The Arts Garden
Arts aficionado James alongside intrepid arts-gatherer Bronwin, invite you to come delve into the fertile soil of Adelaide’s cultural landscape. Share in the nurturing and propagation of creative minds and voices in action; taste the locally-harvested insights of arts practitioners with provocative stuff to say – and great ways to say it; be enticed to explore and savour the rich produce of their conversations; and be nourished and inspired by the gorgeous, seasonal and perennial blooms of diverse creative expression. The Arts Garden will fill your market bag with visual, performing, poetry, and multimedia arts – a What’s On guide in wild and vibrant hue
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The Arts Garden
Arts Garden Ep. 11 – Reclaiming Art: Music, Memory, and Meaning Beyond the Algorithm
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From indie music resistance to immersive painting and politically urgent cinema, this episode moves through art that refuses to sit still.
We’re joined in-studio by San Dragan, unpacking a bold move away from Spotify and toward a grounded, community-driven music career; one built on live performance, connection, and creative autonomy.
Then, artist Grace Harper takes us inside her Berlin residency and intuitive painting practice, where abstraction, emotion, and flow state collide in a deeply personal visual language shaped by memory, movement, and conversation with the canvas.
We also hear from Nasser Shakour, co-founder of the Palestinian Film Festival, on the power of film to build empathy and humanise stories beyond headlines.
And finally, ASO clarinetist and drifter Dean Newcomb brings two worlds together: classical music and motor racing, in a new concerto that captures adrenaline, risk, and performance across disciplines.
Well welcome to 3D Radio and the Arts Guard. We're having a really uh in-depth conversation about the zoo, uh, and I thought, you know, this is too interesting a conversation to have off-air, so I thought, no, we'd better fade the music down and start having the conversation right along. No, so uh I thought I wasn't trying to interrupt you. Uh so I'm James, we've got Bromwyn here, and we've also got Sand Dragon in the studio. Sandragon!
SPEAKER_03Sandra Sandragon.
SPEAKER_02Sandragan Sandragon, and uh and so we're gonna be talking to uh Sandra about their new album that is on the cusp of coming out, but not quite yet. But there'll be a listening party in May, so we're gonna talk all about that. But we need to get some completion on the zoo conversation. So were there any dragons, bearded dragons or uh what are Komodo dragons?
SPEAKER_05I think the Komodo, what's it called? The Komodo.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the Komodo dragon, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05Is that what it's called? The Komodo dragon, yeah. That you wouldn't want to be in the in their pen with the Komodo dragon. No, I think so But the mere cats were fabulous, the giraffes were so good. And oh the just all the we were talking about the cat runs that have really been the latest innovation in the zoo. I didn't see the monkeys in the cat runs, but I was really way impressed. We've been working on a cat run in our house, and it was giving us so much intimidation. If you need to put a cat in the networks, it was like Blade Runner.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'd like it to be more than just the monkeys, I'd like there to be like just little pathways all around the zoo, you know, along the ground and in the air, and you know, all of a sudden maybe a lion just strolls past you, but in you know, in the cage kind of thing. You know, I think they could do something like that.
SPEAKER_03They feel safe, yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, as long as you're safe, as long as they're like totally surrounded and things.
SPEAKER_05Well, there's all these signs saying just don't play on the fence. Don't play on the fence. Just don't play on the fence. I hope people read it. From the lion gates? The lions? There's yeah, there's a well, there's some matron target. There's no lions there, they're all at Minato. Oh, okay. Sumatran Targa, which we saw just falling asleep. It was on sleep in the distance. Well, we didn't even see the giant pandas.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you never see the pandas. Uh I've never I've been there a few times. I've never seen the pandas. I think they're a myth. I think that you know, no, they're always sleeping. They're not breeding. Then they don't, you know, I don't know. I don't see what the point is. They've they've we've got new pandas because the other ones weren't breeding, so they replaced them. But yeah, I don't know what they're doing. But I saw I'm pretty partial to pandas, so I was Oh yeah, I I'm disappointed because I'd like to see them, but you know, they they never come out.
SPEAKER_05I also like the little go-karts that they provide for the kids. You know, they look like a car and the parents are wheeling their kids around in these kind of go-karts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, the kids are part of the zoo as well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I was really pleased that they have wheelchairs available for hire.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's very accessible now. They've got lots of innovations there, kind of alternative communication boards and all sorts of things at the zoo because it That's cool. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So um Will they hired out to people who just doesn't want to walk?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, it was for my mother because she can't walk. Okay. We knew she was gonna land it. Within five minutes. Well, they should definitely use the whole thing.
SPEAKER_02E-bikes and e-scooters are all the rage as well. So, you know, people should be able to e-scoot around the zoo, maybe. But um, but no, that'd be a that'd be another a whole whole other risk. You could imagine someone e-scooting in to the lion pan accidentally, they're going too quickly or whatever. Oh god. But I saw a koala yesterday. I went to Bale National Park and went for a nice walk, and there was a koala, there was like a creature rustling in the trees, and I thought, oh, what's this? And uh it was a koala, which was quite a relief, you know, it wasn't a snake or anything like that, and they just had a look at me for a little while and posed for some photos, and then we went off, so that was good.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no, but uh so we're hoping you all got out and uh enjoyed some of that green stuff, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_02And Sand Dragon, uh, you're inspired by nature as well, because you've got two singles out in 2026, including Magpie as well, and and they're gonna be off your debut album Beating Heart Syndrome. How is the album going? The uh is it is almost ready for release?
SPEAKER_03So all the songs like we've got all the demos and most songs recorded. I think right now it's just more so how do we go about releasing it as like an independent artist? I think I don't know if I spoke a bit about um with this album, I am experimenting with like sort of bypassing like big tech like Spotify and stuff like that, and just try as an artist trying to build like a sustainable pathway and career that yeah, just challenges some of the newer way of um being an artist because I guess Spotify doesn't really quite serve the artist very well, especially with this, you know, all the AI music going on. So I think it's a bit special with this album. It's uh it's gonna be like um yeah, promoted organically and then try to use your live performance and community building.
SPEAKER_05Um, the value of CDs, even though they're old tech.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, I think CD's coming back.
SPEAKER_05It's just the value of being able to have that sale of independent music and a gig and uh uh a download isn't the same, you know, as having a CD that you can walk off, but it's old tech now, so it's like but also you know, like uh I think they're partly because of big tech being you know, it's like the Empire Strikes Back.
SPEAKER_02It feels like uh we're starting people are starting to fight back against the big tech, whether it be the the lawsuits about um Facebook being addictive, they lost a $325 million dollar lawsuit in the United States last week for uh a young teenage girl being addicted and things. And so all the kind of implications of things like that and the backlash against Spotify for various things. I think uh you know the the founder might be using some of the proceeds to fund weapons is one of the things that I've seen. Um and and and things like that. But even today I heard I heard I saw a post by a music union page on Instagram, and I haven't double-checked it, but I was I was reading a book about AI and and how YouTube, if someone puts a copyright notice up on YouTube for a video, then once that copyright notice is up there, then anyone else that posts an identical video, it gets taken down. And so there was an artist that said that someone had recreated their music and their singing style using AI, and then posted it under their own account, and then went for copyright claim. They registered a copyright claim for what they'd created, and then the actual musicians said that they had their account taken down because it was a duplication.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of loophole, yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's a loophole around it, and and um because you know there is the capacity, you know, but particularly with AI too.
SPEAKER_05That's good intentions going right, because it's good at good that they've actually got a system to try and monitor it. Well, exactly complicate, you know, swiping people's work and posting it to their own is pretty um like an epidemic, isn't it? Well, but but then at the same time in place.
SPEAKER_02The reason YouTube got so popular originally was because it was a place where you could go watch videos um that were um posted, you know, kind of pirated and posted on there, and that's why it became popular. And then when Google bought it, apparently, when Google bought it, but they weren't indie artist videos posted and pirated. Oh, well, who knows? It was OpenSlather with everything in the beginning, but then um because YouTube didn't have much money, it wasn't worth suing them. And then when Google bought them, it was worth suing them, so that's when they were motivated to develop copyright systems, but it's still not an ideal way. But no, that's um we're getting off track a little bit with Sandra, you know. So that's what we're saying though is there is a movement growing about you know big tech and the role that they're playing, and you know, just not accepting the way that it is, and it's great that you're doing what you're doing.
SPEAKER_05So, what is your pathway? You said you you're um looking up about the indie pathways.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think just being more grounded as a you know, as an artist and performer, and also going through Nexus Art Interplay, looking at how some of my mentors, how they've been in the industry for like decades, and they're able to make a living for themselves, and they don't need to be a content creator, they don't have to be a content creator and be you know famous online or like have music on Spotify to have a career. So that was really like really eye-opening, and I could see, oh yeah, as a performer, we could focus on live shows. There's also heaps of opportunity. The great things about Adelaide is we have fringe, we have cabaret. So as an artist, you could if you have you can sing, you can make music, there's different type of art form you could sort of build a show's around. You can build a fan base, a community, merge, more grounded pathway that actually, like you know, you put in the work and then you sort of get people come to see your show and you get ticket sales, and it's just more sustainable. Where I think as a young artist coming up, you watch a lot of things online, and a lot of your ideas of what you think an artist is come from what you read online, and that is almost like, oh, like in this modern day and age, you need to be cool enough enough and be famous enough online, that's how you become an artist. But that that is so ungrounding, especially especially for most artists. Like, they're like, Oh, so I have to be uh be famous online and conform a certain way, and releasing your music means putting it on Spotify for free. Anyone can just like if you think about it, you're putting your music on Spotify for free, like they don't pay you for your music, and you get about like 0.0003 cent streams per song. So they sort of try to make you think you need it so maybe the whole world can hear your music. But the truth is, I think as independent artists, it's that's such a um it's quite unrealistic. It's like reaching for the it's like, oh no, as long as you're famous like Justin Bieber, you'll make it, which is so ungrounding and very I think that's why a lot of artists suffer because they just it just feels like it's never gonna be good enough. And coming back to ground and looking at the opportunity I have around me, and like, okay, if I just want to make a good living for now and just so it's sustainable, I can keep making good art without stressing myself out with these ideas, then that seems like more makes more sense to not release it on Spotify unless they pay you properly. I doubt they would. Also, another thing with Spotify is the thing that you're talking about with copyrights. If it's not okay for us to copy someone else's music, then why is it okay for AI to copy your music? And you know, and Spotify has been using a lot of um their own AI music and pushing it onto like their playlists and stuff like that, and then generating their own income. Yeah, well, I mean I'll just that's one thing you don't even know it's AI music, you've just been listening to it and it's it's just not yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I was reading a book um called um it was called Choke Point something, choke point uh economics or something like that. I'll find the name of it soon. But in that they argued that that that was the reason that Spotify brought in playlists was instead of people seeking out an artist and an album, they'd go to a playlist, you know, chill Sunday morning playlist or whatever, and then over time they could just replace it with, you know, once they've trained the population to listen to Chill Sunday morning, then they can just put up AI, Chill Sunday morning, and and then not pay anyone rather than you know, and then people are habituated to not look for individual artists that they like, so yeah, it's all very nefarious.
SPEAKER_03Um, you know, sorry, you're gonna say I said, yeah, and then and then they they made these music by artists when you release your music on Spotify, it's part of the agreement, then you're using your music to train AI, so they could just copy it and put it on this, which is not fair, there's no copyright there.
SPEAKER_02And no, definitely, and but you know, when talking about building audiences and live performance and making the most of what is in Adelaide, it's choke point capitalism is the book, How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labour Markets and How We'll Win Them Back is a really good book.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, that I recommend people reading. But no, I I just had a tangent there, but you are building audiences the old way and and winning back audiences. You've been at WOMAD uh last year and on the Northern Sound System stage and then again this year, but you've also played in Oz Asia Festival as well. So taking all those opportunities and growing your audiences and connecting to them in in person, how have you found those experiences?
SPEAKER_03Um I think those are the experiences that makes me sort of reflect to me that I'm like, okay, I'm doing these things that I'm doing, and I I I could feel when I'm performing live to audience. There's always a role of like girls or women in the front that like you could tell they sort of resonate to what I'm singing about, what I'm talking about, and it makes it feel real. Yeah. And then you go back home and you're releasing music online and you're posting these things, and people may comment, people may like, but it's it doesn't feel as fulfilling as when you perform life, and you can tell from people's that come up to talk to you, and when you're performing that it's this is like really there's like an exchange going on, yeah. But online it just makes it almost trains you to just keep um chasing like more and more likes, but it doesn't actually transfer into anything real. So yeah, that's what I've seen from the performing, and I was like, Oh, I think from what I could sense, the people that likes my music or that people who generally are like music lover in this time, they are trying to when they can, they're trying to be more aware of like, yeah, how can we make differences in how we consume music?
SPEAKER_02Fantastic, and and music has been so important to your journey as well, and uh, and so the album's Beating Heart Syndrome, and I was reading about how you're sharing much more vulnerable themes in this about you know how you use music to heal from trauma and childhood trauma and and things like that. What can you tell us about, you know, because your music also is about empowerment and womanhood. What can you tell us about the role that music played in in helping you with all those sorts of things?
SPEAKER_03Oh wow, massive. I think the growing up I was um I think as a teenager, I wasn't the greatest. It's like understanding how I feel. And looking back when I listened to music, it was like the music would talk for me. You know, different type of music I listened to to feel the part of me that I like didn't quite understand. And then I think music I found purpose. If it wasn't for music, I would be like, Yeah, like what's the best job? What's the best business that makes me the most money? And how can I do this and do that? And I think what music brought to me was just for who I thought I thought was important at 18 compared to now because of music, it just realizes it pushes me to just be more courageous in my life. I've done so many things that I'm afraid of because of music, because I'm like, it's worth it. Like live performance, being vulnerable, like even talking on radio like this, like it would I wouldn't have pushed myself so far and to do all the things I do if it wasn't for my love for music. So I think it was quite incredible. It pushes me out of my comfort zone greatly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And so, how are people gonna be able to find out about the listening party? They can follow you on social media, is that the best way to find out?
SPEAKER_03So they can follow me on social media. My social media Instagram is like or just put in Sand Dragon, so S-A-N, but Dragon with an with an A, so D D R A G A N or S-A-N underscore, D-R-A-G-A-N underscore. Yeah, there's a listening party coming up in NSS, Northern Sound System, late in May. It would be a listening party. I'll be singing some of the song from the album acoustically, but there will also be almost like a panel where I'm inviting a lot of community leaders from the music industry, some of my mentors to come talk about what I've learned from them about like as an artist, what kind of career path you could have that looks different if we want to, you know, reclaim our power, if we choose not to release on Spotify, like what does it mean to us? Yeah, I would encourage, even if you're just a listener or like fellow artists in Adelaide that want to come by, just to understand, yeah, just to have a community and talk to each other and see that there's like a different pathway for you that is much more reliable than relying it on in like algorithm and Spotify, which is really at the end of the day, they don't care. They don't care about us, you know. That song from just Michael Jackson.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, definitely. And if you want to find music, you should listen to 3D Radio because we've got all the good music in our catalogue, including uh Sand Dragon. So uh Sand Dragon, thank you very much for coming in.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
SPEAKER_02You're on 3D Radio in the Arts Garden with James and Bronwyn. Now coming up at this Friday night at the basement studio and gallery, uh there's a conversations conversations in Berlin or from Berlin. I've forgotten uh Grace. Uh this Friday night at Visual Arts exhibition opening, and we welcome Grace Harper into the studio now to talk about it. Welcome Grace.
SPEAKER_01Hi, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02My pleasure. And I saw so it's a a a conversations in Berlin exhibition, and I saw that you went to Berlin last year for a studio residency. Uh, how did that come about?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, so um Berlin came about through an artist residency. So for me, it was just really perfect timing. I think if you're in the same environment all the time, you can stop seeing your own work clearly. And so when the opportunity came up for a residency, I applied for it and uh went through rounds of um interviewing and then eventually was offered the position there. So um yeah, that's I guess how it happened. No, definitely speak German. Did I need uh no, luckily? I did really try and learn a little bit of German before I went, but not super successfully.
SPEAKER_02So Explain ein bisschen Deutsch. I'm doing it on Duolingo, but I studied it in uh primary school and high school, but you know, I'm not very good. But I think you know Germ Germany is a a city where there's a lot of uh English speakers as well. Uh but Berlin is a is a city where you can get vibe quite well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh particularly in Berlin, it's fairly easy speaking English and like a little bit of really bad German.
SPEAKER_05And there's a a lot of galleries for emerging artists in Berlin, isn't there? They actually have a lot more support and engagement with their emerging arts scene.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that's part of what um drew me to Berlin was I think it's just such a dynamic creative scene over there, and it's quite experimental. There's a lot of room for that, and people are quite open to that over there. So definitely very alive creatively, and there's just so much to see and do over there.
SPEAKER_05That was my next question. Is it still living up to its you know, legend?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's um, you know, the locals complain, but as someone who, you know, isn't from Berlin, to me it was incredible. I had the best time over there. So um very creative the whole time.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And being in that one location and being in a different environment, what did you learn while being there and surrounded by other artists and things like that as well?
SPEAKER_01That's a good question. I think um, you know, with a residency, they're all so different. So it really depends what type of residency you're doing. And um, you know, the one that I was involved in, it's not like they were helping with technique per se, but I think it just kind of gave me permission to explore creatively because I was in an environment where that was so normalized over there, like everyone was kind of just being experimental and just you know, really pushing their creativity wherever they wanted it to go. And that's what it really opened up for me was just the confidence to just explore and create my own visual language as I went along.
SPEAKER_05And were the other artists German or from all over the world?
SPEAKER_01From all over the world. So we had um in my group, we had a South Korean, a Brazilian, there were a couple of Americans from New York and someone from India as well. So um a real mix in the group, which was really fun and just exciting getting to experience, I think, all those different cultures when you're all living together as well. We had a lot of really great dinners together. So yeah, it was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And your work describes emotive landscapes. And you know, I was very much reading about how you like you see that the natural world and the world around us, and all our systems are shaped by forces, and our inner worlds are shaped by similar forces, and you want to capture that kind of the emotions that you're experiencing on the canvas. How does that approach to painting allow you to, you know, express things that other forms of painting, you know, like still life and things like that, aren't don't allow people to express?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a great question. I think um I used to do more representational style art and I always kind of lent towards um expressionism within that. I think I've always just been more maybe introspective and interested in that inner world type of thing. So for me, it's always been more about how something has felt rather than the literal experience of it. So I think this body of work, which is now highly abstract compared to where I started, it's definitely just a continuation of that same idea of just like what is the felt experience of this moment or this state, as opposed to painting a literal landscape.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And so I imagine to some degree, when someone walking through the gallery, you know, for example, on Friday night stands in front of your painting, are you hoping that they're that emotion that you're depicting on the canvas is something that they will understand and and see, or do you want them to take their own, you know, however they interpret it, uh no matter whether it's what you were feeling or or not? What what what's your intention with it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think everyone's going to experience them differently, right? Even for me, day to day, sometimes I wake up and I just have a completely different experience of the same piece when I reflect on it. But um, you know, when friends have seen the work sort of not been, you know, shown elsewhere yet, people have sort of described it as being maybe calming or having sort of like a hypnotic effect when they really sort of follow along the mark making. So I'll be interested to see how people respond to them, I think.
SPEAKER_05Because it's like colour fields, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, kind of. It's like getting towards that, I think. It's hard because when I'm creating them, uh it's come from, you know, an intuitive space. So it's not like I've sat there and really like planned out the exact piece. I'm just sort of flowing with the piece as it's coming together and just allowing that to happen.
SPEAKER_05So that feel about it, that kind of watery flowing feel. When when I say colour colour feels, they're not like colour block or anything, but they're they're spaces you're flowing through.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and and and on that theme of flow and flow states and things, because you talk about immersive painting sessions where time stretches or dissolves, and uh you know, I can imagine, you know, do you feel like you're in in in in kind of like a hyper focus mode and and just like flow state and just totally immersed and then oh the day's gone? Is that the the the kind of painting experience that you can have with it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think flow state is definitely the right word for it. So, particularly while I was away in Berlin, I really took the opportunity of having all that time and just being in such a creative space to approach the pieces like they were a meditation. So approaching it with a clear mind. And then as soon as my brain was trying to micromanage or get in the way, I would sort of step away from the piece and maybe take some time before returning. So, um, but yeah, definitely it's heavily been driven by that flow state feeling.
SPEAKER_02Definitely. And and and so you talk about uh stepping away for a moment. When when do you feel like it's time to step away for good with the piece? You know, is there a sensation that that comes along that you know, go, okay, it's done?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that is a really good question. Um, it's going like my process is going to sound a little bit ridiculous, but I um the whole time I'm creating, I am really in a conversation with the piece in front of me. And that is, you know, where the title of the show came from is this idea of it's a conversation with the piece. So the whole way through, I'm looking at it as I go when I take those little micro breaks, and I'm stepping back and literally asking, like, what else does this need? Does it need any more? Like, I'm talking to the piece as I go. And so eventually I just naturally get to a point where the piece is finished and um yeah, it just feels resolved.
SPEAKER_05But you also seem quite feminine pieces to me. Do they seem like that to you as well?
SPEAKER_01Um, it's funny that you say that. I um I went to uh or I studied visual communication and that was always something that came up for me there. This um just everything I created, my teachers used to laugh that it was always so feminine, even if I didn't intend it to be. So I think it's probably just the colour combinations I'm drawn to, and maybe the style of mark making as well comes through with that. It's not intentional in the sense that I'm trying to convey that as a message, but I think it probably just naturally comes out for me.
SPEAKER_05It's the softness of it and there's the pastels, and and there's quite a lot of embraces for pink in the pastels and yeah. Because as soon as I said that, I was thinking, well, how who are we to define this as feminine or something in the past? Well, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Well, pink pink was not always a feminine colour, uh, Brumwin, uh, you know, a pink.
SPEAKER_05I know, but a lot of male artists are afraid to use it.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, well, you know, uh we need to challenge those uh gender norms, Brumwin, exactly. But you know, uh but uh you you your work's also gestural and rhythmic as well. You um and so is there a physicality in the flow or a flowing in in movement while you're creating it as well?
SPEAKER_01100%. Last year, actually, I had my first surgery for endometriosis, and um with that, I think I found I I was surprised how much it impacted my work, both physically and mentally, for a period there. And I think with um the scale of the pieces I'm creating and the mediums I'm using, like the pastels, they're quite hands-on and it is quite physical. So I think the way you're creating definitely shows up in the work, and so the way that you show up there then affects everything that is being created.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. No, well, uh, and and and yeah, so that that that would be an exhibition uh as well in in that, you know, the kind of the movement through recovery and you know, seeing the the different ways that the art has, you know, been influenced by that that process as well is a very fascinating thing and the emotions and you know that are represented in in the canvases during those times.
SPEAKER_05I'm curious to ask, because we were talking about the gender of the colours or the femininity or or not of the colours. In your conversations, what do you think is drawing you to those colours? Because they're there um there's a to me, there's like a uh uh a a femaleness in it. Like what are you thinking? Is this your favorite colours, or what are you thinking when you're working with those colours?
SPEAKER_01It's actually funny that you've highlighted the pink because um I hated pink when I was younger. Yeah, I really went through a whole phase where I just really just hated everything about pink. And um, so it hasn't really been intentional bringing it back. I think I'm playing with um in my brain because I'm sort of you know focused on that intuitive conversation with the piece. I'm probably drawn to maybe the vibrancy of a colour as opposed to specifically thinking, okay, I'm gonna grab blue now. It's like I've got the colours in front of me, and then I'm just kind of grabbing the colour that sort of makes the most sense next to the other colours that I've been working with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely. And uh this is only with the current works that we've got on on your website that are up for sale as well. But I saw that you went through a period, I think it was it last year, where you're doing the a painting of the same with the lily pads every day and and then like a different seeing how it manifests differently every day. What did you learn from that process?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I um I have a lot of fun with the process side of art. I think I sometimes approach it like a bit of a mad scientist or something because I just I find it so interesting. Um, it's the same idea of like what you're creating along the way, it all kind of gets captured within the piece, like the way you're moving and where you're hesitating and um maybe parts where you're drawn to or pulled away from. And I think um, yeah, so the Water Lily project, that was just it gave me a theme to focus on. And my whole concept there was just exploring what happens every time I approach it. So if I do maybe a couple in a night, does it change how they come out? If I'm doing it in a hot studio, does that change how it comes out? So yeah, I just had a lot of fun playing, experimenting with my own conditions is maybe the best way to put it.
SPEAKER_02So but they also, you know, it might be a a sport saying where they, you know, you've got to get your reps in or something like that. But it's just that process of setting yourself a creative task and then different circumstances and you know, that repetition day in, day out, but you know, the the way that that's leveling up your skills and doing all sorts of kind of flexing the muscles that you know, like I need to. Oh, well, I'm thinking about the Malcolm Gladwell, 10,000 hours, but also the like, you know, if you're doing the same, if you're you know, because they say they say this with poetry as well, that if you're doing a poem, if you put limitations on it, sometimes the limitations, you know, whether it be the meter or the rhyming structure or whatever, that forces creativity because you can't just draw something different every day um and you know get the novelty from that. You've got to your brain has to find new ways to make it creative, and that's a great way of kind of developing that creative skill, I think, as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. Um, it's funny that you say that because um the idea, or where I got the idea from to sort of approach it in that way for that period of time was um back when I was studying VisCon, we had this project where we had to draw up a grid and then we had these black squares that we had to um show up to class with X amount of studies every time of a different formation of the black squares. And so I think for me, when I started heading more abstract at first, it was really scary having this whole just blank white canvas in front of me and not knowing where to start. So I went back to that concept of just um playing with the same idea over and over and seeing how each piece interacts with another piece on the canvas. So yeah, that's kind of where it came from.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. Well, people can from when I did I cut you off there, you were gonna say something or oh only uh no, because it's day after day, it's actually not relevant.
SPEAKER_05I was gonna say that actually I'm pretty sure repetition is one of the triggers to chart's work, you know, when and could your work, you're talking about process and being inintuitive and just going with your conversation with the piece. And it's kind of like repetition is something that often triggers those kind of altered states, if you like, where you people go into um an emergent piece, you know. And I remember actually there's a guy who does impro, and he would talk about you know allowing the things to come through and having conversations with Mars. Interesting.
SPEAKER_02No, definitely, yeah. And uh a way of accessing that flow state uh mind because yeah, yeah, there's less so much can just be on autopilot because you've done it so many times that maybe uh it's easier to access those states and things as well. So it's all very fascinating. And so, you know, if you like the conversations that we had in the 3D radio studio, then you can uh experience conversations in Berlin uh this Friday night, an exhibition by Grace Harper. And so the opening night, as we say, Friday night, which is the 10th, and so that's from six is it uh six nine pm.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the Instagram tile's not helping me there. Uh but yeah, so thank you very much, Grace, for coming in. And people can go to your website, uh www.graceinthewild.com.au to check out uh your work and all the things that you're creating as well. So uh thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01Great, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_02My pleasure. Stay tuned, we're gonna talk you're on the arts garden with James and with Bronwyn late last week. Uh no, mid-last week, I spoke to Nasser Shakhtur, who has been he's the co-founder of the Palestinian Film Festival that's been running for 13 years. It's coming to Adelaide uh soon with one of the films, All That's Uh Left. And uh the full programme hasn't been announced yet, but one of the films is is going to be coming here very soon. And uh so I had a chance to have a conversation with him about how important films like this are in uh building empathy and understanding of different experiences, and it's something that you wake up and read the news and see the kind of things that are being said in the news every day. I think it's definitely very important. So we're gonna hear now from this conversation with Nasar Shakhtur. Well, Nasser, the Palestinian Film Festival that's been going for 13 years and collects Palestinian films from all across the world. What's been your connection with the film festival? How long have you been with it?
SPEAKER_04I can't find out the question. We created a form share from the story with Australia. It has been from a small RDL hanging of a weekend and ended up being a machine of festival going on for 15 editions.
SPEAKER_02That's wonderful, and one of the most powerful things about film and film festivals, is particularly at the moment where people are wanting to get an understanding of the Palestinian experience to see beyond just the terrible, horrendous things that are happening on the news. All of the films that are being offered, including all that's left of you, are Red Hell. One of the aims of this film is to develop empathy and a greater understanding at the personal level, and that's one of the things that all the films that you've been showing over the thirteen years would have been achieving.
SPEAKER_04Palestine has been produced on targeting and politics narratives and the same and the and reducing things being tools.
SPEAKER_02Definitely, and that's the focus of the director of all that's left of you as well. Their aim is to very much focus in on a single family's experience, which includes the experience of exile and the memory dealing with the trauma of exile while events are still ongoing, but it's also it's not just a political story, it's a family story, and there's joy and laughter and the whole human dimension in it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. What you can't do is what a contender where one and love in the same content while people who want to experience tragedy and conflict, an ongoing conflict in life, psychology though, there is also laughter that really can be. And there's other elements online that people need to be defending, like the humanity they defend the human humanitarian aspects of it. How the issue is conflict and integrated and following people and so they defend they highlight the children, but also they highlight that and the hopeful people to all the comedy and tragedy.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic, and the director, not only a director, but the actress is a Palestinian American and has been living and working in America since 2009. Her first work has been recognized as Sundance, and then this film highly acclaimed as well, and they're skilled not only with their filmmaking, but directors, the director of the the hit comedy series Only Murders in the Building as well. So they're a very respected artist and filmmaker.
SPEAKER_04This is by the way, her second release in Australia, not the first one. The first release one from Sherman thing, and it was released in Australia called America. So Finn's very rewarding when you watch it.
SPEAKER_02And it's produced by uh Hollywood superstars and Mark Ruffalo as well, and so it's got a very a great team behind it and the support behind it as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's a tribute to the string of the film, to the humanity of the thing, to the story and to the craft of the filming, to have Hollywood producer coming and supporting the film where where moved by the film, the market so that you have to change to understand why we are walking the board we have at the moment. That I'll encourage anyone to use to come and see it.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. And so it's this one film that you're presenting. What can you tell us about the other films that are on offer at the film festival?
SPEAKER_04At the moment we're just releasing this one, we haven't finalized the whole program, and then what's the expensive big item coming on the eight cinema? But uh yeah, at the moment we haven't finalized the program to be able to share it.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's okay. I've seen there have been some special screenings outside of the festival that you've been conducting as well. So not only during the festival, but special screenings that people can look out for uh throughout the year as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we acquired a lot of talking called Tomstein, technically, and we will be releasing it towards the second half of the year.
SPEAKER_02Excellent, and you've got the partnership with Pala Cinemas and other partners as well. How supportive have they been over the 13 years of the journey as well?
SPEAKER_04It's been amazing. It has been amazing because everyone understands through through cinema. It's a medium of communication and entity and enlightenment to understand great and comparting out. Obviously, what we all need is the audience to to come and worse the film they enjoyed. So, yeah, it has been on with uh fun with arts and entertainment and culture. Um hopefully just come and participate in this film.
SPEAKER_02No, definitely. There's the need to understand each other better and understand uh the world that we're living in and all the cultures that live in the world, and palace cinemas does that so well, and then your contribution is making such a big contribution to it all that process as well. So I really thank you for bringing this film and I look forward to seeing it.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Thanks, Jack. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02So that was uh Nasser Shakhtur, uh co-founder of the Palestinian Film Festival. I have to apologise. I did a recording of that and then I edited the recording uh uh to cut out the segment where it cut out, and then I downloaded the wrong edited version. I downloaded the original that I played, so apologies for that there. But uh he was talking about All That's Left of You, uh a very powerful film that is going to be at the Palace Nova East End from Thursday, 9th of April. So this Thursday, very acclaimed filmmaker that's made that and uh making what is a political story very personal and looking at the individual circumstances of one family. Uh, yeah, check that one out if that one appealed to you. You're on 3D Radio in the Arts Garden. Now, on the same Wednesday, I spoke to NASA Shaktour, but I also spoke to Dean Newcomb, who has written a new well, he he hasn't written, he's inspired a new concerto. He's a clarinet player, but he also is a race car drifter. Uh, and he does that in his spare time, uh, races his cars around uh showgrounds and things like that. And we had a very interesting conversation about how this new work that is going to be premiering as part of the symphony series at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the pianist that he worked with was so moved by or you know, inspired by his dual life that he's composed a motor racing concerto. And so uh that's gonna be premiering uh alongside some Rach Maninov and uh some Copland as well. So there's we talked with Dean Newcomb about the need for tradition, but also the need for new works and the the benefits of composers composing for particular performers as well. So we're gonna leave you with this interview. Now. Yeah, so classical music and motor racing, they don't normally go together. I remember there was at the Adelaide Festival, I think it was when the Clipsal 500 was still on at the same time as the festival, and the noise from the car racing blended over into the a classical concert. But in in your your new work, they'll be very much the same place at the same time, the same sounds. How excited are you to be bringing this this part of your life into you know bringing your two worlds together?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, fairly talking about playing and play for that one doing the kitchen. I remember that kicking the mode and game together. But they are two very different worlds. And I always find it doesn't seem very clear to people of how they interact in each other, those two worlds, and how one connection can kind of bridge completely different sides of the stitching. But you're super excited to be different to the world on the air.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And there must be, and I've seen in the media release, some discussion of the overlap in both there's risk taking, there's standing on a stage, uh, particularly when you're a soloist, but the even just performing in an orchestra or uh in the pit or on on a stage, uh, there's the adrenaline and the risk taking of that, and then very similarly with the drifting in car racing, the uh you'd say there's probably more adrenaline much more adrenaline, or but you know, depending on the circumstances, it could be the same. You know, do you see that as one overlap or and and what other overlaps do you see? Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_04I think the overlaps you can performing, I think what on when I'm drifting, usually you'd be drinking wine or I'd be performing, and all eyes are on you and you're driving. Then you sing a testing hollowing to watching you, which is identical to what it's like playing custom music feeling in your cashier as a soloist. You have to perform with me or everyone is there to watch you do it. So I find the team to be scaring, so similar in that way. And I just can use techniques to cross bunch of things when I'm driving. Or technically it's for performing things out in music, with breathing and doing time and teaching what I'm doing, or I'm touching myself, or when I'm thinking when I'm on stage playing clear net, I realize that I'm watching what in danger when I'm on stage playing clear network motorsport. So that makes me calm on starting realizing that I can perform on emotional pressure as well as physical technique, locking in on the racetrack. And so I think they can learn a lot from each other in that way.
SPEAKER_02And do you feel like with your performing that has led to improvements or changes in the way that you perform on stage, that being more relaxed and having those techniques has led to improvements or or alterations in the way that you perform?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, definitely. There have been a few times where I've been competing on those tracks during the day, have to have an eighty comedy now. Do the door with another car, we can almost touch the car, 15 sidelines, and then that time of night and performing pledge with the clientette, and I realized that I haven't done all the numbers on stage, or well, I realize how how the lucking time music can be, even though it's in your content situation that probably never even can't like it in the running can't.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And you know, you talk about working, driving on your own and things, but in this work, you've worked with someone else, you've worked with uh composer and pianist Joe Chindamo on composing this work. How good was it working with him and uh working together to get your vision to come to life?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he's amazing, he's completely interviewing the channel's writing came out the piece when we got to know each other. He really came out with a lot of music when he quickly rewrite on our half of the page in a couple of weeks. The interaction just flowed from here and I could turn on that point. I know he's in the major mission of the music to see in watching, not in the case. Pretty outstanding wrong. Yeah, but I tried to push him, but I tried to be involved as much as I could, and I tried to question rewrite a bit to make sure that I could sell it in a couple of minutes, because I don't know how to actually sell the taste corner, so to speak. So I did that process to the major, which is able to work so close to what his mind and then work to people okay to try and make it make it just enjoying it for me and it's getting in mind. I think we're getting bonded having that to the underlying working having passing in something. Passion in competition.
SPEAKER_02I think you're getting bonded by the working out the PCNA and all P Yeah and it must be such a different process where you know so much or the majority of the works that you're playing have been written without you in mind, and then this one's written particularly inspired by and written for you. How does that alter the way that you're gonna be playing it when you know that it's it's very much your story and y it written with your playing in mind?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, you did have a pill back or master playing out. No one's had a piss before, so we're never playing what it's gonna be. I'm not like the impression of of the past, you know, the past works they would be competitive. I'm gonna pick that everyone's pissed. How do you go composed with some minds and composed of money? They would have composed that impressive mind, so it's really nearer to that that we're doing why we do for real audio incompetence for real solids right now, just like it would have been a few years ago. Um I think they encourage you to get the championing to keep doing that, to keep having white occupation, white performance, white music and um to do why do occupation actually for.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely, because even with opera singers in Australia, for example, composers would compose with a particular singer in mind in the past as well, and then there's the challenge of if you're a working musician in Australia, you've got to develop the capacity to sing a particular category of repertoire, whether that suits you or not. But writing to the strengths and the particularities of a performer can bring out something when people are adapting to something that's not for them, it's not quite the same.
SPEAKER_04I think a lot of women will be a little bit scared of new music. And uh near music contemporary music doesn't just mean that it's all challenging or difficult. I think what Joanne's created with this pin is something that's very cinematic. This style of writing is very rhythmic and very harmonically pleasing. There are some crazy bits in the piece, you could say. But I think overall you have a modern people that can take in a style that is really accessible from the audience. I think is amazing. But also in the second half of the content, which features one of the most particular second is directly enough to try to get an audience as hard pumping sort of thing in general.
SPEAKER_02This whole content is a banger. Yeah, it's gonna have a Copland's Quiet City as well, and so that's the great thing as well, being able to combine new works with, you know, as you say, people might w want to cling to the things that they know already. And so by combining the two together, they get a bit of the best of both worlds.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think that'd be putting to climate Holland County, the if it's gonna be in a country in the whole. Well, even though the country is called in a quiet, I think the culture will start off very quiet. But then it will can be ramp up two games of the year. Continue for the motel. But then by the second half of the continues well, it's fun off. It's gonna be heart rating to an extent.
SPEAKER_02Definitely. And when you talk about it being cinematic and things, then I I thought to myself, you know, is it driving music for you? Are you gonna you know be drifting and you know, playing it in your ears while you're racing, and that might really get the personal bests in some of your competitions?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, I think I'm trying to find the cinematic aspect of the music and what I picture the music depicting, and that's how I really explained it to Joey, especially the second or third movement. And the way that I explained to him how the seeing the P exact is really describing what it's like to be looking because just seeing inside the car, the second gets loud, it's full on there's so much going on. But then from the outside, it looks more like ballet, the cars are dancing, the cars are working together. A lot of what I do is actually just getting shown. So the passenger eyes and demonstration and I'm not actually competing with putting on the show, but proceeding stuff nothing. Including pieces for me, if I told Joe, this this PC is exactly what it sounds like, or what it feels like when you're watching from like a drawing or hip hop to look at the track and see the car's dancing on the dance on the track here. And then but straight to what it feels like being five to car, which is cool-on, loud, and hectic. And I think throughout the whole composition process sort of really captain to Joey's cinematic mind. I mean, he's composed of piece and told him how it makes him feel how it relates to what I feel when I'm driving and when I'm preparing for an event. And I think that inspired him. I'm not cheating because he realized that he doesn't gift, but he has very many similar feelings in his performing or what he's doing. The feeling of the hectic that's inside and the calm that's on the outside, and that's actually inspired with a thing.
SPEAKER_02Maybe a short film with you driving the car and the concerto soundtracking it, and that would go quite well. So lots of opportunities with it, and people get the opportunity to go see this as part of the series of concerts that the Symphony Orchestra puts on every year, and so in the quiet is on the 17th and 18th of April this year at the Adelaide Town Hall, and so really recommend people to go along and all the best with both of your pursuits.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Yeah, I'd love to just come along with the dance live music. I think it's like job.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Well, that's a great recommendation to for people to come along. And so then you can thank you very much for talking to us today about it. Thank you. Thanks for having me to talk.