Bloom Collective (Australia)
bio: Erik Griswold is a composer and pianist working in contemporary classical, improvised, and experimental forms. Particular interests include prepared piano, percussion, environmental music, and music of Sichuan province. Originally from San Diego, and now residing in Brisbane, he composes for adventurous musicians, performs as a soloist and in Clocked Out, and collaborates with musicians, artists, dancers, and poets. His music has been performed in Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Cafe Oto, and many others. He is a recipient of an Australia Council Fellowship in Music, a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, and numerous individual grants. His 2018 album Water Pushes Sand, with the Australian Art Orchestra, was nominated for an Aria Award (Best Jazz Album).
After 4 years with the Stuttgart Eurythmeum Ensemble, Jan Baker-Finch has established herself in Brisbane as a fine exponent of eurythmy, and an eclectic and original improvisation artist. Continually engaging with new contexts, she sees her dance as a kind of ‘listening movement’ through which to enhance the audience experience of an environment with all its sounds and sights – both natural and created. She has frequently collaborated with Clocked Out (CO), and Renata Buziak (RB). Highlights include: iOrpheus (Qld. Conservatorium, W. Duckworth & N. Farrell) Brisbane, 2007; Sounding the Condamine (CO) 2009; Wakaiura Arts Festival Wakayama, Japan 2011; Listening Museum, (CO), 2013: Lines in the Sand Festival, Stradbroke Island, (RB) 2014; Wolfe in the Mangroves, (CO) 2015; Piano Mill, Stanthorpe (CO + RB) 2016, Brisasia Festival, 2017. In 2018 she will perform in Fukushima, Japan, with post-disaster poet, Ryoichi Wago
Renata Buziak is a photo-media artist, passionate about physically engaging nature and organic processes in her interdisciplinary art practice, which also includes intercultural and art-science research, and cross-disciplinary collaborations. For over a decade she has been developing an image making process- the biochrome, by fusing organic and photographic materials. While her practice builds on the traditions of botanical art and experimental photography, the ‘fertilisation’ of photographic materials focuses on the significance of time and change through organic decay and regeneration. Renata’s recent PhD studio research, focused on local Australian healing plants significant to the Quandamooka Peoples of Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, nationally and internationally, received a number of art awards, and features in private and public collections.
Vanessa Tomlinson is a percussive artist dedicated to exploring how sound shapes our lives, awakening our ears to new sounds, in new spaces, with the hope that attentive listening will lead to attentive custodianship of place. With a long history in experimental music, Vanessa uses this body of knowledge to consider how we listen through site-specific explorations, and to explore new collaborative sonic ideas. Trained as a percussionist in Australia, Germany and the USA, Vanessa relies on this sonic investigation of objects to build compositions, create contexts for improvisation, interpret the voices of other composers and collaborate across art-forms and disciplines. She has toured the world for 25 years, premiering over 100 works by significant national and international composers, presenting work at major international festivals, and collaborating with improvisers, dancers, artists and more.
Vicki Kelleher is a poet living on a small island off the coast of South East Queensland, Australia. Her work is in the formation of words that somehow seek to break down barriers between self and nature, and the internal and external. She invites you into a space where the previously hidden can be examined with loving attention and deep presence. Vicki has exhibited her poetry as textual poems, as well as experiments in images & poetry – the blurring of light and words. She has also participated as part of collaborative performances with singer-songwriters, improvisational musicians, dancers, and visual artists in music and arts festivals; and in collaboratively creating installation works where poetry contributes both overtly written, and less obviously hidden, layerings and suggestions.
performance: Piano Bloom
Piano Bloom is a new installation work from 5 leading Australian artists made for the Sokolowsko castle. Centred around ideas of decay and regrowth, the castle’s piano, now outdoors, is explored through music, dance, poetry and video. The Bloom Collective are engaged with site-specific piano “plantings”, preparing and re-connecting the instrument to nature, and re-imagining future possibilities for this ageing sculpture. Piano Bloom can be investigated as an installation, or listened to as an activated performance featuring the Collective playing, reading, dancing, projecting ideas in and around the piano.
www.vanessatomlinson.com | www.facebook.com/thepoetryshop | www.renata-buziak.com | www.erikgriswold.org
