From mid-2020 to December 2021 I’m working on a Regional Arts Victoria Fellowship project, titled ‘A Dense Mass’.
Research is investigating a question essential to sustainability and innovation in regional arts: in what ways can an individual, experimental art practice be sustainable, relevant and accessible in a rural location? Research is focused on my main area of interest: the use of sound art to represent, understand and manage these things often called ‘mental illness’. It includes a public event program showcasing my back catalogue of recent works plus new works in progress in Clunes for the first time, alongside a website for interviews with other regional artists and experiments in remote methods of working, among other things.
Aside from that, an overview of what else I’ve been doing the last few years:
2021:
– Work on a chapter for an upcoming book, The Big Anxiety, edited by Jill Bennett, who, among other accolades, is director of The Big Anxiety Festival.
– Audio paper published in online journal, Disclaimer, discussing the creation of the album ‘Love Songs’ as a first-person “madness” narrative.
– Commissioned by Liquid Architecture for ‘Unheard Relations’ in March, a satellite event for the ‘Site and Sound: Sound Art as Ecological Practice’ at McClelland Sculpture park.
2020:
– Journal article titled ‘The Acousmatic Gap as a Flexile Path to Self-Understanding: A case for experiential listening’ published in Organised Sound.
– Research and development for a new installation/performance work. This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
– Commissioned by MESS Ltd for the presentation of an new 8-channel work at The SUBSTATION in March.
– Mentoring as part of SIGNAL’s Screen x Sound Commissions.
2019:
– Winner of the 2019 Green Room Award for Contemporary Sound Performance, for the CD launch of Love Songs at The SUBSTATION.
– Finalist in the 2019 Art Music Awards for Excellence in Experimental Music for Held Down, Expanding.
– Artist in residence at MESS Ltd (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio) . The MESS artist in residence program is supported by City of Melbourne, with Thembi’s participation supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
– Awarded a PhD at RMIT University, project titled “A Dense Mass of Indecipherable Fear: The Experiential (Non)Narration of Trauma and Madness through Acousmatic Sound.” The dissertation can be downloaded here.
– Presentation at Chamber Made’s Hi-Viz Practice Exchange, discussing the ‘Orange House By the Sea’ artist residency undertaken in collaboration with S.J Norman, in May 2019.