In 2012 Memefest Awarded Czech artist Vladimir Turner the special award for Imaginative Critical Intervention and invited him to our in residence program which was held in subtropical Brisbane. As participant in our extradisciplinary symposium and workshop at the Queensland College of Art on the theme Debt in Brisbane, Vlad produced fantastic work and inspired and moved us all with his crazy inteligent ways of looking at the world and doing things.
Vladimir stayed for 5 weeks and took a week off to travel to Warmun in the remote Kimberley region to visit our common friend artist and curator Alana Hunt. While there he filmed a lot and talked to Alana and from the conversations a portrait emerged.
The conversations Vlad and I have had about Aboriginal culture and the current conditions Aboriginal people are living were also an early inspiration, which later developed in to large collaborations between Memefest and Aboriginal networks.
I remember when he came back, how deeply he was moved by what he experienced in the desert region. The sharp beauty of the recently finished film is here to resonate with with us in ways only Vlad can create.
It makes us happy and proud at Memefest to be close to such exceptional artists and share a special friendship. And we very much wish there would be more of such art.
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