Based in Melbourne, Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley have been collaborating on artworks for over twenty years. Burchill and McCamley’s work employs a diverse array of media, including neon, sculpture, painting, photography and video. Whilst in Bangalore, they will be exploring the impact of architecture and public garden-scapes on the urban experience and will work towards a new photographic series, using innovative and possibly sculptural means to present this. They have exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. A major survey of Burchill and McCamley’s work – Tip of the Iceberg - was presented at University of Queensland and the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, in 2001.

Supported by The Australia India Council and The Australia Council.

Jacqueline Felstead is a photo-media artist working with digital and experimental photo formats. Currently completing her MFA she also holds Bachelor degrees in Media Art and Social Science. She was awarded a studio residency at the Banff Centre, Canada, in 2005 and has participated in numerous exhibitions Australia-wide, including recently commissioned works for Melbourne’s City Museum in 2008. To date the exploration of shared personal insecurities forms the lynchpin of Felstead’s art practice. During her Objectifs residency in Singapore she will develop new photo-media works that intersect illuminated handwritten text with cityscapes, in a response to the country’s experience of industrialization.

Supported by The Australia Council.

David Griggs works across various mediums. Predominantly a painter and photographer, Griggs has also created large-scale site-specific installations that comment on politics, poverty, prostitution, gang tattooing and freak shows. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and Asia and conducted research for projects during residencies in Barcelona, Manila, Thailand and Burma. His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions including Fluid Zones Biennale Jakarta XIII (2009), Blood on the Streets, Artspace, Sydney (2007), The Independence Project, Galerie Petronas, Kuala Lumpur (2007), Exchanging Culture for Flesh, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2006), Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006), and The Buko Police, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila (2005).

Supported by Arts Victoria and The Australia Council.

An artist and educator in the inter-disciplinary practice of sculptural porcelain and digital media, Julie Bartholomew has participated in exhibitions and residencies in Australia and Asia including Tokyo (Australia Council), Beijing and Shanghai (Australia Council and Australia-China Council). Her work will be shown in the Wollongong City Gallery exhibition Zhongjian:Midway, which will tour China and Australia during 2009-10. Bartholomew completed her Doctorate at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney, in 2006. At the Taipei Artists Village she will develop new work for Vanishing Ground, a digital/object installation documenting community life in public spaces across Asia. It examines the impact of rapidly expanding consumerism on communal spaces that are central to cultural identity.

Supported by Arts NSW and The Australia Council. 

Lucy Bleach works within an installation–based practice, developing works that explore and reflect the way we engage with the world. Bleach lectures at the Tasmanian School of Art in Sculpture and Core Studies and exhibits both locally and nationally. While in Japan, she will be a participating artist in the 2009 Echigo Tsumari Triennial, in which she will work within the community exploring notions of touch. Researching local domestic, industrial and agricultural materials, Bleach will experiment with ways to inhabit the site of the community and the art Triennial.

Supported by Arts Tasmania and The Australia Council. 

Sohan Ariel Hayes is an award-winning animator and visual artist working across a variety of media. Based in Perth, he has developed animated films, illustrations, public art sculptures, computer games and projections for theatre and still photography. Recurrent themes in Hayes’ work include the physics of perception, time, love, deity, the unbearable grief of separation and its manifest symptoms in the mind and body, as well as the fantastic imagery of dreams and hallucinations. During his residency at Objectifs in Singapore Hayes will collaborate with writer and theorist Laetitia Wilson on DATADRUM - a digital filmmaking percussion instrument. Artists using DATADRUM can create palettes of images/sequences, which can be edited or remixed in real-time by DATADRUM players.

Supported by The WA Department of Culture And The Arts, and The Australia Council. 

Cassandra Schultz is a multi-disciplinary Brisbane-based visual artist who creates diverse, expressive work along humanitarian, environmental and activist themes. Her previous work has dealt with collecting, and specifically the shifts in value and meaning embodied by objects that serve as vessels of containment and regeneration. Schultz’s practice delves into process of commodification and exchange that deepens these cultural and economic investments. Furthering this theme, she will use her residency at Cemeti Art House to explore the history of colonial trade in the region and investigate the subsequent impact of the rising demand for cheap mass-produced products on traditional craft practices.

Supported by Arts Queensland and The Australia Indonesia Institute.

Sydney-based artist Mimi Tong uses photography and installation to explore architectural abstraction in the landscape. Tong completed a Masters of Visual Arts in 2004 at Sydney College of the Arts.  Her residency at Oct Contemporary Art Terminal in Shenzhen represents a continuing interest in exploring cultural experience and identity that she has established with her recent exhibitions, Unfolding Ground, Artspace, Sydney, and Folding Cities: China, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, both held in 2007. During her time in China, she will create new work that directly engages with the Nanshan social and architectural landscape.

Supported by The Australia Council. 

Based in Adelaide, Laura Wills is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work encompasses painting, installation, media arts, performance and community work. The basis of Wills’ expansive art practice is a keen interest in ecological and social issues, themes she explores in her work using a variety of found materials – including maps and other ephemera. Wills has exhibited nationally and internationally in a variety of contexts, including artist-run spaces and on community and collaborative projects. She will be using her residency with Cemeti Art House in Yogyakarta to develop a new body of drawing-based work on materials sourced in Indonesia, and continue her research into site-specific cross-cultural installation projects.

Supported by Arts SA and The Australia Indonesia Institute.

An inter-disciplinary artist exploring race and transformation, Owen Leong works with photography, video and installation. His practice examines how the body is physically, socially and culturally framed. Leong has held residencies at Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester and Cité des Arts, Paris and exhibited widely in Australia and internationally. During his residency at Tokyo Wonder Site, he will conduct research on the history of the body and performance in contemporary Japanese art. Leong will then develop a new series of photographic portraits based on his studies of subcultures in Tokyo.

Supported by The Australia Council.

Dean Linguey’s experiences in sound and performance have flourished under the influence of a visual art education and an ongoing installation practice.  His installations have included elements of sound, objects, video and performance, and have been exhibited in Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. He is releasing a CD of sound compositions in early 2009. During his residency in Malaysia, Linguey will focus on the improvisations, ingenuity and actions of the street workers and stall owners of Kuala Lumpur. He also aims to work with local artists and, employing moving image, sound and installation practices, investigate the situation of the clan jetties of Penang (villages built on stilts).

Supported by The Australian High Commission - Kuala Lumpur, and The Australia Council.