Live Work

Arini Byng, Aaron Christopher Rees

23 Jan–9 Feb 2019

Turning the gallery into an aperture for the mobile gaze, camera operators became actors and actors became framing devices. Live Work considered the transient nature of experience – individual and collective – and the multiple ways our various experiences are recorded, translated, interpreted, described, fragmented and ultimately visualised through form and material.

Byng and Rees live and work in Naarm (Melbourne) on the unceded sovereign land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

Documentation of live session, 2019 presented as part of Live Work at Blindside. Courtesy of the artists. Photo: Eliza Tiernan.

the ontology of body
Anaya Latter

Onsite, Exhibition, Publication

Overview

Live Work, explored the affective qualities of the screen and performance’s cohabitation through situationational live videography.

Key Dates

Opening: 24 Jan 2019, 7am–9am

Live Session: 24 Jan 2019, 8am

Acknowledgment

This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.

Biographies

Arini Byng is an artist who makes body-based work. Born on Gadigal land, she is of Lenape, African American and Anglo-Celtic descent. Arini works with the affective qualities of materials, gestures and settings — undertaking exercises in image, movement and form to negotiate political scenes. Arini’s performances and videos are complex, intimate studies in gesture and action. Her work has been exhibited nationally including Blak Dot Gallery, Watch This Space, Neon Parc project space, MPavilion, c3 Contemporary Art Space, Blindside, Bus Projects, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, The Australian Centre For Contemporary Art, and The Centre for Contemporary Photography; selected works published by Perimeter Editions, Higher Arc, Le Roy and Photofile; and with work held in publication collections of V&A, MoMA, MOCA and Tate Modern. Arini lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne) on the unceded sovereign lands and waterways of the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung (Wurundjeri) people of the Kulin Nation.

Aaron Christopher Rees practices in the expanded field of photography; distinct ideas and working methods are linked to the processes of photography, vision and the act of seeing. Rees generates artwork through process based photographic and structuralist video techniques of making.

Recent notable exhibitions include the exhibiting as a part of “Melbourne Now,” at the National Gallery of Victoria, Firmament at NAP Contemporary, States of Disruption at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Horizon at Caves Gallery, and not for the sake of something more at Sarah Scout Presents.

Rees has also exhibited as a part of PHOTO 2021, Spring 1883, Channels and Next Wave contemporary art festivals. In 2021 he was the recipient of the Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize.