Inspired by the Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston Motown classic of the same name, ‘It Takes Two’ aims to create a personal connection between our creatives, patrons and the community.
Because we believe two is better than one.
Our event was held on Saturday 24 April 2021!
If you would like to see the exhibit, please visit Le Miel et la lune before it closes.
If you would like to purchase a drawing, press the button below. To select a drawing of a particular creative, email us at info@correspondences.work. To find out more about our participating creatives, scroll down.
Venue: Le Miel et la lune, 330 Cardigan St, Carlton
Opening Date: Saturday 24 April 2021
Exhibit runs: 24 April - end of day 1 May 2021
On display is an exhibition of specially commissioned drawings of 15 of our creative collaborators for the year ahead by illustrator Nini Li Xiaoming. These beautiful, one of a kind drawings are offered for sale to our supporters.
In exchange, supporters will be invited to a special event to celebrate the realisation of their creative's project. They will also be personally recognised in our communications and consulted on new projects.
Our aim is to create genuine, enduring people to people connections while also supporting one of our brilliant hospitality partners - Le Miel et la lune!
Find out more about our participating creatives below. To nominate a drawing of a specific creative, please email us at info@correspondences.work. Drawings will be allocated on a first-in, best-dressed basis.
Nini Li Xiaoming is a freelance illustrator whose practice is influenced by Chinese calligraphy and digital art. As an artist and secondary school teacher, passionate about the arts and education, she uses her illustration practice to explore relationships, feelings, and emotions that are part of everyday life. Her recent illustration project ‘International: Melbourne – A little book about the difference between being friendly and being friends’ by the Foundling Archive and the University of Melbourne is one example of her practice. Nini is also often asked to sketch live events. In 2018 she drew the participants of ‘Changemakers #1: Mapping Sustainability in the Visual Arts- SYMPOSIUM’ working with ACP Projects, the Victorian College of the Arts and the University of Melbourne. Follow Nini on Instagram @NiniLiXiaoming to see her works in progress for It Takes Two!
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 and we hope a new project to be announced.
何佩佩 / He Pei Pei began training as an artist at the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s when she was able to take up an opportunity to study visual art in China. Arriving in Australia in 1987, she returned to her art education in 2005, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne in 2010. She has since been involved in an array of prestigious art prizes and exhibitions including; the Archibald Prize (2018), the Sulman Prize (2013), the Dobell Prize (2011), the Wynne Prize (2009), and the Paul Guest Prize (2018, 2016, 2014, 2012), to name only a small few. He’s works are represented in private and public collections throughout the country, including the City of Melbourne and Artbank.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, He is presenting two news series of her paintings and distinctive scroll drawings, which depict people and the movement of people at the intersection of Melbourne's iconic Flinders, Swanston and Collins Streets. For an exclusive preview of one of He's beautiful works to be presented, accessible by our Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 book owners, head to our virtual room here. We can't wait to share our bilingual, long-form interview with this incredible artist with you in June! It's pretty special.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话
Ali McCann is preoccupied with the constructed nature of photography and the possibilities of creating alternate visual and psychological realities through the mode of still-life. Her aesthetics derive from outdated art history pocket guides, 1970s art-and-design text books, photographic instruction manuals, old amateur photography magazines, and also from the high school interiors of my adolescence. Nostalgic imagery and the representations of memory intersect ambiguously with the theoretical notions of visual perception and the aesthetics of education.
Since the early 2000s McCann has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney and regional Victoria. Recent solo exhibitions include Having an Experience / Energy Organisation, St Francis, Melbourne (2019), Οι νέοι, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2019), and Masks for Magicians, Caves, Melbourne (2018). Recent group exhibitions include National Photography Prize, MAMA Murray Art Museum, Albury (2020), Still Life Pt. III, Lon Gallery, Melbourne (2019), and Not for the Sake of Something More, Photo 2021, Melbourne, to name but a few.
She holds a Master of Contemporary Art from the Victorian College of the Arts along with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Victorian College of the Arts and a Graduate Diploma of Education, all from the University of Melbourne.
For A Room with a View Part 1, McCann created a new work entitled Bohr 2020 accessible here, alongside a fascinating long-form interview with the artist. For Part 2 of the project, she will be making a new work which extends upon her long-standing research into the photographic archive for presentation in 2021/22.
Associated with: A Room with a View
Writer 許瑩玲 / Julie Koh is the author of two short-story collections: Capital Misfits (Spineless Wonders, 2015 and Math Paper Press, 2016) and Portable Curiosities (UQP, 2016). Portable Curiosities was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2016, the Queensland Literary Awards – Australian Short Story Collection – Steele Rudd Award 2016, the UTS Glenda Adams Award in the 2017 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the Australian Science Fiction Foundation’s 2018 Norma K Hemming Award (Long Work). Koh’s short stories have appeared in The Best Australian Stories in 2014 to 2017 and Best Australian Comedy Writing, to name but two in a long list of publications.
She edited BooksActually’s Gold Standard 2016 (Math Paper Press), an anthology of the best short fiction from cult writers of East Asia, Southeast Asia and the diaspora. She also co-founded the Australian experimental collective Kanganoulipo, is currently writing the libretto for the satirical opera Chop Chef (premiering 22 April, book tickets!), and collaborates on fashion projects with Tega Boniko. Koh has written two radio plays for ABC Radio National and is a sought after judge and speaker.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Koh will be speaking at our weekend of events in June (announcements forthcoming!), expanding upon her short story written for the project's book. For A Room with a View, Koh will present a piece of writing that talks to the period of social anxiety within which we find ourselves. It will take its inspiration from this idea of the home as a place of safety, solace, self-discovery and labour / creativity.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, A Room with a View
Performing artist Australian born, Malaysian-Chinese singer/songwriter 孙丽仪 / Emily Soon never fails to surprise any first time listener. Melbourne-born and raised, her music illuminates the universal human emotions from stories inspired by travel, newfound independence and profound changes in life. Emily’s soothing, velvety voice almost reminiscent of Tracy Chapman, Norah Jones or Bonnie Raitt will leave you serenaded and mesmerised.
In 2019 'Good Help Is Hard To Find' marked the next chapter in Emily's story - an unlikely anthem co-written and produced by iconic Melbourne musician Henry Wagons. Despite the pressures of COVID-19, in 2020, Soon has reached new heights, with the release of her new single 'Love is The Loneliest Place' and a mix of upcoming shows, including an ambitious collaboration at the Melbourne Recital Centre with Invictus Quartet. Book your tickets here!
Soon will be performing as part of Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 at our weekend of specially programmed events planned for June in Melbourne - announcements forthcoming! For a preview of Soon's beautiful voice, check out our conversation last year in connection with our Succour for the Spirit newsletter.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 and we hope a new project to be announced.
Edwina Stevens is an audiovisual artist working across composition, live performance and installation focusing on field recordings, synthesized sound, found acoustic elements/instruments and obsolete tech. A self-taught musician, she takes an improvised approach to music and sound design influenced by her involvement in the Aotearoa experimental noise scene. Her work investigates audiovisual processes of engaging with places that are improvisational, collaborative and incidental. Her practice explores the entanglements of the temporal, material and experiential through chance encounters, tangential processes and unanticipated outcomes.
Stevens also performs under the moniker of ‘eves’. Since 2011 she has presented live visual and sound performance works at major events across New Zealand and Australia (as FFFFFF, eves) including Lines of Flight Festival, Ladyz In Noys Australia, Sisters Akousmatica 2016, Nowhere Festival Auckland 2014, Make It Up Club Melbourne. She has also recorded and released three albums (eves.bandcamp.com) and was nominated for The Age Music Victoria Awards/Best Experimental-Avant Garde Act for 2015.
For A Room with a View Part 1, Stevens created a new work entitled Moonee Moonee Underpass 2020 accessible here, alongside a fascinating long-form interview with the artist. For Part 2 of the project, she will be be making a new work which extends upon her long-standing research into contemporary environmental engagement for presentation in 2021/22. Don't forget to listen to Stevens' latest release as part of the New Weird compilation - superb!
Associated with: A Room with a View
欧阳昱 / Ouyang Yu is a Chinese-born poet, novelist, editor and translator based in Melbourne. Since arriving in Australia in 1991, he has published over 100 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary translation and literary criticism in English and Chinese. He edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland. His poetry and translations have been included in major Australian collections such as, The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry, The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature and The turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry.
His noted books include his award-winning novels, The Eastern Slope Chronicle (2002), The English Class (2010) and The Kingsbury Tales: A Complete Collection (2012), and his acclaimed books of poetry include, Songs of the Last Chinese Poet (1997) and New and Selected Poems (2004), to name but a few. In 2011 he was nominated one of the Top 10 most influential writers of Chinese origin in the Chinese diaspora.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Ouyang will present his book installation. Featuring his early literary works alongside his self-made ‘destroyed works’ and a series of ‘rejected works’ which will be self-published in a limited edition of one (defying the literary status quo), Three Firsts 2020 explores the process of self-destruction, transformation and renewal at the heart of the creative process and the migratory experience. For a preview of Ouyang's singular poetic voice, check out our conversation last year in connection with our Succour for the Spirit newsletter.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话
关伟 / Guan Wei has a significant international reputation as a contemporary artist whose work crosses cultural and political borders. A Chinese national who migrated to Australia in 1989, his practice which spans more than 30 years, draws on his personal experience of both Chinese and Australian culture, as well as an informed socio-political awareness and knowledge of art history. His creative output has consistently examined complex social issues underpinned by humility and a deep respect for humanity. Across painting, sculpture and installation, his work conveys profound stories of loss, migration, identity, and notions of boundaries and place, interweaving an understanding of tradition and the past in the face of overwhelming global change today.
A prolific maker and the recipient of numerous awards - the Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize (2015), the Sulman Prize (2002) and the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award (2009) to name a few - Guan Wei is represented by ARC ONE Gallery and Martin Browne Contemporary. He has exhibited all of the world.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Guan Wei will present a new video work created for the exhibition which extends upon his monumental self portrait Plastic surgery – A portrait of an immigrant artist 2015. Introducing a sense of movement and engagement with the body, The Metamorphosis / 变形记 (2020), will continue the artist’s search into the themes of self-identity and related ideas of transformation, re-birth and belonging. For a preview of Guan's acclaimed work, check out our conversation last year in connection with our Succour for the Spirit newsletter.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话
Chinese born painter 匡再 / Kuang Zai holds a Masters degree in Fine Art from the Academy of Art and Design at Tsinghua University (China), as well as a Masters degree from Monash University in Australia. Since arriving in Australia in 1998, his work has been presented in over 15 solo and 44 group exhibitions. He has been the recipient of numerous art prizes and a finalist in the Archibald Prize (2007, 2008), the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (2007, 2009, 2010), the Sulman Prize (2012), the Fleurieu Art Prize (2008, 2011) and the Albany Art Prize (2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012), to name but a small few. His works are held in various public and corporate collections including the Cowra Regional Art Gallery, BHP Billiton, Monash University, Macquarie University, as well as various private collections internationally.
Last year, Kuang presented his work as part of Thinking about Immortality & Kindness, the online viewing room for which you can access here. For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, he will present a new series of works which extend upon his long-standing inquires into family life, the everyday and the innocence and inner world of childhood across cultures. For an exclusive preview of one of Kuang's beautiful works to be presented, accessible by Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 book owners, head to our virtual room. We also chatted with Kuang as part of our Succour for the Spirit newsletter.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Thinking about Immortality & Kindness
希利尔•蒂姆 / Tim Hillier is a photographer working with still and moving imagery, in a vernacular and documentary style, from capture through to editing, sound and directing. Working on projects from commercial, to artist films and to community based documentaries, Hillier collaborates with an intrepid eye. For the last seven years, he has extensively travelled around Australia, working in every corner of the continent, with First Nations communities on youth empowering music projects, or in documentaries capturing dance, tradition, art and health. He has been a vital part in the growth of many young indigenous artists, from musicians Baker Boy and Dallas Woods, to actors Baykali Ganambarr and Gordon Churchill. He is in post-production on documentaries about the rise of Baker Boy, and a NITV funded doc about Melbourne/Naarm based arts project 'The Torch'. Colour is a defining part of Hillier's visuals. It drives his narratives, relays emotions and ideas and captivates
Last year, Hillier collaborated on the development of several videographies, including this touching digital story we captured for Thinking about Immortality & Kindness. For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Tim is working with us to present our digital conversations with the exhibiting artists and a record of our site-specific installations to extend the reach of our exhibits in a sensitive way that Tim brings to all of his projects.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Thinking about Immortality & Kindness and a new project to be announced.
珍妮喆张 / Jenny Zhe Chang creates sculptures, paper cuttings, paintings and installations that investigate the interaction between Eastern and Western ways of being. Her solo exhibitions include: Love! From head to toe (Tian Qiao Theatre, 2019); South Wind Rises (National Taiwan Arts Education Centre, 2018); and, Beyond, A Century’s Love (T3 International Art Zone Contemporary Museum, 2016), to name but a few. Since 2001, Chang has also participated in more than 52 group shows in Australia, Japan, and the US. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from the Victorian College of Arts, University of Melbourne and a Master of Computing from Monash University.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Chang extends upon her long-standing inquires into transcultural connection and belonging through the interlinking ideas of food, migration and family. She will present a site-specific installation at Queen Victoria Women's Centre which explores the concept of ‘healing’ or ‘nourishing’ recipes that have been passed down through generations to support or nurture us during times of hardship. To understand more about Jenny's thought-provoking practice, check out our conversation last year in connection with our Succour for the Spirit newsletter.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话
Jo Lane uses her drawing practice to explore social and psychological subjects. Working between UK and Australia she is a ‘drawer’ first and foremost, using charcoal, graphite, coloured pencils, and any other material that is present-to-hand, honouring the texture, immediacy and honesty of drawing. Whilst immersed in fastidious mark-making and fibre use as metaphor, decision-making is reflexive, responding intuitively to the outside world, the inside world and the differing shades and depths of line forming on surfaces. The contrast between self and other and the systems of separation and unity that operate throughout humanity, drives the work.
Lane holds a Masters of Drawing (Distinction), University of the Arts London (UAL), Wimbledon College of Arts, along with a Graduate Certificate Visual Art, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and a Diploma of Visual Art, Latrobe College of Art and Design, Melbourne. For a list of her extensive exhibition history and awards in Australia and the UK, refer here.
We're currently working with Lane to present her contribution for A Room with a View Part 1. You can read our opening newsletter here - to be formally released in the coming days. Over the coming months, we will work with Jo to understand her plans for Part 2 of the project, to be presented in 2021/22.
Associated with: A Room with a View
Painter 傅红 / Fu Hong arrived in Australia in 1990, having already held his first solo exhibition at the National Art Gallery of China in 1988 at just 42 years of age. Since arriving in Australia, he has gained a deserved national and international reputation for his original synthesis of representational painting with impressionist and expressionist leanings. Each individual picture has an experiential sculptural syntax underscoring its pictorial space – one can actually see the solidity of his pictorial forms and 'feel' them through his skilful and inventive use of modelling, perspective and spatial illusion.
A prolific maker, since his arrival, Fu Hong has held sixty solo exhibitions in Asia, Europe and Australia. Portraitist of choice for the Australian Judiciary, the arts and private patrons alike, his diverse sitters tell a fascinating story from Sir James Gobbo AC, CVO, QC (Governor of Victoria, 1997- 2000) to Li Cunxin (Director of the Queensland Ballet) and esteemed writer Alex Miller. A two-time Archibald finalist (2008 for his portrait of Dr Joseph Brown and 2009for his portrait of Dame Elizabeth Murdoch), finalist of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (1996, 2010, 2014), the Dobell Prize of Drawing (2004), winner of the Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award (2002) and many other awards besides, his works are widely collected in public and private collections throughout the world.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Fu will present a new series of work inspired by The Classic of Mountains and Seas / Shan Hai Jing, an extraordinary cultural account of pre Qin China which combines fabulous geographical information with Chinese mythology. Presented in conversation online with his monumental painting Re-birth 2019, the series continues the artist's search into the idea of the transformation in art and self. For an exclusive preview of Rebirth 2019 alongside a quote from the artist, accessible by Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 book owners, head to our virtual room.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话
Painter 沈嘉蔚 / Shen Jiawei was born in Shanghai. A farmer, soldier and propaganda artist during the 1960s-1970s in China, he later studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing (1982-1984). His early oil painting Standing Guard For Our Great Motherland (1974) became an icon of those early years and was later shown in New York at the Guggenheim Museum (1998) and by the Asia Society Museum (2008). He arrived in Australia in 1989, having first won the China National Art Exhibition Prize five times.
A gifted painter and portraitist of renown, he has been an Archibald Prize finalist fourteen times (including once as runner-up in 1997) and the winner of the Mary MacKillop Art Award (1995), the Sulman Prize (2006) and the Gallipoli Art Award (2016). He has been commissioned by the Australian Government to paint official portraits for the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, Speakers and HRH Crown Princess of Denmark. Best-known for his complex history paintings, he has been a member of the National Artists Association of China since 1982. His works are widely represented in public and private collections in Australia and throughout the world including, the Vatican art collection and the National Museum, the National Art Museum and the National Military Museum in Beijing.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Shen will present three of his distinctive history paintings, featuring three significant individuals in the history of Australia being: a prominent Yuin elder; an Australian journalist and adviser to the Chinese Government; and, a prominent Sydney merchant. For an exclusive preview of one of Shen's paintings to be presented alongside a quote from the artist, accessible by Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 book owners, head to our virtual room.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话
子轩 / Echo Cai and collaborators 沈志敏 / Shen Zhimin & 昵昵 / NiNi (right to left).
Echo Cai is the founder and curator of the Chinese-Australian Contemporary Artists (“CACA”) and Art Echo. She arrived in Australia in 1989 after completing her Bachelors Degree in Art at Peking University. Since 2003 Cai has exhibited widely and her works are represented in private and public collections in Australia and China. Since 2014, in addition to CACA shows, Cai has curated a range of group exhibitions in Melbourne including: the Chinese Australian Artists Exhibition (2017); This Street Art Event: Mapping Melbourne Art Festival (2017); Multi Art Fashion Show (2016); and, the Melbourne Chinese Australian Short Movie Competition (2015). Together with correspondences' Emma Thomson, she is co-curator of Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话.
Shen Zhimin is an Australian-Chinese writer. Since his arrival in Australia in 1990, he has published three novels including Dynamic Treasure Trove (1996) and a philosophical paper entitled A Treatise on Comprehensive Logic. His writing has been published in Chinese newspapers in Australia and North America, as well as in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. He has been awarded more than ten literary awards. His works of literature have been included in dictionaries such as the History of Overseas Chinese Literature published in mainland China. To find out more about Shen Zhimin's novels, see this article in Mascara Literary Journal by Ouyang Yu.
Ni Ni is a film photographer, graphic designer, stylist and brand manager with more than six years of experience. Arriving in Australia in 2010 as a young person from China in pursuit of a career in the creative sector, her life experience has shaped her creative outlook, which is a cross-pollination of Chinese and Western inspiration much focused on people and the everyday. An alumna of Monash University, today NiNi leads a busy life in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, juggling freelance art and design projects with her ceramics and photography practice.
For Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话, Cai and her collaborators will present Retracing The Great Walk 2020, a site-specific installation at Queen Victoria Women's Centre. Featuring photographic works alongside a moving image work made with local residents of Robe, Ararat and Ballarat, the artwork retraces the journey Chinese immigrant workers walked from Robe in South Australia to the Victorian goldfields during the gold rush due to Victoria’s discriminatory migration policies. To preview a piece of unique material from the archives, presented alongside a quote from Cai, accessible by Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话 book owners, head to our virtual room.
Associated with: Silent Dialogue / 沉默的对话
Image credits: Marvin Gaye, Kim Weston. AV shared from publicly accessible YouTube link. Licensed to YouTube by UMG (on behalf of Motown); LatinAutor - SonyATV, CMRRA, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, Sony ATV Publishing, SOLAR Music Rights Management, LatinAutorPerf, and 7 Music Rights Societies. Image of Le Miel et la lune courtesy of the cafe. Names of artists are captioned against each of the images above along with brief bios.
correspondences is supported by the City of Melbourne and the Victorian Government, private patrons and a host of wonderful sponsors and partners who support all that we do on a project by project basis. We could not do what we do without them!