Spaced: The online zine performance
Spaced is an Online Performance and Zine led by Disabled artist Jess Kapuscinski Evans, creating Space by poetically tackling the taboo
The Waiting Room Arts Company brings you Spaced, a sought-after Zine and Digital Zine Performance as part of FUSE.
Spaced is a cry for solidarity between members of the disability community and those who identify as D/deaf. Getting deep and meaningful about mental illness and physical impairment, it tackles all the forbidden subjects - religion, advocacy and curing disabilities. It asks questions like that funny one: does art makes you mentally ill or do you have to be mentally ill to make art?
One of many projects that Jess wished she knew about as a kid, but didn’t because of the mythology and stigma around being D/deaf and/or disabled and mentally ill, Spaced unites live performance, visual art, dance, the online and the old-fashioned printed word. It brings together emerging and established artists with different experiences of disability who also come from other marginalised communities, to celebrate the many voices that exist in our society. Spaced is THE space to shatter stigma and celebrate our whole selves and Spaced is for the children and young people who crave to see their experiences and bodies reflected in our literature and live streams.
This performance take place on Zoom, is Auslan interpreted and has embedded Audio Descriptions.
A collaboration between Australian artists Jessica Kapuscinski Evans, Chelle Destefano, Andy Jackson, Alex Creece, Liel Bridgford, Lauren Rosenberg, and Stevie (Stephanie Russell-Farnham) tackling taboo subjects within Disability and Mental Health, with creative facilitation by Milly Cooper and Jess Kapuscinski Evans.
Below, you can find introductions to the event from Jess and Milly.
More about the Waiting Room Arts Company
The Waiting Room Arts places access at the core of its work. Spaced is the company’s first multi-sensory production, paying attention to Auslan, Audio Description, and Alternative Formats.
Making her curatorial debut, Jess Kapuscinski Evans weaves writing, dance and visual arts to present thought-provoking commentary that reflect the human condition, identity and community. She asks questions about disability advocacy, dogma, systems and experiences of being in the Deaf, Disabled and Mental Health communities.
If you miss the chance to see the Online Zine performance of SPACED, you can still order a copy of the beautiful Zine for free during FUSE Digital by visiting the Eventbrite zine order form or emailing thewaitingroomarts@gmail.com
Alternative formats of the Zine are available.
An Audio Flyer is embedded below.
Acknowledgements
| JESSICA KAPUSCINSKI EVANS (SHE / HER) – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, CO-CURATOR | Jess Kapuscinski Evans is artistic director of The Waiting Room Arts Company, a Green Room Award winning theatre performer and sings with the Bearbrass Asylum Orchestra. She has been a writer and performer for productions staged at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, the National Play Festival in Sydney, the Darebin Speakeasy Program, and at Footscray Community Arts Centre. She enjoys working with existing texts, music and pop culture references. As a playwright, Jess recently investigated the relationship between old notions of villains (everything from Shakespeare to the X-Men) and new narratives around lived experience of disability in ‘Murder, She Dictated’ (supported by Darebin Arts Centre). Jess founded The Waiting Room Arts Company to commission work by emerging artists with disability (aged 18 to 30 years or with no more than five years’ experience). Their work covers a range of disciplines and currently the collective includes Jess, three visual artists, four writer/performers with a background in theatre, and two spoken word artists. We represent a wide range of experiences of disability, and have unique perspectives on gender and sexuality. We are an emerging collective but have already presented work at the Emerging Writers Festival. We are excited to present for FUSE 2021. http://thewaitingroomartsco.blogspot.com/ @JKEWH FB: JessKapuscinskiEvans |
| MILLY COOPER (SHE/HER) – CO CURATOR, FACILITATOR | Milly Cooper is a Melbourne-based theatre director, practitioner and workshop facilitator with a background in physical and text-based theatre, music, dance and clowning. She regularly works alongside people with disabilities, young people, and the elderly as both an independent artist and under ‘Wielding Theatre’ company. She is a graduate of the Masters of Directing for Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts. Prior to this she completed an Honours degree at Monash University that investigated inclusive theatre-making methodologies and devising processes with disabled and non-disabled artists. She is Artistic Director of Wielding Theatre, a Melbourne-based company with an inclusive focus and a highly collaborative process, predominantly centred on creating devised physical pieces and working on new writing. Wielding means to ‘have and be able to use power or influence’ and the company firmly believes in the capacity for theatre to enact social change. In 2021 Milly is collaborating again with Jessica Kapuscinski-Evans and Sarah Houbolt to bring their project ‘Spaced’ to the Darebin area as part of ‘FUSE’ Spring Festival. For Melbourne Fringe this year she will be staging the Victorian premier of ‘Daisy Moon Was Born This Way’ by award winning writer Emily Sheehan. And in collaboration with Canberra disability arts company Rebus, Milly will be co-directing their regional work ‘Re-emergence’; a piece devised with local residents with disabilities who are affected by the 2020 bush fires, the on-going drought and Covid-19. Under Wielding Theatre Milly has directed ‘Curveball: a pre-post-apocalyptic tragic comedy about the possible end of the Earth’ (Martin Myer Arena 2019), ‘Manwatching’ (Butterfly Club 2019). She worked with Sophia Simmons on her Pioneer Playwright award winning show ‘Gravity Guts’ (Adelaide Fringe 2019). Milly has co-directed ‘FREEFALL’ (Melbourne Fringe 2018) alongside Bullet Heart Club, directed ‘PC Couture’ (Melbourne Fringe 2017), ‘Inside’ (Undercover Artist Festival Brisbane 2017) and ‘FACESWAP: A Love Story in 87 Haikus’ (Melbourne Fringe 2016). Independently to the company, Milly has directed the creative development of ‘Murder, She Dictated’ (online 2020) under the Waiting Room Arts Company, ‘Climamania (Melbourne Fringe 2015), ‘Sir. Co’ (You Are Here Festival 2015), ‘SPAMALOT’ (Australian National University 2014), ‘The Popular Mechanicals’ (National University Theatre Society 2014), and ‘ANU Arts Revue’ (Australian National University 2013). And has assistant directed ‘The Children of War’ (Victorian College of the Arts 2019), ‘Where in the World is Frank Sparrow’ (Canberra Youth Theatre 2014), ‘Worst Band in the Universe’ (Canberra Youth Theatre 2014). |
| SARAH HOUBOLT (SHE/ HER)– PRODUCER | Sarah Houbolt is an internationally renowned producer and arts manager, facilitating multi-artform presentations, community arts programs, access consultancy, arts and disability festivals, disability arts projects and conference events for governments and not for profits for the past 15 years. She is producer for the Waiting Room Arts Company, and for Vanessa Di Natale’s show Breeders. After graduating from a double degree in Social Work and Arts (Politics and Sociology) from University of Queensland, and swimming at the Sydney 2000 Paralympics, she worked in disability advocacy for several years. Sarah managed several projects for Auckland Council since 2009, the InterAct Disability Arts Festival 2014, Mind Over Manner 2012 – 2014, and Arts Activated 2016 at Carriageworks. She has delivered access training and tailor-made consultancy to numerous major arts organisations nationally, worked for Cirque du Soleil, and has toured her self-produced Green Room award winning show ‘Koo Koo the Bird Girl’ internationally. In 2018, Sarah received the inaugural Australian Disability Leadership Institute’s Arts Award. Sarah is also producing Thrive Festival 2021 for Arts Access Victoria. |
| ALEX CREECE (SHE/HER) – ARTIST | Alex Creece is a writer, poet, student, collage artist, and average kook living on Wadawurrung land. She also tinkers with other people’s poems as the Production Editor for Cordite Poetry Review. Alex was awarded a Write-ability Fellowship in 2019 and a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2020. A sample of Alex's work was Highly Commended in the 2019 Next Chapter Scheme, and she was shortlisted for the Kat Muscat Fellowship in 2021. @roguedyke |
| ANDY JACKSON (HE/HIM) – ARTIST | Andy Jackson's first published book of poems, Among the Regulars, was shortlisted for the 2011 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, and his collection, Music Our Bodies Can't Hold, was shortlisted for the 2020 John Bray Poetry Award. He has featured at literary events and arts festivals in Ireland, India, the USA and across Australia, including Melbourne Writers Festival, Castlemaine State Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival and on ABC Radio National. Andy has co-edited disability-themed issues of the literary journals Southerly and Australian Poetry Journal, and works as a creative writing teacher and tutor for community organisations and universities. His latest collection Human Looking is forthcoming in 2021. Andy Jackson has been shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and the John Bray Poetry Award. He has co-edited disability-themed issues of Southerly and Australian Poetry Journal, and works as a creative writing teacher and mentor. Andy's next poetry collection Human Looking is forthcoming from Giramondo in 2021. FB: @Andy.Jackson.9085 https://styluslit.com/poetry/opening/ |
| CHELLE DESTEFANO (SHE/HER) – ARTIST | Chelle Destefano, a Deaf artist, born 1979 and currently living in Melbourne. Destefano is a multi-disciplinary artist, working with textiles, performance, installation, sculpture, drawing media and mixed media to explore and inform culture and identity including her Deaf culture and other forms of critical subjects surrounding identity and the environment. @chelle_destefano |
| LAUREN ROSENBERG (SHE/HER) – ARTIST | Lauren Rosenberg is an artist, baker, and op shop fiend. She is currently working as a copywriter and running LaurenaRty, a tiny art business. In 2021, she created SEASONAL for Let’s Take Over, and in 2019 she won an Ossie Award for her audio piece on Yiddish resurgence in the Melbourne Jewish community. Lauren has written for the Herald Sun, the Lifted Brow and The New Daily. She is passionate about sustainability, dogs, food and accessibility. If she’s not travelling, you can find Lauren in Naarm, where she’ll probably be on the Internet or starting yet another arts and craft project. IG @ laurenarty Website: laurenprosenberg.wordpress.com Facebook: LaurenaRty Favourite hashtags: #diy #visiblemending #laurenarty |
| LIEL BRIDGFORD (SHE/HER, THEY/THEM) – ARTIST | Liel is a writer, poet, podcaster and a disability and justice advocate. She casually works at Women with Disabilities Victoria as a Health Promotion Officer. Liel writes poetry, short memoir, short stories, essays and is working on a novel. Liel performs her poetry around Melbourne and was featured at Be Mused in 2020. Liel is currently creating disability-focused art through the Spaced project, presented at Darebin FUSE in 2021. A chapter of her writing will appear in the anthology We’ve Got This, published by Black Inc. Books in 2022. Her writing engages with themes of identity, culture, social issues, and the mind-body connection. Her approach is holistic as she explores how the emotional, spiritual, psychological, social and physical interact. She is particularly fascinated by intersectionality and is the founder, producer and host of the highly-rated intersectionality podcast (Un)marginalised. Liel identifies as a proud disabled, immigrant, non-conforming female. You can find her on all major platforms via @LielKBridgford. Publications
Performances
Productions
@Lielkbridgford |
| STEPHANIE 'STEVIE' RUSSELL-FARNHAM (SHE/HER) – ARTIST | Stevie is a educator & trainer, advocate, speaker, dancer and aspiring writer. She lives with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), Fibromyalgia (Chronic Pain) and multiple psycho-social conditions. Stevie is an amateur Ballroom and Latin dancer who competed at the 2018 Australian DanceSport Championship, an international dance event. Creative expression through the medium of dance is one of Stevie’s greatest joys! Her performance piece, Empower Me, portrays her lived experience with FND and the challenges, triumphs, values and attitudes she has encountered as a women living with disability in Australia. Stevie teaches empowerment skills and has written her memoir which will be published in 2022. In 2020, Stevie was awarded 20 Queensland Voices Female Leaders for Gender Equality - Femeconomy and the Department of Child Safety, Youth & Women. In 2019, Expert Advisory Panel - Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA).
B. Education (Teaching) (Postgrad); B. Community Education (Health Promotion)Dip. Business Development; Financial Planning; Finance & Mortgage Broking Mgt Cert. Finance & Mortgage Broking; Workplace Assessment & Training
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Event & ticketing details
Book ticketsAccessibility
Dates & Times
| Performance On Zoom - link supplied prior to performance | Thursday 9th September - 6:30pm-7:15pm |
Tickets
| Full | $5.00 - Bookings are required |
