“Dear Masato, all at once (get a life, the only thing that cuts across the species is death)”
Lisa Radford
4 Nov → 10 Dec 2016

— a play and exhibition by Lisa Radford
in collaboration with Northern Theatre Company

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

Thursday 3 November, 6–8 pm
Saturday 19 November, 12–6 pm
Saturday 10 December, 12–6 pm

Some advice, or information (but not rules):

NOT A PLAY

This is not a play. It is a piece of writing. However this piece of writing might resemble a play. The writing was not written, it was spoken. It is the record of an exchange between groups.

ACTS

The writing is made from six Acts. These Acts could also be called vignettes or non-sequiturs. The performance of the Acts requires 8-10 Actors. There is a Chorus, which is additional.

LOGIC & STRUCTURE

West Space is the stage. The stage must form a loop. This loop is a structure with its own logic.

DURATION

The play will be performed at West Space over three days. There will be a beginning, middle and an end, but in no particular order.

Presented across the entire gallery, this project is part of West Space’s annual commission series, which invests in a local artist to create a new body of work. Dear Masato is the second iteration of the series, following Dead Still Standing by Lou Hubbard in 2015.

Directors
Teresa Noble
Evangelos Arabatzis

Actors
Genevieve Neve
Nicola De Rosbo-Davies
Kelly Nielsen
Suzanne Brimley
Rebecca Grinblat
Sam Browne
Sally Guildford
Shrut Parmar
Bikramjeet Singh
Will Sutherland

Voice
Rebecca Harris

PUBLICATION

In conjunction with the exhibition, we are excited to be launching Aesthetic nonsense makes commonsense, thanks X, featuring the collected writings of Lisa Radford.

For the past twenty years, Lisa Radford has written alongside (and sometimes about) contemporary art and artists in Melbourne. Along the way her fictocriticism has captured many minor local histories that speak to politics, friendship, popular culture and a myriad of other subjectivities.

Aesthetic nonsense makes commonsense, thanks X brings together a selection of over fifty texts, including catalogue essays for Centre for Style, David Shrigley and Blair Trethowan, alongside other texts previously published in contemporary art journals including Art & Australia, Discipline and un Magazine.

Co-published by Surpllus and West Space, the publication includes contributions from Geoff Lowe & Jacqueline Riva (A Constructed World) and Jarrod Rawlins, and is designed and edited by Brad Haylock with editorial assistance by Robert Shumoail-Albazi.

Book launch: Thursday 8 December, 6–8 pm

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Aesthetic nonsense makes commonsense, thanks X has been generously supported by West Space Advocate, Cherie Schweitzer.