LIVE FUTURES: ARCHIVE

What is Performance Space if not its artists, companies and ensembles, its many audiences, and diverse communities? In reflecting not only on the making and doing of art and performance but also on the theorising and consideration of ideas, this coming together recognises that conversation - the who, what and why of art and artists, new forms of performance, as well as hybrid and intersectional practices and ‘the place of the space’ - have been central to Performance Space’s evolution over 40 years.

As Performance Space looks to its past to anticipate the future, former performance artist, Board member and Director, Sarah Miller talks with Virginia Baxter and Keith Gallasch (Open City and RealTime) and their commitment to a Living Archive. Dr r e a, a descendant of the Gamilaraay/Wailwan people from the Central West NSW and Biripi people from the mid-north coast of NSW, is an artist and early member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists’ Cooperative, who were based at Performance Space in the early 90s. Artist, Elvis Richardson commissioned by Performance Space to create a celebratory work that reflects on PSpace history, as well scholar, Dr Caroline Wake, whose important work on Performance Space’s archive has been crucial to understanding the past, the present and the future as a continuing conversation that values the relational structures between art and culture, and between our personal and collective memory banks.