Entry 6: Opening Week II

On opening day, I had my first taste of Biennale artist talks at the MCA - they were incredibly insightful, and i got to meet a few really amazing international artists - Brett Graham, Fred Tomaselli, Penelope Siopis and Conrad Botes. Their talks gave an amazing insight into their practice and their personalities too. That night was the artists and supporters party - which was HUGE. The images are online - it was packed. It was a cold night, but it was great fun, nonetheless. It was quite amazing to see so many people from the artworld congregated in the one place. The following day was the day of the first of the Biennale's forums. This one was the Afro-Carribean forum at Artspace, which proceeded the Artists' talks, which were once again insightful. I helped Dougal set up for the forum, which was great. I took alot of snapshots, but the topics and the subject matter discussed by the panelists was intriguing - especially having closely studied topics such as Diaspora, displacement and the effect which these concepts have upon the artists creating work, how such concepts manifest in their various media and curatorial concepts. The panel included Barthelemy Toguo, Leah Gordon, Joy Gregory, Isaac Julien, Conrad Botes, Roger Ballen, Amal Kenawy, Teka Selman, Penny Siopis and was chaired by David A. Bailey. The following day, Friday, was spent at the First day of the opening week forum - which again, saw my starstruck nature come to the fore - there were a number of famous artists, curators and artworld officianados which Jackie and i greeted at the AGNSW for the day's proceedings.