General information
Navigators Weblog
The Navigators weblog is a diary by artists from DasArts, Amsterdam and Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. Coming from around the globe they have embarked on a voyage to Australia from 14 August to 28 October 2006. The weblog will be updated daily with texts, images and sound to keep track of their journey and to reveal the developments of their research.
Once every four years DasArts, Advanced Studies in the Performing Arts in Amsterdam, transfers its study programme to a foreign location (Giessen, Germany in 1994; Gent, Belgium in 1999; Toubab Dialaw, Senegal in 2003). In travelling to other countries, the main focus for DasArts is to experience a certain estrangement – by being deprived from ‘normal’ tools and surroundings, by collaborating with artists from different fields and systems – and to use these circumstances as a source of inspiration.
Within the scope of the 400th anniversary celebration of trade relations between Australia and the Netherlands, the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne approached DasArts for possible collaboration. Simultaneously, DasArts was looking for a partnership abroad. After lengthy negotiations, the two institutions established an intensive relationship while also finding support from the Dutch Government and sponsors. The schools mutually agreed to invite Jan van den Berg (the Netherlands) and Richard Murphet (Australia) to design a themed study programme. Together they have been designated as mentors, who will realise the wonderfully exciting thematic Block 25, entitled: Navigators.
As dawn rose in early March 1606, the tiny Dutch ship the Duyfken (Little Dove) prepared to drop anchor off the coast of a land that the captain, Willem Jansz, was to describe later as ‘mainly waste and inhabited by wild, cruel, black and barbarous men’. Sent from the Dutch East Indies settlement in Java to find King Solomon’s gold in the territory known as Nova Guinea, their port in fact was the mouth of a river on Western Cape York, Australia.
400 years ago this year, over 150 years before the Endeavour, the Little Dove was the first European arrival on the shores of the Great South Land, the first encounter between white Europeans and the indigenous people of Australia. For the indigenous communities in the area, the stories of the encounter with the white sailors and the slaughters that followed are still a living part of their culture.
The tiny vessel had navigated uncharted waters, sailed into the unknown with no maps, little protection from the elements and only basic navigational aids, arrived in a land unknown to anyone but its inhabitants who had been there for 40,000 years. The brief encounter that ensued has largely been forgotten in the official Story of Australia; but the history of colonisation and settlement that it heralded and its effect on the lives and culture both of the inhabitants of the southern continent and of the countries of Europe could hardly be imagined.
In late August 2006, another crew comes to rest where the Little Dove had landed. Their route has not been upon the unpredictable seas of Timor and Arafura but across the ancient landscape of Cape York. Twenty-four young artists from around the globe have embarked on a voyage of discovery of their own. Arriving from countries and cultures of 5 different continents, their trek to the most remote region of Australia cut them loose from any of their comfortable anchor points. At this stage their real journey begins. They travel back to Melbourne for 2 months to create an indelible work that expresses their perspective on this little remembered but iconic moment in the modern history of Australia.
The outcome of this artistic voyage of discovery will be presented from 19 October to 25 October 2006 in a multi-disciplinary event at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, with public performances at the VCA’s Studio 45 and in the multidisciplinary program of Dutch contemporary arts in Australia: Dutch Dare.
For more information: http://www.dasarts.nl/
Dutch Dare
A daring contemporary arts program from the Netherlands to celebrate 400 years of relations between The Netherlands and Australia.
Dutch Dare is a multidisciplinary program of Dutch contemporary arts in Australia, taking place in and around existing festivals and institutes in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Wangaratta. The program includes dance, music (contemporary and jazz), theatre, architecture, literature, visual arts (including photography) and design. The selection of the participants has primarily been made by the respective festival directors in consultation with the Dutch funding and cultural institutes.
At the request of the Dutch Embassy in Canberra, the Dutch Dare program has been organised by the Service Centre for International Cultural Activities (SICA), the Mondriaan Foundation and the Fund for Amateur Art and Performing Arts on behalf of the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education, Culture and Science. Other cultural institutes and foundations have also provided programming advice. SICA is coordinating the events and is responsible for overall publicity.