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What I've Learnt - Natalie King · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Australian arts leader, cultural producer and curator with more than two decades of experience in international and Australian contemporary art and visual culture, Natalie King has a unique cultural footprint and networks in contemporary art, realizing landmark programs across Australia, Asia Pacific, and Europe.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Working across multiple domains, her highly skilled leadership spans the life cycle of artistic production and management from new commissions, exhibitions, artistic partnerships, stakeholder relations, fundraising, and programming.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're very excited to have Natalie on the What I've Learned podcast because she's off to the Venice Biennale.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So what a time to have a chat to this amazing art curator.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Nat.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Lovely to have you on the show.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big fan of your podcast.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for inviting me.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolute pleasure.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't we start talking to me a little bit about how you got into this quite bespoke and quite unique area of art?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a, you know, what your your as I said, your CV is so extensive.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really curious how what resonated for you about going into the art world?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it was a circuitous or kind of a detour that I found myself in the art world.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like you, I went to Mount Scopus College.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there wasn't such an emphasis on culture during that period, but um, I was heavily influenced by both of my grandmothers.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: My paternal grandmother was a ballerina, and from the age of 12, she used to take me to see matinee performances of the ballet at the Forum Theatre, and she had previously danced with Sir Robert Heltman, and uh she had danced the Part d'Eur.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt that she passed on just a love of uh the wonder of theatre and ballet.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And my other grandmother was a Polish migrant from a small village called Wyszkow on the outskirts of Warsaw, and she came here with her mother at the age of 12, and like many stories of migration, she worked for decades.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she wasn't able to go to school for very long, but she became a painter in her back room.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember as a child going into this special room and the smell of oil paint and her easel.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those twinning influences, when I look back, did have an impact on me.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually studied law for a couple of years at Monash because my father is a lawyer, and I was a bit disenchanted and decided in second year to make the European pilgrimage with a backpack.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I set off on my own at the age of 19 and I studied uh Italian in Florence.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so special.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I just it was like falling in love.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I found myself in Brunelleschi's Duomo, looking at Renaissance paintings, and I just knew I had found this pathway that would then, you know, take hold for the rest of my life.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when I came back to Melbourne, I transferred to arts, and I guess the rest is history.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel very blessed that I found something that was inspirational and very meaningful for me at quite a young age and has shaped my career and my working life in a very profound way.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: That is such a wonderful, first of all, I did not know that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Having known you for quite a long time, I did not know that, Natalie.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I find that really interesting because there's that notion, as and we talk about this obviously with our children as well, the notion of enculturation and where it comes from.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that, first of all, it gives a great context to how you have got where you are, because you saw that the arts and creativity resonated both in your history but also for yourself.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: But not many of many of the schools necessarily, and certainly with us growing up, the arts were a little bit like, you know, a little bit on the sidelines, and it wasn't something that really was elevated in the same way.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas I grew up like you with a great reverence for writers and literature and art.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that I really relate to what you're saying, that it's really important for people listening to go, you know, if that resonates for you, follow that, follow your heart and go on that mission.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, because you don't know where it will take you.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I never thought that I would be curating two Venice Biennales and working with the Polynesian queer community in some.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I would never have imagined where it would take me.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I think if you work in an inspired environment, whatever domain that might be, or whatever discipline, you can be taken to places that you had never imagined.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And like you, I love literature as a teenager.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: My family mainly had world books like encyclopedias at home.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have very much fiction, so I borrowed from a friend's older sister all her D.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: H.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lawrence novels, and I remember voraciously reading them.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't at the beach and I wasn't outdoors.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was probably quieter, a quieter child.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really like sport, much to my children's dismay.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I found great um solace in in literature, and I probably still do.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's interesting because um I interviewed Elliot Perlman, who we both know well, who um as a as a writer, very successful writer, he has this great line in the interview where he talks about if you inoculate yourself with the arts at an early age, it will help you on your life's journey.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a really, it really, really resonated for me that comment.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really what you're saying is if you can find whatever that is that touches you and also gives you solace, because to be honest, it makes you realise how universal so much of our experience is.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the arts, I suppose, touches so many of us.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: You definitely have to be brave to go on the journey you have, because there are it's not something that's always easy to navigate.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Were there mentors and how you know, because you can do an arts degree and then you know, do the fine arts, or like for me, I can be a writer.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: But if if you don't have a mentor or somebody who says, wait, here's a little way, what was that for you, and who was that for you?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a good question.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I actually had that many mentors, and I think there was a view that doing an arts degree wasn't vocational.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That hasn't been the case for me, and it certainly hasn't been the case for you.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I guess because I didn't necessarily have mentors, I have actively mentored myself.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm involved in an organization called Mentor Walks, where for one hour, once a month, we walk and talk with women, and uh, we're paired for a one-off session, and I'm usually paired with two or three mentees, and they bring one burning issue.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I've found that often the issues are similar, and it's amazing what in a small collective group, what one can share and resolve, like we're doing now.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been very actively involved in mentoring and at the university, and actually last week I won an award.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: What a great trophy, though, to win, though.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's so it's an accolade of mentoring, which is wonderful.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a University of Melbourne Excellence Award, and I guess I feel really strongly that we rise by lifting others.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: That if we have skills or knowledge, that we should share it because we're all here together and we we don't need to compete.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if we work collectively and in an inclusive way, we can all find ways to exist in a world that is truly a mesmerizing mess.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think that's right.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think more than ever, I mean, as you know, this podcast grew up really out of the last two and a half years.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was a journalist at the age before that, and what I find really interesting is this is in effect, this it's what I've learned.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's what we're all learning from ourselves, from each other, and the connections and and the the way that people have, in a way, shared their truths, have certainly elevated me.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I know I get a lot of private messages from people saying very much what you've just said, which is thank you.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I listened to, you know, Natalie King or I listened to whoever, and it really helped me understand something and gave me solace, gave me guidance, gave me a sense of I'm not alone on this journey and I've experienced that same thing.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: So congratulations, I saw you won that award.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that is perfect for you.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, you've created you've created a community through your podcast.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what curating does as well.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: It brings people together, and we need to find more ways to commune and connect when we've all been so isolated and secluded and traumatized, literally for years now.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this listening to each other, which is what a podcast is, is so important.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: How can we how can we listen to each other?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely agree with you, and it's very much what my mission is is to do that.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's actually grown, and I love all these beautiful people like yourself that come on and share their truths and their journey.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me for you, I've I would love to talk about what we have got.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're going over to the Venice Biennale for the first time in three years, would it be?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been working on this project since 2019.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the Venice Biennale is the most prestigious visual arts event in the world.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's also the oldest.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It started in 1895 in the Lagoon City of Venice in northern Italy, and around 90 countries present pavilions across the entire city, from palazzos to parks to warehouses, and there's very high attendance.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, the numbers swell to over 600,000.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the exhibitions also presented for seven months, so the duration is quite long.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2017, I was very fortunate to curate the first solo presentation by an Aboriginal artist in the Australian Pavilion with Tracy Moffat.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's I love Tracy Moffat, yeah, she's brilliant.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Naomi Milgram was our commissioner, so we were we were a formidable trio.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: In 2019, New Zealand did a call out for an artist and curator duo.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Each country has a different method of procuring their artist and curator.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's by invitation, sometimes it's advertised, sometimes it's shortlisting.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: But New Zealand did an open call, and I thought, hmm, do I really want to do another one?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: No one ever does, too, because it's completely unremitting.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I had been looking very closely at an artist called Yuki Kihara, and she is part of the Fafafine transgender community in Samoa in Polynesia, and I was completely captivated by her work.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you get an obsession with an artist or a filmmaker, and you just you take a deep dive into their practice and you long to work with them.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I was aware that she had exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2008.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: She'd been in a number of Biennales in Korea, Thailand.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'd seen her work in Brisbane at the Asia Pacific Triennial.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I reached out to her on social media and she rejected me.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh because she had got close on two other occasions to applying, but the application didn't progress.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: So she was quite sensitive about reapplying.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So with persistence.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to say persistence.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Persistence, we had some Zoom meetings and we decided to form a duo and apply.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was quite an arduous application.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It took us about five weeks working intensively because we had to do a full freight quote customs clearance consignment into Venice.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, not many people know how to do that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to say it sounds very complicated.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: A global distribution plan for our publication, but we did it and we were unanimously selected.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what's so special is that Yuki is the first Fafa Fina or third gender Asian, Pacific, and Indigenous artists to be selected ever by New Zealand.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a triumph.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Massive triumph has supported her and her practice.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm working alongside her as her curator.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we've been on literally thousands of Zooms for three years.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I must say though, Nat, it really goes to your character.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, your ability to trust your instincts to go on that pathway, right?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Which I really think takes enormous courage to go, there is something here, and I need to follow it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's just wonderful.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I love that about you.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I can see that.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the way that you you're not interested in what's maybe already out on the slate.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're interested in what you can find that's not on slate, that's behind the scenes, that needs its love and care and nurturing to bring it to the surface.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think that really is a skill that you have that I observe.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this story in particular, I think exemplifies that.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, that's such an astute observation.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I don't ever like to duplicate what's already there or what I've done before.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm often looking for new challenges curatorially and for myself.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I I have almost no experience working in the Pacific, but I do have quite a lot of experience working with indigenous artists, and I guess I find that artists take me to places that I had never imagined.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So fortunately, um the artists Yukiki Hara and I we went to Venice in 2019 in November, the day after the most significant floods in Venice in 50 years.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I quite so we were there.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: We went there the day after, so the whole city, it was like Armageddon.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, huge.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason we were there is to choose our venue because New Zealand has been participating in the Venice Biennale since 2001, and they don't have a permanent pavilion unlike Australia.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it's fortuitous, so we could choose a venue that would make sense for Yuki's work.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then in March, I went and visited her in Samoa as she was in the final production phase of her very elaborate photo shoot with up to a hundred Samoans on the island at different locations.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I was there as an observer, and it was we were so lucky to that I could go that Yuki could complete the work right before COVID.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: It couldn't happen now.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: You couldn't do it now, and and also, oh I just love to see this.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's just I'm visualising what it must be just quite extraordinary.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: What she does.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: In front of waterfalls, plantations, in villages.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we were, you know, I was there as part of an as an observer, as part of the team.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then the Venice, then COVID hit, and then the Venespionale was delayed a year.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh so holding, you know, in that context, a lot of what you're saying is that she has faith in what she does, you have faith in her, and clearly you're getting support to bring her to the world, in effect, or to, you know, to showcase this extraordinary landscape of her work.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: But what what is it within you when this when you got delayed?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously I know what it's like artistically, that that momentum, yeah, is quite quite part of the journey, isn't it?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're gonna do the shoot, we're gonna do the photos, we're gonna get this out, we're gonna so how did you navigate that?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: How did you was that would have been quite challenging for her and for you?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Look, some aspects of it was very tough because you need a lot of stamina to do a project of this magnitude, and we ended up having a much longer runway than we had expected.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I just had to like everyone adapt and accept control the controllables.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: What can we do?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: At least it was going ahead.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: There were some concerns that it might be cancelled, that the presentations might be compromised.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: However, I am going to Venice on Friday.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is a miracle.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So exciting.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: What we tried to do was use the time as purposefully as possible.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we had an extra year, and we used that year very carefully to produce a book on Yuckie's work because often in Australia and in New Zealand, artists don't have substantial monographs on their work, and they they need that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: They need the scholarship, they need the publications.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a calling card, and it has an afterlife beyond an exhibition.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I've edited a book with Thames and Hudson on Yuckie's work with predominantly writers from the Pacific and poems and telling her story and at really adding to the exhibition because the exhibition might have photographs, but um the book can show some of the storyboarding and her thinking and her archival research.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it captures um really a deep dive into Yuki's thinking, and I had an extra year, which in some ways was for two.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was a bonus, yes.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard because I also I curated an exhibition in Tokyo last year and I couldn't go.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had to install via Zoom.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was how is that even possible?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Just kind of like so, just quickly coming back to that book because it sounds wonderful.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and as a publisher myself, I'm very interested in the um, as you say, you had some extra time to do it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is that book available?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, is it in you know, where can people get this book?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be really interesting to know.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: The book will be released on the 23rd of April, which is the day that uh the Venice Biennale opens to the public.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's published by Thames and Hudson.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: There will be in all good bookstores available online.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons I went with Thames and Hudson is because they also published the book I did on Tracy Moffat, and they're able to achieve very significant northern hemisphere distribution.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the book will be in the bookstores of the Tate, the Guggenheim, MoMA, and they've already sold 70 copies into Biennale bookstores.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm happy.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you should be, Natalie.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so impressed because you really do, and we we come back to this.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're you multitask, but you're also multi-skilled.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd be really interested.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can't we come back to how we upskill and how we skill.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And certainly, you know, you have worked, as do I, in many creative industries, which gives you this wonderful spectrum.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one minute you're writing this book, then you're curating.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see it all as part of the storytelling journey?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And once you release that and in respond to that intuition, it it you can go there.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's important for listeners, especially a lot of my young listeners, to know that there is a there, it's not one way to do things.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, sometimes the detours are the most interesting paths.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I might be heading towards one big project, and then, for example, I've just been invited to speak at a cultural leadership conference in Abu Dhabi run by Google and the Guggenheim.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I just said, Yep, okay, sure, I'm coming.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can just start to thread things together and sometimes unexpected details.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm quite interested in the Sharjah biennial.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll go and visit Sharjah.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying, but you've got to be attuned to opportunities as they arise and really harness them, not just stay, it's important to have goals and stay on path, but also be open to details.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I guess when I mentor people, I I say both is important, and also what matters to you.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I find that after I've worked very intensively on a big outward-facing exhibition like a Biennale, I often like to have a quieter year where I'm maybe researching and writing and I'm more on my own or with my family, and then I might be traveling.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I try and make sure that my calendar is amenable for me so that I'm also nurturing myself and refueling myself because you know it's pretty relentless what we do and the expectations on us.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I know, like you, like me, you're a mother with kids, and you know, it's that, and trying to make sure that you have that life balance is challenging.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you're traveling a lot and you're like, I know I'm the same as you, if I'm writing something, I'm immersed, or if I'm doing the podcast, it's a different pressure.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I think, do you think it's made you as a parent and as a partner having this beautiful richness of your own journey?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about how you think that has enhanced your life, because I think it certainly enhanced mine.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's it means that you can still hold on to yourself in the midst of commitment to others, commitments and obligations and hopefully inspire our children.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got daughters, I do too.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I want them to know that you can be a loving and caring mother.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: But you can also be very fulfilled intellectually and creatively.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: It it is possible.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always easy.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I like them to see that, you know, this morning I did an interview with CNN, but tonight I'll be making bolognese.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's all kind of a messy chaos of being a mom and a woman and a wife and a daughter.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, someone that's active and it's thrilling and it's chaotic sometimes, but it always I try and just stay secure in myself, really, and and trust trust my own judgment.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think over time you learn those.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: No one can teach you how to do that, but you learn those skills to value yourself.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And your judgment and also your intuition.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that I've had my daughters come to me and say, Oh mum, that's great.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing that, or it's really exciting.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't need accolade from my daughters.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's more that they I want them to know it very similarly.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what you say is very important because often there is still judgment around mothers, even though it shouldn't be.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: There is a pressure.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that you're there, be there, be there.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we're all there, but we also are better there if we've actually got a sense of our own path.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you've certainly got that.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I because I've often seen you and I both running past each other to go to school or to pick up food, or you know, we're not, we're in a similar world.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and I know that you, you know, you've got the biennale coming up, and you'd know that I've got a book coming out.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a lovely um, there's just that nod winks at respect for what we do.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully it inspires others.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that our girls learn from that.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: So are you also now you're also a professor, which we need to also say, go you.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well done.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tell me a bit about the educational side of things in terms of your role and how important that is to you, and what you'd like to see for the next gen coming through the system.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm based where you studied at the Victoria's Arts, which is the South Bank campus of the University of Melbourne.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And previously I've always worked in museums, and museums are very regulated hierarchical environments, and I find an art school is nirvana for me because I love that.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great description.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a place, it's youthful, it's a place of making, it's quite an informal environment, as you would know, and it's where I'm headquartered.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I I have limited teaching obligations, which I'm very grateful for.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I I do mentoring, I'm I'm on various committees, I have an office on campus, and I have wonderful colleagues.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel very much embraced in that environment, and also most importantly, I'm near artists.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a curator and I'm near studios and artists because we have that beautiful stables complex.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's great, you know, which is all the all the artist studios.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I'm exactly where I need to be as a curator.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if I was in a museum, you feel more remote.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where you know, everything has to close at five, and there's so many committees, and I like to work very autonomously.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I work maybe like you as well with books, I work project-based.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we I scale up as I go into the delivery phase.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: So for the Venice Biennale, it's not just me and the um artists.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have an assistant curator who's Pacifica, we have an exhibition designer, an exhibition manager, we have a locally engaged manager in Venice.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whole team and a whole structure, but I love that part of it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's the collegiate, yeah.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: You've got also the collegiate aspect, yeah.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and assembling, I guess, my own team and people who I like to work with.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the graphics behind me are designed by Ashley O'Neill from Salt Camp Studios, and she designs many of the Thames and Hudson books.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And what the artist and I said to her is that we want a really Polynesian sensibility, so we want very warm tropical colours, but also she took a lead from the font and typography that she used.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a quite well-known Samoan typographer who was based in New Zealand called Joseph Churchwood.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: So she took inspiration from his typography to do our graphics, and also all the interwoven patterns relate to uh Siapo, which is the Samoan bark cloth, which is a traditional form of making.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we've tried to incorporate all these different Polynesian elements into our branding, our presentation, and you know, you need really skilled people because I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to do podcasts.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know what I can do, and you're right, you do need quite a broad skill set.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I might be doing interviews, I'm editing press releases at the moment, working on schedules, but also captioning and you know, some of it can be quite straightforward.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Administrative tasks.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Also looking after the artists is one of my main responsibilities.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say that, yeah, because they actually that that is actually quite a big thing for an artist to be going to the Biennali.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: It must be just so overwhelmingly exciting.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's like going to the Grammys or you know, for a musician.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's called, you know, the Olympics of the art world.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: From my experience, artists get quite feverish right before because there's a lot of pressure on them and they're really in the international spotlight.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So part of my role is to make sure that they're they're looked after, they're briefed properly.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's also a lot of white noise around the Venice Biennale.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone wants access to the artist.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, with Tracy Moffat, she took a long time to make her photographs.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: They go into, I didn't quite realise, a very long phase of post-production.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So she could work on one photograph for three months and she is redoing it.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the best thing I could give her was time in the studio.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can't work on those photographs, only she can.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I needed to keep all the journalists and I need to keep everyone away so she could have that precious time in her studio.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I work very much in tandem, depending on what the needs of the artist is and how I can best support them to realise their projects.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's fundraising, sometimes that's hustling.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I was about to say, well, that's the other thing, and that is an important point you raise, because the arts obviously has had a complete battering across the board.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's already challenging to get arts into the main palladium, if you like, of life, like saying to people, because they see it as a well, you know, I don't need that, I don't have to buy art this year or whatever.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: So then you have the COVID overlay.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I know this is also with music and albums and books, etc., but they're also the very thing that a lot of people turn to for great comfort, and also because people were home, they were like, Well, I might as well get that beautiful piece of art.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are the realities of the art world in terms of funding, financing, and actually these people earning a living and being able to survive?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Look, to be honest, it's very tough.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And with our new budget, there was a 20% cut in our which is very disheartening.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be fair to say that the arts, the whole sector is in a state of distress.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: However, we do always somehow find a way through.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow, I think you know, the remuneration for artists and creatives is often, you know, you're meant to do it because you you love it, but really, you know, it's a it's cultural labor, it needs to be remunerated.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's absolutely vital, and we have to stand up for our creatives.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there's, you know, there's no wonder that during COVID, people were forming online choirs, people were doing poetry recitals, people were turning to the arts because the arts is the soul of any community.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we saw that even if you were baking.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many of us started baking?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I learned to make hullas.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought I'd do that.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very impressed that you did that.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I used to join it.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: I did it a little bit, but I I do the the online choirs and the musicians, and and you know, you speak to someone like you know, or even John Stevens and all of those artists that were used to traveling and being out live were like, we are literally not there now.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where are we?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're just stuck.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: So they were all going online, trying to actually find a way to stay connected and communicate.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Art, it's also quite material and and tactile, and it's a very visual thing that can work online, but a lot of it is you need to stand in front of it and have it.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's no choice now.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Look, going to the Venice Biennale is very a very privileged opportunity.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we uh we will have a very active online presence, we will have QR codes in the exhibition where you can then there'll be cutaways to the artists talking about the work.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think most or many of the pavilions are thinking like this.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I know myself I was at home for two years and I could look at these, it's not the same, but I could still go on virtual tours of you know, MoMA if I wanted to.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and it did make it accessible.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, on that note, what what's your take on the NFTs?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious what you think of that, just as a complete, we're just while we're talking technology.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm struggling with it personally, but I know everyone's like my head around it really.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, I'm very interested that that's the case because I thought you were gonna go, oh, you know, that's the future.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's and I'm like, it's esoteric.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's certainly it's being, I suppose it's it's about the commercialization, which I understand, but somehow the soul feels it's just not the same.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of like that whole Bitcoin, I don't know, it's for me.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think you and I maybe we're just old school, I don't know.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're just like we like the the the beauty of of the actual um well, certainly with artwork.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: The encounter of with an artwork or with a song or a recital, something can be very touching and uplifting, but also confronting.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Yuki's work looks at decolonization, intersectionality, gender politics, climate crisis, very urgent issues, but in a way that is poetic but also humorous.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: So artists have a way of, I guess, amplifying our current conditions in a way that I think is really vital.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: We need to listen to our artists.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: We do need to listen to our artists.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And just tell me, so you leave you leave next week.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me whether there are other major exhibitors or artists that you're excited to see?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are, but maybe just a little snapshot of anything else that you for you is a highlight?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a great question.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, I'm looking forward to seeing the Japanese pavilion with the dance group Dumb type because I've always loved their work and I've seen their work in Kyoto.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I think this Venice Biennale is going to be a game changer because many of the or some of the pavilions are showing first-time artists.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Yuki, who I'm working with, has developed a network called the Firsts Solidarity Network.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because Venice Biennale, it's like the Olympics, it's very competitive, the national pavilions they don't work together.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was there in 217, you don't actually meet anyone.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we try we've tried to set up a network across the pavilions to understand well, how are you presenting?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And will you have QR codes?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And have you got Wi-Fi in your space?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And is it strong enough?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And are you translating all your collateral into Italian or French?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or what are people doing?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to have brochures but you don't want to have wastage?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you printing in Venice?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's just so many questions that we're all having to deal with and navigate.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: We might as well talk about it.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the um the countries that are part of that network are Albania, Singapore, uh, New Zealand, the UK, Nepal.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nepal will have their first pavilion.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's exciting.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be beautiful.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nepalese.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: So those kinds of initiatives I think are really exciting, kind of peer-to-peer rather than the governmental relationships, to actually try and connect in with some of the other pavilions, which doesn't normally happen because it's such a frenzy when you arrive there, trying to, you know, all your equipment is sent ahead.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's like one hardware store in Venice that's empty when you're there.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: See, you know, can you imagine getting crates into Venice?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's on water.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to have all your crates brought in on barges with forklifts and Natalie.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is so fascinating.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: I have never thought about that before.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: And this is you're giving us such a great insight into the nuts and bolts that people don't think because obviously it's like anything.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you think of Khan, right?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's in a way it's less complex, other than everybody's complex egos.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, when I listen to what you're talking about, the logistics, so those are some of the challenges that people and the fact that I didn't realize the competitive element and the fact that you've removed or that there's this work, this attempt to connect everybody to unify resources and to build solidarity and camaraderie across pavilions, because all pavilions are resourced very differently.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the US pavilion compared to Nepal, I mean, and you see different is it's adequate, but it's relatively modest.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: But so, you know, how can we maybe share resources or share knowledge?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Knowledge, knowledge is capital as well.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've done this before, so I remember what all the steps are getting to Venice and how do you set up your AV?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, Venice is it's a very hostile environment to exhibit contemporary art.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hostile in the sense that floods, wind, dust, the spaces are usually not climate controlled, they're churches.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you show works that are maybe fragile and how do you show them for seven months when there might be a downpour?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there's all these contingencies that we're in situations.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do you navigate that?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and is that something that I mean that I just you know, because obviously the romantic notion of the Biennale is this sort of wonderful, which it is, but you know, some of the things that you're talking about are really fascinating because I've never really thought of those.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, first of all, it's a very, very old city and it's on water.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: So of course so that means that they're they're the conditions that everyone has to live it under, and how do you navigate that?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we've we've found a way and you have to be very aware of what's the experience going to be like for their audiences, how will they pass through the space, what information can they access if they need to, what happens if people don't speak English?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got material in different languages, importantly, we've got material in Samoan.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's very important that aspects of the exhibition are accessible virtually to the community in Polynesia.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's very important to us.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just the rarefied, you know, John turning up in hopefully he'll be there until this pavilion.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, emailed me.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's very exciting for an artist to have their work accessed at that level.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: But also it's important for someone like Yuki to that her work is seen by her community because that's essentially who is in the work and who it's made for.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it shows reverence and respect for their particular cultural journey, and that's the beauty of art, is it shows us things and to be able to be in the heart of where Michelangelo, where everybody, you know, it's just such an exciting, I can just visualize, and no wonder you've got to smile because you're about to have a lot of fun.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, a lot of work, I know, but I'm just so grateful that you took the time to come and chat to us to tell us about this wonderful path that you've taken and the journey that you're on, and we really look forward to seeing what you do next.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's my absolute pleasure, what a joy.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: The What I've Learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly, with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Love Dev.