Solo Residency: Thea and Bonnie bake a Women’s Weekly cricket cake

Ella Sowinska

14–31 Oct 2020

Spending isolation at their queer share-house on the outskirts of Naarm, Thea and Bonnie bake a Women’s Weekly cake decorated with a cricket pitch, Ella and Sarah nurse their cat who is recovering from a traumatic surgery, Thea weaves Bonnie a scarf in Port Adelaide colours which she wears while she watches, heartbroken, as they lose to Richmond in the preliminary final. Thea, Bonnie, Ella and Sarah, like many others, are dealing with job insecurity, social isolation and boredom. Now more than ever, they turn to their chosen family for support, even if that is in the form of watching an episode of The Bachelorette together every evening.

The outcome of Ella Sowinska’s BLINDSIDE residency is a series of three episodes of a larger work in progress.

Episode One

Ella Sowinska, Thea weaves Bonnie a Post Adelaide scarf, 2020, 00:57min. Courtesy of the artist.

Episode Two

Ella Sowinska, Roy, 2020, 00:59min. Courtesy of the artist.

Episode Three

Ella Sowinska, Thea and Bonnie bake a Women’s Weekly cricket cake, 2020, 00:59min. Courtesy of the artist.

Offsite, Residency

Overview

With the gallery spaces closed for a much of 2020, Blindside initiated a series of on- and off-site solo residency projects. Artists included Anna Dunnill, MJ Flamiano, Jessie Gall, Simone Nelson, Mira Oosterweghel, Amaara Raheem, Ella Sowinska, Ivey Wawn, Benjamin Woods, Elke Varga, Yusi Zang.

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

Ella Sowinska is an artist and filmmaker whose work is guided by the theoretical discourses of documentary and reality television. Recent projects have been concerned with the representation of intimacy and desire in non-fiction screen based works from a queer perspective. Ella's work has been included in the Mildura Palimpsest Biennial, as well as recent exhibitions at TCB, The Honeymoon Suite, Metro Arts and The Centre for Contemporary Photography. Ella’s film ‘80 Ways’ received a positive review by MEMO in their ‘Best and overlooked of 2018’ segment. Ella's graduating film Pretty Gross and Incredibly Intimate won the Best Documentary award at the VCA graduate awards in 2018. Ella lives and works in Naarm Melbourne on the unceded sovereign land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.