by Sukhmani Khorana
As I stepped out of the Blacktown Arts Centre on a Friday evening at the conclusion of the Diversity Arts Australia’s (henceforth, DARTS) inaugural Pacesetters event, I was asked by filmmaker Maria Tran and crew about my experience, and if there were any highlights. The films themselves will be screened in Melbourne, Brisbane and NSW in 2020. I answered Maria’s question, in turn, by likening the final block party (led by hip-hop artist Kim ‘Busty Beatz’ Bowers) to a deal-clinching dessert after a great main course.
After all, who could resist a T-shirt reveal that shouted ‘Moisturize and Decolonize’ in cursive gold letters against a black background, followed shortly by a black body singing Taylor Swift’s ‘shake it off’. This wasn’t high-brow subversiveness, or an intellectualised talking back to the canon. It was taking up space, making it safe for bodies usually on the periphery in the Australian creative arts sector, and enabling them to be affectively free and creatively connected at once.
Kim ‘Busty Beatz’ Bowers at the Pacesetters launch; photo by Helen Tran
Why is the creation of a safe space, and the letting go of one’s harrowing institutional trauma in such a space essential for ‘pacesetters’? The rationale for this goes beyond the pedagogic dimension, and isn’t simply about learning from other artists. The affective or emotional aspect needs to be triggered, and this event did that successfully in a way that the process and labour behind it were laid bare, even as it created an ambience that transcended the sum of its parts on the day.
In her opening address, DARTS Executive Director Lena Nahlous spoke eloquently about how the artists commissioned for this project are endeavouring to build a different kind of archive. This archive is one that is founded on alternative ways of knowing from the conventional – and canonical – western ones. She added that these archives are vital for First Nations and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) artists because they declare that whatever is being preserved is worthy of being remembered. Such curated remembering is the bedrock of belonging for future generations.
As a full-time academic and a sometimes-writer, my own professional story is a constant cha cha between invisibility and hyper-visibility. From anecdotal evidence, this is true of most people of colour in industries where there is lip-service to diversity, but little by way of genuine self-reflection and engagement. Given this context, an event and block party like Pacesetters is akin to a collective sigh of relief because one is not obliged to walk a tightrope, even if just for a couple of hours.
The first featured artist, Rani Pramesti has been building her own archive so that these tightropes are not forgotten. She is the lead for the digital platform ‘Creatives of Colour’, a performance maker, and an advocate for diversity. The website has documented conversations with other creatives of colour, and Pramesti has come up with a very comprehensive set of survival strategies. At the event, this was articulated through an onstage chat with Pacesetters’ Artistic Director, Paschal Daantos Berry. When asked whether she found the interviews to be occasionally re-traumatising, Pramesti surprisingly responded in the negative and said that they were mostly joyful. She then talked at length about her chat with Amanda Ma, which came across as a heartening inter-generational creative exchange. Pramesti also mentioned that digital work is often safer, and helps reach younger audiences.
Aamer Rahman, a well-known ‘ethnic’ stand-up comic was second in line. Australia has a long-standing tradition of migrants from non-Anglo backgrounds using comedy as a medium to unpack issues of national identity and integration. This is often referred to as ‘wog humour’ or ‘ethnic comedy’. Rahman was commissioned to make three videos, which he also used to document conversations with other established creatives of colour – namely, Nazeem Hussein, Beverley Wang and Gary Foley. These interviewees were chosen because Rahman considers them to be his mentors and close colleagues, and they have provided him with pivotal support though the course of his career.
Rahman’s interview films, like Pramesti’s, are not merely documents of advice and insight from veterans. They are archives to be witnessed and shared, and a testament to the emotional power of good mentoring in a creative career. The films were displayed on iPads in the performance space, and excerpts were played after Rahman’s short pre-recorded Skype session (he was working in Turkey at the time of the event). In his excerpt, Rahman remarked that Australia is already a small market, and being different doesn’t help. He added that it is really hard to make art in a vacuum, and support and appreciation are vital.
Next featured was Latai Taumoepeau, who also had an onstage conversation with Paschal. Taumoepeau’s work exists in diverse spaces, from activism to art galleries, and her art is also featured in the upcoming Sydney Biennale. Her background is in dance, and she is interested in a particular interpretation of it which is based on a Pacific Islander cultural practice, and deeply engaged with time and space. Taumoepeau emphasised throughout the discussion that she is not overtly concerned with the western canon of what constitutes dance. Her digital work, War Dance: the final frontier, is screened later, and asks the question – ‘where do mining practices and war dances meet?’. In this instance, she found animation to be a more effective medium than a one-off performance. Climate change was identified as a significant issue for her culture, and the trope of the body as a metaphor for land was very manifest in her screened artefact.
Latai Taumoepeau at Pacesetters launch; photo by Helen Tran
Kim ‘Busty Beatz’ Bowers, the emcee for the evening is also a Pacesetters artist, and was commissioned to produce an archive of female hip-hop artists in Australia for the project. She declares the party started with her mixtape, ‘The Fierce Awakens’ as Australian Indigenous bushtucker food is served. The mixtape itself pays tribute to First Nations, culturally diverse, and female hip-hop artists like Ebony Williams, MC TREY and Maya Jupiter. Before her set starts, she introduces live performances by young first nations performers Lorna Munro and Tanya Wilds.
As Busty takes centrestage, other creatives and audience members begin to swing on the mixed-media space-turned-dance floor. I ponder over what Debbie Lee, Chair of DARTS said at the outset of the evening. She defined ‘pacesetters’ as both setting the pace, and paving the way. Inherent in this definition is the pioneer spirit of these creatives of colour, who are building bridges in several directions at once. This time, the pioneering isn’t about colonising someone else’s land, but tracing new paths through forgotten connections so that those witnessing these stories can belong to their histories.