New Contemporaries

This catalogue accompanies a physical exhibition of the same name held across the SCA Gallery and adjoining spaces at the Old Teachers’ College, The University of Sydney from 1–9 December 2023.

New Contemporaries invites you to explore the work of more than 100 students across our 2023 graduating cohort. Spanning disciplines including Screen Arts, Photography, Painting, Printmedia, Sculpture, Ceramics, Glass and Jewellery and Object, the works within both the online and in-person presentations represent the capstone of degrees including the Bachelor of Visual Arts, Bachelor of Visual Arts/Bachelor of Advanced Studies, Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours), Master of Film and Screen Arts and research Master of Fine Arts and PhD.

Just as our students put a great deal of thought, effort and time into their work, so too does their work deserve an equally thought-provoking online catalogue.

Akin to crumpled ideas discarded across the studio floor, each three-dimensional shape represents a student or final film project. These atomised shapes bump against each other, mimicking the collaboration and conversations that take place throughout their years at SCA.

The path to this catalogue design was led by a personality quiz with our third-year students. Reflecting the atmosphere of the group at large, each shape has also been digitally alchemised by emotional axes marked up by the students themselves.

These icons open to reveal the details of their finished work and artistic practice. We are proud of all students represented here and hope you enjoy exploring their work as much as we enjoyed supporting them through their journey at SCA.

We give thanks to the dedicated team of SCA’s academic and professional staff who have supported each student to reach this point. 

Julie Rrap & Andrew Lavery
Sydney College of the Arts
Co-Directors and Discipline Co-Chairs

If ever there was a time that we need artists to provide a station break on a world that seems to be composing and decomposing itself out of existence, it’s now. If ever there was a time that we needed human fleshy inputs to guide the rise of Intelligent machines, it’s now. If ever there was a time that we needed your tone and tunings in the world, it’s now. If ever there was time for the joy of cooking, it’s now. If ever there was a time that we needed your sharp questions and answers, it’s now. If ever there was a time when we needed your humour, lightness, and darkness, it’s now. If ever there was a time that we needed artists to show us how to live experimentally in a way that wrangles chaos as a force for good, it’s now. If ever there was a time for your curved & straight lines, it’s now. If ever there was a time to embrace chance and indeterminacy, it’s now. If ever there was a time for composing without killing anything, it’s now. If ever there was time for thinking without borders, it’s now. If ever there was a time to float in a sea of nothing, it’s now. If ever there was a time to crawl up the walls backwards, it’s now. If ever there was a time to make blue mountains become purple, it’s now. If ever there was a time for desiring clouds and erotic weather systems, it’s now. If ever there was a time for running like the wind, it’s now. If ever there was a time to speak like Finnegans Wake, it’s now.

Our students at Sydney College of the Arts will do all of that and more.

———

A heartfelt thanks go to the Co-Directors of SCA, Andrew Lavery and Julie Rrap, for having trusted me to help guide New Contemporaries over the last three years. It is great to see the OTC coming up to speed, with art being made in its studios and workshops every single day.

It’s been a great pleasure working on New Contemporaries for the last three years with a dream team that continually brings openness, thoughtfulness, rigour, and creativity to the table. Liam Garstang, Emma O’Neill, Gulnara Shayakhmetova, Sophie Penkethman-Young and Alex Tanazefti have really gone the extra mile helping to make New Contemporaries something ultra-incredible.

A special mention must go to the tech team who work so closely on the ground with the students throughout the year and during the installation. Canbora Bayraktar, Joshua Boerma, Michael Brewster, Cobi Butcher, Rhonda Dwyer, Virginia Hilyard, Harry Klein, Isobel Markus-Dunworth and Timothy Osborne, Remi Siciliano, Clare Hooper, Nicholas Boerma, and Gabrielle Adamik. The gallery preparators bring such skill and professionalism to the surroundings of the exhibition; thank you, Richard Kean, Julien Bowmen and Warwick Edgington.

As the coordinator of CAST3001 and 3002, I would also like to thank the academics who have done a stellar job advising the studio groups: Robyn Backen, Alex Gawronski, Newell Harry, Jacky Redgate, Oliver Smith, Madeleine Kelly, and Andrew Lavery. I want to thank the academics and Rebecca Beardmore, who guided students across the Honours program and those working with the Higher Degree Research students and MMI students who make New Contemporaries such an amazing showcase. Next year, I will hand over the coordination into the competent hands of Oliver Smith and I look forward to working with him to see a smooth transition.

Love,

David Haines
Third Year & New Contemporaries Coordinator

11 Rules for life-long learning for my first best Honours cohort of 11 -‘Class of 2023’- aka trivia team: Untitled (sca super stars super duper cuties)(club) and absent members by association.

1. Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.

2. Stay connected. Pull everything out your colleagues, friends and mentors and be generous in giving back.

3. Consider everything an experiment.

4. Be self-disciplined — this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

5. Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.

6. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

7. Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes.

8. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.

9. “We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.”(John Cage)

10. Always be around. Come or go to everything. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything — it might come in handy later.

11. Set your own marathon. Finish it. Set another.

(#1-10 adapted from 10 Rules for Students, Teachers, and Life by John Cage and Sister Corita Kent.)

Rebecca Beardmore
Honours Coordinator

Legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa said ‘being an artist means not having to avert one’s eyes.’

This semester’s Master of Moving Image filmmakers tackled love, loss, joy, pain and hope with their eyes wide open. Enjoy.

Anna Broinowski
MMI Director | Senior Lecturer