Category Archives: Community Arts

How to Make Lasagne Arab Style – by Khaled Mariam

WARNING: All videos linked to in this post are full of LOLs.

The Zyzz of Cooking is a comedy cooking show made by Khaled Mariam from Western Sydney. CuriousWorks has worked with Khaled on several projects over the last few years, so its fantastic to see him making his own hilarious films and posting them! Check out the video on Youtube and subscribe! Looking forward to more!!

Khaled was previously part of the reFILL project which ran at Miller Technology High and CuriousWorks facilitated from 2008-2009. You can see Khaled’s work in short film Attack of the Bullies or featured in the reFILL Sketch Comedy Videos. In 2010 he also played the main role in a short film for the Digitalogic program, Art Class Anti-Stimulus.

Digital Mantelpiece: Planning Week

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CuriousWorks sent me to Hobart last week to work with Glenorchy City Council's Moonah Arts Centre planning the "Digital Mantelpiece" program. This program will give local artists and residents an opportunity to share personal stories expressed through video, poetry, audio and photos which will be exhibited at the gallery and on a special online platform. We'll also be building up digital media skills in the area with the hopes of the project becoming an ongoing and sustainable one.

The week involved meeting and visioning sessions with Moonah Arts Centre staff, and meeting with project partners at the Goodwood Community Centre and Glenorchy LINC (part of the state-wide Library network.) We were able to gather lots of information about the community and the local needs and resources, so that we could build an appropriate community engagement and skills development model.??

I met collaborating artists Troy Melville and Karen Knight. Troy is a local filmmaker with years of experience in broadcast and community engagement. Karen is a local poet with many published works (found myself reading her books throughout the week instead of putting my head down and working!) We're very excited to be collaborating with these two artists, we're gonna be making and facilitating awesome shit!!

I also had the pleasure of sitting in on a Glenorchy Arts & Culture Advisory Committee meeting where I got to hear about future plans for the area as well as share what CuriousWorks does and what Digital Mantelpiece was starting to look like. Local Independent MP Andrew Wilkie was also present at the meeting, making it a bit special! I'm hoping to meet at least one Tasmanian celebrity per trip. Tick!

A huge thanks to Eleanor Downes, Michael McLaughlin and Sean Kelly from Glenorchy City Council who were warm and accommodating with their time, and brought three very distinct and passionate visions to the project planning. The Digital Mantelpiece project acknowledges the generous support of both Arts Tasmania and the Australia Council for the Arts' Community Partnerships Program, and community partners Goodwood Community Centre, Glenorchy LINC, Migrant Resource Centre Southern Tasmania and U3A Glenorchy.??

Some other cool trip highlights:

– Michael brought me along to a very cool meeting at Wide Angle in Salamanca, where local filmmakers and representatives from Roar Film and Screen Tasmania sat to discuss the state of documentary filmmaking in Australia.??

– Didn't get a chance to check out MONA this trip (definitely next trip!) but had a walk around the Salamanca Markets and Battery Point (took some mobile pics).

Looking forward to my next visit in June, when things will be well underway!

(Props to Mark for the cool quick banner design!)

First day in Glenorchy for the Digital Mantlepiece project

Flew into Hobart airport today and spent most of the day with Eleanor Downes from the Moonah Arts Centre. CuriousWorks is partnering with them and other local community organisations this year on a project called “Digital Mantlepiece”. And by the end of the week we should have a pretty solid idea of exactly what it will entail and how we’re going to accomplish it! It shall be awesome.

 

I’ve got a week full of meetings and plannings ahead, and Hobart is looking as gloomy as Sydney lately, but I’m hoping for a clear day to see a bit more of the town. Apparently there is a great big mountain out there somewhere, I just can’t see it past the cloud!
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It’s a Dance-Off!

Second workshop at the Street Uni today with lots of pre-production
brainstorming, voting and heated discussions involving car accidents,
Katy Perry & a drunk clown. The results – our video and poster will be
based around a Dance-Off. Hell yeah. The Street University should be
the perfect setting.

The Responsible Use of Alcohol Digital Artworks program is an
initiative by Liverpool City Council in partnership with CuriousWorks,
4 schools and 2 youth organisations.

First workshops at the Street University Liverpool went down on Friday

On Friday we held our first ever CuriousWorks workshops at the Street University, Liverpool. A group of 10 girls from Miller Technology High joined in our first workshops for the Responsible Use of Alcohol Digital Artworks program in partnership with Liverpool City Council.

An awesome fun first session, the girls shot and edited a video (yet another ball game) which we'll hopefully be able to publish when permissions come through. Starting next week we get to the serious work – working on our poster and video creations!

Spent the morning on a Skype call with John from the Ara Iritija Project

John demoed their impressive new browser-based software that is used to preserve Aboriginal cultural knowledge on a private network. Extremely detailed tech, totally tailored to the cultural requirements of Aboriginal Australians. CuriousWorks are considering using this or similar software in WA. Very impressive, check out the link above.??