28:
Yesterday afternoon, being Sunday, we rode our bikes out past the town centre and over the train tracks to the flatter, red-dirt suburban streets of Nulsen, where the Esperance Community Garden were having their weekly get together. On the Pink Lake Road side we met Sonny Graham doing some weeding with his hoe. Sonny is a senior Ngadju man we’d already tried contacting, who very kindly took the time to show us around the rest of the garden and give a run down of the edibles they’ve got growing so far (quandongs and kangaroo apple, rosemary, olives). Over a cup of tea with Sonny and another volunteer, we talked about what they’d like the garden to become, and what Esperance was like some sixty years ago when Sonny first arrived from the Nullarbor. At that time places like Cape Le Grand were still ‘real wild’, and local men were the ones showing him what parts of the landscape could be eaten.
March flies are suddenly out in force, and seem to like the garden too.
(The garden’s less-cultivated side, and the empty lot next door. Before running out of money, as they do, the developers managed to cut down a row of large trees that had provided shade and mositure retention.)
01:
Tonight between 5 – 6pm you can catch us in the food cart cooking up pikelets. There will also be a picnic discussion with our special guest Sally Parslow, local resident of The Rocks. There’s a new microsite for the project – http://www.makeshift.work/gwagopatabagun/ – and we’ll be posting more on the journey and the events here soon.
12:
Shortly you will see a new work of ours, Gwago patabagun _ _ _ We will eat presently*, roll into the front lawn of the Museum of Contemporary Art, where it will be parked for two months as part of the exhibition, In the Balance: Art for a changing world (21 August – 31 October). We will eat presently consists of a mobile food cart that is home to a hive of native bees, and on occasion will be opened up by us to serve hot pikelets with home-made honey for anyone who stops by. A series of picnic discussions with invited guest speakers will also accompany these edible happenings.
There will be a website with more details – http://www.makeshift.work/gwagopatabagun/ presently… (nothing up as yet, please wait a few days before visiting). In the meantime, here is a picture of the cart being constructed:
*The title of this work comes, as always, from a found text. This one is the notebooks of William Dawes, which you can view in full here. In them, Dawes records the extensive study of the Dharuk language he carried out from his hut at the Observatory (just up the hill from the MCA), assisted chiefly by Cadigal woman Patyegarang, in the early, precarious days of the colony. Ross Gibson wrote an excellent article for Meanjin that explores this relationship, which if you’re interested can be read here
19:
Read a cute little write-up on Colony Collapse by Rachel Fuller at Concrete Playground.
And for those who’ve been meaning to visit, there’s only one week left! Quicksticks… (it looks something like this)
The bees live in their hive, inside the orange meat safe. In theory they can fly in and out of the gallery whenever they like, through a pipe leading outside, however Sydney’s still-cold winter has kept them pretty much tucked up in bed. If it’s sunny you might spot them hanging out next to their hive or amongst the blueberries and ‘Happy Wanderer’. Come and talk to them, they’re super sweet!
 
06:
We have an exhibition opening at Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney in 2 days time. It’s called Colony Collapse and concludes our studio residency at the new Firstdraft Depot. There will be a hive of native stingless bees, amongst other things (drawings, constructions etc.) relating to the development of our forthcoming project for the Museum of Contemporary Art‘s In the Balance exhibition. Also opening at the same time are shows by Bronwyn Carter, Luke Thurgate and Baden Pailthorpe.
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Colony Collapse
Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe
Colony Collapse continues Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe’s ongoing collaborative project to micro-farm pockets of the city, cannibalising leftover building materials (and other devices of protection/preservation) in the construction of makeshift experiments in urban self-sufficiency. At Firstdraft the artists investigate the possibilities for small-scale mobile honey production in the gallery and beyond, as they prepare to build a hybrid native beehive-food cart destined for Sydney Cove. With food crisis, suburban sprawl and the colony’s precarious histories (and futures) on their minds, Zettel & Khoe invite audiences in to smell the flowers and talk to the bees.
As part of the Firstdraft Emerging Artists Studio Program supported by Australia Council for the Arts
Exhibition opens: Wednesday 7 July 2010, 6-8pm
Exhibition continues: to 25 July 2010
Artist talks: Sunday 25 July 2010 at 4pm
f i r s t d r a f t
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116-118 Chalmers St.
Surry Hills NSW 2010
t: +61 (0)2 9698 3665
open: Wed to Sat, 12-6pm
30:
Well, the shifting garden at 4A has now packed up and shifted elsewhere (or a variety of elsewheres actually). Thanks to everyone who stopped and had a look, took home a beetroot or kale seedling or a seed packet, or sat down for a cup of tea and a lotus chip and a chat about gardens, cities and other good things. Thank you also to the marvellous team at 4A – Aaron, Summar, Ping, Yu ye, & Sam who did their best to keep everything nicely watered. We’ve amassed quite an archive of photos and will be posting them here over the next little while, in the meantime here are a few from the final weeks.
  
  
ABOVE RIGHT: lotus chips and taro cake at the closing party.
30:
A nice little article on the Garden (by Lucy Fokkema) on the Throw Shapes blog – read it here.
14:
Saturday’s workshop saw home-made pumpkin scones with rosella jam & Western Sydney backyard rosellas, lots of tea (lemongrass from the garden and jasmine flowers from China), and various drawings of people’s next-door neighbour’s gardens/architectural plans for what we could do in the gallery. … And the beginnings of a seed exchange, which will continue to take shape over the next week.
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21:
Our new solo exhibition at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art opens this Thursday. It will be evolving for the next six weeks, so please do drop by later and see where it ends up travelling to – more details below:
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TESSA ZETTEL & KARL KHOE
MAKE-DO GARDEN CITY
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
181 – 187 Hay St. Sydney
26 March – 8 May 2010 / Open Tues – Sat, 11am – 6pm
Opening Thursday 25 March, 6 – 8pm
4A’s ground floor turns into Make-do Garden City, a place where fictional Chinese gardens of the seventeenth century meet with the personal histories and potential sustainable futures of Sydney’s Chinatown. Tessa Zettel & Karl Khoe will be conducting a six-week program of talking, making and growing that explores new ways of remembering and recreating the city around us.
Members of the local community are invited in to contribute stories of gardens – real, past or imagined – in exchange for edible plants grown by the artists. As conversations unfold throughout the exhibition, the artists will produce a series of experimental domestic micro-farms that respond to the places and ideas being discussed. This timely project investigates what it means to live in this city in the context of urban expansion, climate change and food crisis.
Visit Make-do Garden City for a chance to catch the artists tending their installation, or join them for one of two informal workshops involving seed-swapping, drawing, tea and conversation.
Public Programs:
Saturday, 10th April, 11am – 1pm
& Saturday, 8th May, 11am – 1pm (Closing event)
www.4a.com.au
www.makeshift.com.au
Make-do Garden City has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
25:
We have some work in an exhibition opening next week, it’s the NAVA Freedman Foundation Awards Exhibition 2009 and is being held at COFAspace. Yes indeed, we are heading off into the big wide yonder on a travelling scholarship (although not for a little while yet…). Other exhibiting artists include Bridget Currie, Katya Grohovsky, Izabela Pluta, Keg de Souza, Laura Woodward, Louise Irving and Kenzie Larsen.
All welcome, opening night is Wednesday 2 Sept, 6 – 8pm.
Freedman Foundation Awards Exhibition 2009
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3 – 11 September, 2009
10am – 5pm Monday to Saturday
COFAspace
College of Fine Arts
Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd
Paddington NSW
9385 0684
Image: Laura Woodward
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