim Jaeger, who conjure landscapes which are part visual art installation and part theatrical play space, evoking the visceral experience of having time for one’s self.

In the Dark
A performance installation and reclamation, for public spaces after nightfall, by performance makers Leah Shelton and Lisa Fa’alafi (Polytoxic), exploring the emotional and physical work (or ‘the right amount of panic’) that women put into feeling safe.

Let Me Tell You
A live and published almanac of the first decade of Adhocracy and its impact, cultural and personal, curated by writers Jane Howard and Jessica Alice; mixing genres and perspectives, sometimes edited, sometimes raw, much like Adhocracy itself.

MASConfessional
An immersive sound work and confessional booth by queer performance and music duo Em König and Jason Sweeney (GIRL) that is researching and collecting diverse reflections on masculinity and queerness.

Medicament for Your Predicament
A reflective, sensory workshop by interdisciplinary artist Cat Jones, creating political pharmacopoeias and recipes for transformation; antidotes to ire, diuretics for disillusionment, a feminist formulary to soothe our soluble and insoluble bodies.

Old Body, New Management
A new dance and experimental sound work by dance makers Motus Collective in collaboration with composer Matthew Timmis, exploring ideas of regeneration, identity and change, based on the philosophical problem of the Ship of Theseus.

The Future Echoes
A sound and vocal improvisation by performance artists Frances Barrett and Brian Fuata, that positions the act of listening as a critical form of political agency for creating new imaginings of the future.

Witness Stand
A sound installation made for contested sites by audio conceptual artists Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, that enacts a public hearing of places that demand witnessing and reflection.

Adhocracy Extras
Find information about additional events here.

FULL PROGRAM AVAILABLE HERE