Past Residents Joshua Pether
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Image of the artist courtesy of Ricardo Marinez Roa
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Body as Object - BAM (Body as Material) 2016 - Image courtesy of Julie Vulcan
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J.Doe - RMIT Gallery - Agent Bodies 2022 - Image courtesy of Andrew Tetzlaff
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The Reckoning - PICA 2021 -Image courtesy of Emma Fishwick
Joshua Pether is a First Nations artist of Kalkadoon heritage but lives and works on Noongar country in Western Australia. He is an experimental performance artist, ritual practitioner and choreographer of movement, temporary ritual and imagined realties. His practice is influenced by his two cultural histories- indigeneity and disability and the hybridization of the two with particular interest in the aesthetics of the disabled body and also that of the colonized body. A recurring theme in his work that he often returns to is the idea of ritual as a durational exercise that allows the body to undergo energetic transformations that oscillate between the world of now and the hereafter. Joshua’s work encompasses choreography / movement, visual and performance art, installation and ritual work and making.
During my HIAP residency I will work with mentor and world renowned performance artist Kira O’Reilly. We will take this time to reconnect and rediscover ourselves as artists and peers post COVID.
The relationship we have formed is based on the history we share as artists working in the same field of performance but spanning different generations, continents and time.
This is the first of series of mentorships which I will undertake that will explore the lineage to my practice and what that means to me as an artist at the cusp of creating ones own lineage. This mentorship also acts a way to honour those who have come before me and how they have paved the way for me to exist.
The residency is realised with the support of The Australian Council for the Arts.