Brand X – X MARKS A NEW AGE IN SYDNEY ARTIST RESIDENCIES

Written By Justine Wahlin

Petite suite (small suite) is an immersive micro-festival showcasing site-specific contemporary performers. Now in its second year in Sydney, Petite Suite transformed the East Sydney hotel in Wooloomooloo into a hive of creativity as the hotel’s upstairs rooms were transformed into performance spaces. Seven, seven-minute shows were pulled together from a 48 hour immersive onsite residency requiring a site-responsive performance.  

Image Credit: Letícia Almeida - Source; Broadsheet



Project Creator James Winter from Brand X says

“Petite Suite is inspired by Spain's Micro-Theatre movement in Madrid - where artists and businesses collaborate to support each other - one with footfall and the other with interesting space to make new work. Like everything at Brand X we just enable space for artists to do what they do best - we don't own or author anything... so every outcome from our programs is a surprise. Giving artists freedom allows the work to be very nuanced to the individuals making it... more authentic. What we try to do is ensure that the program participants are diverse. Then what the audience gets is diverse too.”

The pandemic has been particularly hard on artists and organisations that rely on face-face-audiences. Brand X is one of those. James concedes that “Covid was a terrible situation for Brand X. We are essentially a bricks'n'mortar organisation, so when these resources are shut - the situation is truly bleak for us. Thankfully we made it through.”

Following this very dire situation, Brand X has emerged from the pandemic in a unique position to help revive Sydney’s arts scene. Not only through innovative partnerships like Petite Suite but Brand X will manage a landmark institution purpose built to provide creative space.

The City of Sydney Creative Studios is a new state-of-the-art cultural facility consisting of 30 spaces across the first 5 storeys of the Greenland Centre at 119 Bathurst St, Sydney.

The City of Sydney Creative Studios is a new state-of-the-art cultural facility consisting of 30 spaces across the first 5 storeys of the Greenland Centre at 119 Bathurst St, Sydney.

The City of Sydney Creative Studios is cultural facility consisting of 30 spaces across the first 5 storeys of the Greenland Centre at 119 Bathurst St, Sydney. The 2000sqm facility will include rehearsal spaces, recording and editing suites, visual art studios, workshop and screening rooms, office spaces, cafés and an artist in residence apartment. It will open in early 2022 under a Voluntary Planning Agreement with Greenland Australia.

Brand X CEO James Winter reflected,

“When we started Brand X, 17 years ago, I would have never imagined that artist studios would be purpose built by government in the centre of the CBD. This is a statement that our city considers artists, culture and creativity as the antidote for recovery. I think I'll look back on this time and see these events (Petite Suite) like a phoenix rising from the ashes.”

James Winter Brand X- Image Credit - Back Yard Media Group

 

Attending “Petite Suite” showed me first-hand how important space is to the creation of work and making it available to viewers.

After a couple of years in hiding, it was so refreshing to turn up to an event that demonstrated the playfulness and boundless creativity of humanity. It was a delightfully quirky event utilising small spaces in very innovative ways.

One felt almost like a voyeur, privy to a small moment in what I can image is a long history of eventful hotel room events. Time warping through the years you could almost smell the tobacco smoke, the stale lager the cheap perfume. In some cases, it was the reverse with the historic bones of the old hotel pushed forward in time making you wonder what a hotel resident in the 1850’s might have made of it.

 

5 people at a time were admitted to each room for the seven minute performances

Hotel rooms are transient places and have a sense of anonymity. they are places of joy and of great loneliness. sometimes there’s a sense of despair and even death quickly cleaned up for the next visitor, like wiping down the blackboard after each lesson. And with this we get a sense that these short performances are just a tiny but well crystallised glimpse of the long history of events that went on in these rooms.

The performers lived in the rooms for the whole session, cramped with their fellow performers among props, madly developing a show in direct response to their observations of the space and whatever they could find out about the local area.

I caught up with two of the resident artists after the show, creative couple Melita Rowston and Benito Di Fonzo who wrote and performed “The Woolloomooloo Outrage” in room 9.

Melita and Benito at the Dogs Bar in Melbourbe 2018 with Melbourne Fringe Festival

In the hectic 48 hour build up Melita says; “Things were going on behind closed doors. There was the buzz of things happening, but you didn’t know what it was you were so focused on getting a show finished for the deadline. We focused on one of three narratives we researched all involving true crime in the area.”

Artists for this project were selected for their ability to create compelling and brave site-specific works. Melita’s CV reads as a long line of projects steeped in research and immersive enquiry that bring to light historical narratives and voices underrepresented in social narratives, often women. Her research has taken her into several historical sites including Reynolds Cottages in the Rocks as well as a time carrying out research in Paris. This year she has undertaken a PhD centred on writing responsively to site with an historical frame set in and around the 1850’s.

Melita says “East Sydney Hotel was built sometime between 1856/1853 so this project tied in well with the timeline of the area I’m exploring.”

Melita Rowston - Image sourced from basem3nt.com

East Sydney Hotel has been historically restored featuring open fireplaces, wooden floors with copper nails and old-fashioned country decor. As the oldest continually licensed drinking hole in Sydney, East Sydney Hotel has prided itself on a no pokies policy for decades.

Benito Di fonzo said ; “Living the in the pub was great – it was a little holiday! We haven’t been able to travel overseas or interstate as we normally do because of COVID, so it was good to have this break from our new-normal lives. It also meant we could walk the streets of Woolloomooloo that we were responding too and, having done a lot of reading about the area in the 19th century, imagine what it was like in the time we were responding too. Likewise, the pub itself, which has largely kept it’s 19th century architecture and feel.”

Benito Perfoming his music on stage - Image taken from his Soundcloud account

Events like this have a multifaceted impact on the community and on the economy. Not only do they ignite the imagination for the audience, they provide a rich context for the creation of relevant cultural work, they activate spaces and help businesses increase footfall and takings, they bring local and visiting communities together and they add colour to our lives.

“The Woolloomooloo Outrage” performed in room 9 and written by Melita and Benito Di Fonzo was a live podcast dramatizing the rape and murder of Lizzy Phillips in 1884.

Surrounded by recording equipment, props and sitting on hastily made twin beds, the performers recited a thrilling but shocking narrative, the evidence of research pinned to the walls and lying at the bottom of empty coffee cups.

When asked how people responded, Benito said “people loved the storytelling, they loved the gore, they loved that it was true, and that they were in the space where it partially happened, and they loved all the graphics and murder-mapping on the walls”

Benito and Melita welcome the first of five, five person audiences on closing night in room 9

Reflecting on the opportunities emerging now that restrictions are easing Benito responded “Hopefully things will open up as COVID (hopefully) subsides. However this project was designed to be performed during COVID restrictions, hence the only five punters in a room at a time, so in a way we have COVID to thank for the gig! Hopefully more councils will have the foresight of councils like Sydney of City and help fund more projects like this if and when COVID or something like it strikes again.”

Benito had known James Winter for many years through his work in independent theatre, and through his work as an arts journalist. Melita and Benito have also attended many shows and industry events at Brand X’s theatre in Darlinghurst. It was through this connection that they found out about the project and were able to get their application in.

For anyone keen to get involved or find out about opportunities with Brand X see links at the end of the article.

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBrandX/
https://www.brandx.org.au/what-is-brandx

Justine Wahlin is a Sydney Artist and Musician

Justine Wahlin
Previous

CREATING A THRIVING GARDEN ON A SHOESTRING with HORTUS