Newsletter #24 / May 28th
S U M M E R _H I S K E N S _R A V E S T X F O R A
Welcome back to the FORA newsletter, sweet haricots. This week’s publication coincides with the next rotation of the FORA window, in which we usher in the winter months with Summer Hiskens-Ravest’s LUZ MALA BAD LIGHT.
Informed by Chilean and Chiloé folklore, Luz Mala Bad Light is a cultural exploration of storytelling through hand-printed and mixed media.
Join us for the launch @ 75 Vulture St, on Thursday, June 3 from 6pm. View the work in the FORA window, and then join the artist for drinks at The End thereafter. More information can be found here
Summer Hiskens-Ravest is a Sudamericana/Australiana, Meanjin-based artist working across a range of tactile and electronic mediums including printmaking, photography, videography, painting, and experimental music. Their practice emphasises the significance of DIY, alternate, and experimental practice, as well as underlining hand-printed media as a tool of communication, storytelling, culture, and education.
In keeping with tradition, this week’s newsletter has been curated by Hiskens-Ravest. View their choices below, with accompanying prose.
Some important LatinX music, experimental, and punk projects I found influential and want to shed some light on, all of which are no longer active ‘cause i like to live in the past;
Baba Llaga
An experimental /electronic/ noise / DADA band from Bilbao, Spain. I haven’t been able to find much about them online, except their non-active myspace page, soundcloud / bandcamp from 2008, and a few good-quality-low-quality videos like the one shared here on archive.org. and vimeo. I think the lack of info intrigues me more; mysterious and ear-tickling. I also really enjoy their costumes.
https://archive.org/details/baballagababallagalivebilbaoarte
https://soundcloud.com/baba-llaga
The Bags: Gluttony
The Bags, performing Gluttony from a great documentary titled ‘Decline Of Western Civilization’. The band’s members are Alice Bags, Patricia Morrison (Goth’s Greatest Grandma), Craig Lee, Rob Ritter and Terry Graham (members of The Sisters of Mercy / The Gun Club / The Damned/ + more).
Kind of a classic punk bandband pogo but I think the curation of members is pretty great, and Alice Bags is a really inspirational Chicana woman and activist that people should know about!
Narcosis
Narcosis is considered to be
one of the most influential Peruvian rock
bands from Lima, (not to be confused with
Narcosis from Melbourne, who apparently
exist.) Notoriously labelled the
“most copied, recopied, and pirated album in
the history of Peruvian punk rock” despite
only being an active band for one
year, their original run of Primera
Dosis (released in 1984) was an edition
of 200 cassette tapes. Today the numbers are unknown ~~~
One of their most notorious live appearances took place on the 17 February 1985, at the Rock en Rio Rímac festival,
in Lima's Rímac district. Narcosis played to a
crowd of 5000 people, alongside a
number of other punk and rock bands from Lima's
“underground” scene. There was a heavy
police presence at the festival. When Narcosis began
to play their song "Sucio Policía" (Filthy
Cop), the festival came to an abrupt
end as police fired into the air, at punters, and rushed the stage… as they would the filthy cops.
Come and view Hiskens-Ravest’s cumulative research in final creative form on Thursday June 3
Prints + other aspects of the installation will be available to purchase here [made available on the night]
LUZ MALA BAD LIGHT will be installed until late July.
More Hiskens-Ravest content can be found here @sylva_vy
What FORA wants
The FORA newsletter seeks to bring forward the intertextuality that we reside in, and the inextricable ways in which art and life are linked. That is an obvious point, but one that must be constantly remarked upon, as it is one we are constantly surprised by. To be reminded of these circles is to be drawn back into the fold, equipped with the tools of thinking critically and acting compassionately.
pps/FORA is developed on the land of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples