Arts Activated Transcript: Track 12 - 20th September 2016
Women with Something to Say
When we take it away to finish the editing, we already have a storyboard with it to make sure we don't stray from what the participants wanted and then we send the film out. That is a very quick run-down of how we run the four-day workshops.
I think I have forgotten the other parts of your questions. Sorry?
SPEAKER:
(Inaudible)
LEE WICZAC:
As you mentioned, we have a tentative one in Cairns, which I really want to go to because I have never been there. I hear the weather is great, and I will bring my togs. Not that I will have much time to do that.
(Laughter)
We are also looking at doing a few more South Australian regional ones, like Murray Bridge, in the lead-up. There is a huge amount of energy in putting up those workshops, as no doubt everybody here would know what sort of energy you require, and finding... You know.
MATTHEW WAUCHOPE:
We have had expressions of interest and funding from Queensland, Victoria and even here. But it is not necessarily cheap - there is travel, accommodation and lots of other expenses. When you can get there, it is great, and we would love to come, and it is not out of reach, but the further we travel the more expensive it is going to get.
LEE WICZAC:
So you should all just come to Adelaide.
MATTHEW WAUCHOPE:
Adelaide is great.
(Laughter)
MARTIN SAWTELL:
Now there was a young man who is desperate to ask a question. And there is one down here.
LEE WICZAC:
We are all missing lunch.
MARTIN SAWTELL:
I got told that lunch has been pushed forward to one o'clock. There is extra time.
THOMAS BANKS:
My name is (inaudible). What I wanted to ask is...
SPEAKER:
This is Thomas Banks and he will write it. I will read what he types.
THOMAS BANKS:
I was just wondering if you could explain the relationship you have between social inclusion and breaking down barriers in this film to challenge perceptions in your work, because it is really important.
LEE WICZAC:
I'm sorry I forgot, because I have short-term memory loss.
MATTHEW WAUCHOPE:
I was just wondering if you could explain the relationship you have between social inclusion and breaking down barriers in the film to challenge perceptions in your work, because it is really important.
LEE WICZAC:
I'm a bit confused, because we encourage other people with disabilities to make films. In terms of social inclusion, it is a very fundamental thing about what we are about. The whole idea of a learning disability-led film culture is about inclusion and about levelling the playing field, so to speak.
The goal is that our films are going to be shown along mainstream films as we get stronger and bigger. So, Tom, I think that is how we sit with social inclusion. We will take anyone.
(Laughter)
And so we should.
MARTIN SAWTELL:
There was one more question. This man has been very patient.
SPEAKER:
I think we might have to wrap it up.
MATTHEW WAUCHOPE:
We love you all so much more for staying with us up to lunch.
SPEAKER:
My name is Jock and I am from Melbourne. I want to know, when you are filming, how do you find a location?
LEE WICZAC:
When you are on films you have a person who has the job of location scout. That person looks at the script and then they go out and look and find a place. Like if we had a film that was set in a big warehouse, then Carriageworks would be a great place to film because of all the big spaces. It is industrial. Do you get what I am saying?
SPEAKER:
Yes. What about the costumes? How do you work out the costumes?
LEE WICZAC:
Also in the workshops, the person might know how they want their person to be dressed in the film. We go to op shops and we often create props.
MATTHEW WAUCHOPE:
You would be surprised what you can use from home to make a film.
MARTIN SAWTELL:
OK, I have actually realised that my clock is on Adelaide time.
(Laughter)
MARTIN SAWTELL:
I was thinking we had heaps of time, but we don't. I want to thank both of our speakers, Lee and Matthew, and I will encourage you all to go out and get some lunch.
(Applause)
LEE WICZAC:
Thank you all very much, it has been a pleasure.
MATTHEW WAUCHOPE:
Thank you, everyone.
(Music plays)
(Lunch break)
STELLA PALIKROVA:
With that, I would like you to invite you to experience (inaudible) portrait.
VERONICA PARDO:
Thank you, Stella. Let's go straight to the film.
(Applause)
(Video plays)
SPEAKER:
This multimedia exhibition reveals...
VERONICA PARDO:
No, that's not the film, we are looking for 'Broken'. While we are waiting, is Stella still with us?
STELLA PALIKROVA:
I'm here.
VERONICA PARDO:
Those words sound awful!
(Laughter)
VERONICA PARDO:
I hope she still. Is the film with us? Thank you. We are having some trouble locating the film. Is that correct?
SPEAKER:
(Inaudible)
VERONICA PARDO:
Alright, we will get the Accessible Arts staff to go and have a look where that film is, and move on to our second presentation. Are you happy to stay with us, Stella?
STELLA PALIKROVA:
Absolutely.
VERONICA PARDO:
Let's move on to the second presentation; I'm going to invite Denise to talk about the Silent Tears Project. And Belinda is here to flesh out some of those experiences from the point of view of her role as a producer.
DENISE BECKWIRTH:
Good afternoon, I am here with Belinda Mason who is the creator of the project Silent Tears. I have been a disability consultant, and then one of the documentary photographers associated with the project. I have done it under the guidance and support of Belinda Mason. What Silent Tears has taught me is it is important to show two sides of the story, because people don't often make the connection that violence happens to women who are able-bodied, and that can cause disability. They don't make that connection.
That's what this project is. Belinda and I worked together in a collaborative sense, in a non-tokenistic sense, so that is what the value of this project is, because it shows the experience of violence is universal, but also that the art process can be collaborative and non-tokenistic.
I hope you enjoy the presentation. We have travelled extensively with it. We have gone to places like Indonesia, Geneva, and spoken at the UN, and New York. It is powerful and confronting, but it needs to be, so that the message of violence is truly understood and the experience of violence is understood.
The images aren't confronting per se, but the power in it is the women's stories. The women's stories are educational on their own. What we have learnt through this whole project is that the women tell their own story and it's important to give people the power and the opportunity to tell their own story.
They are representative - they are one, but they are representative of many people behind them. So, enjoy, and we look forward to answering the questions.
VERONICA PARDO:
OK, if we can have the second film? And we've lost our tech team...
(Laughter)
VERONICA PARDO:
We will just roll with it, I think. Let's have all our presentations first and we will save the films for later.
(Laughter)
VERONICA PARDO:
Wonderful, let's have Silent Tears.
SPEAKER:
This multimedia exhibition reveals the stories of women with disabilities who are subjected to violence and women who acquired their disability as a result of violence. There are 20 women in the project from six different countries and four continents, and the project continues to grow.
SPEAKER:
Participants in Silent Tears have been provided the opportunity to realise they are not isolated in their experience of violence. Participation in this has enabled women to take control and tell their respective story. In Silent Years, the stories of participants are not questioned; this is a unique experience, because often the onus is on victims, which can be a barrier to obtaining support.
SPEAKER:
The viewer first sees Denise Beckwith’s documentary, black photographs, with family and friends, in scenes that are familiar to us all. Each image and each individual story can be read - there are powerful stories, social, economic (inaudible). The power of this exhibition of stories lies in the hands of those who participate in it. They share their stories of domestic violence, forced sterilisation, genital mutilation, neglect or sexual abuse in institutions or by family members.
BELINDA MASON:
As the photographer Belinda Mason, I have chosen to focus on and in each person's life. The moment when the silent tears fall. The photographs are produced as large, suspended images which frees the moment, capturing the moment within it. The (inaudible) reflect the visible yet invisible nature of violence against women.
When the tears stop falling, there is nothing left but numbers, marking a turning point to either reach out to someone to break the silence, or to turn back and be swallowed by the silence. If they stay silent, it will be worse, and without the stories heard, they remain visible.
For those who listen, it is also hard, especially when the stories are difficult to hear and often impossible to imagine.
SPEAKER:
The video installation that accompanies this is by Dieter Knierim, and includes a narrative from each woman, giving intimate bits of their experience. Film and photography have a well-regarded role in bringing the fight of silent women into focus. Bearing witness to the realities of these 20 women's lives should be uncomfortable and challenging for audiences.
When women who have been abused find the courage to speak about the violence they have experienced, they often find themselves forgotten or simply left out of the conversation.
Silent Tears give them the opportunity to tell you exactly how they feel.
SPEAKER:
That's the one I remember. I remember thinking, "Nobody really knows where I am."
SPEAKER:
So, that's the end.
SPEAKER:
I was only six years old. I said I wanted to go to bed. He said, "I will take you up to bed." He put me on the toilet. He took his (inaudible) out. He made me play with it. I didn't know what I was doing, I was only six years old. He threatened me if I told anyone.
SPEAKER:
I will say it now, I have said it 100 times. I was lying on the bed with a big blanket on top of me. He was behind me and he bent over and whispered in my ear, "I'm going to take your (inaudible) too." And then I was gone.
BELINDA MASON:
Silent Tears has affected many women. Support has been provided for participants, viewers and artists. Silent Tears shines light into the dark corners that many men would prefer that light not go. Instead they would prefer that the truth be hidden.
SPEAKER:
We cannot argue with someone who says, "I feel." It is not our right. We need to learn as part of the journey to feel empathy and compassion.
VERONICA PARDO:
Thank you, Denise and Belinda, for sharing your work. It is very complex work that you have set out to do. Hopefully we will have a chance to unpack some more of your work after we have completed the panel discussions.
The power of that film relates directly to some of what Sofya is going to talk about, which is how people with disabilities are represented on our screens. Welcome, Sofya.
SOFYA GOLLAN:
Thank you, Veronica. I feel that my speech is a little fluffy in comparison. I feel a bit lightweight.
When I heard the title ‘Women with Something to Say’, I thought I needed to Google it. When I Googled, it I found the first result was, ‘101 sweet things to say to a woman to get her to love you’. Then there was ‘100 romantic things to say to a woman’, ‘21 romantic things to say to a woman’. Then I found Kim Cattrall from ‘Sex and the City’.
Then I had to Google things about what men had to say. The first top 10 things were variations on this quote: "Wise men speak because they have something to say." It is a quote from Plato. It is not really relevant to what we have to say, except it is relevant to women, that we are thought of as a thing to seduce or be dominated, because men dominate the narrative.
We have many men who are our allies, but when the gatekeepers are men, that is what the narrative will be. As far as the internet is concerned, women are objects of pursuit, rather than being women who know their own mind.
I have been fortunate to have women who are strong role models, who are accomplishing their own goals. I joined the Theatre of the Deaf after I left school. Of course, being 17, I didn't realise that Caroline Conlon, who was directing the company of deaf actors, was something new and amazing. The company flourished under her directorship.
Since then I have come to realise that this situation is not normal, especially in the creative sphere where money, professional opportunity, mainstream venues and cultural opportunities interact. In fact, it has been more than 20 years since I have seen companies such as those run by an artistic director with a disability. I also heard of a UK band called the Fish Police that has autistic band members - I encourage you to look them up.
The Theatre of the deaf has since moved to Victoria. There is an autistic theatre company in Adelaide that is run by a director who is himself on the spectrum. There is another company that also has a deaf performer in it.
So the pressure to perform is high and therefore directors have a lot of pressure placed upon them. The voice emanating from the disability arts sector is very different to what it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago, if you could pass for normal or do things that normal people could do without help, you were seen as a success and could earn a place in the creative sector.
I spent much of my early career doing just that. I acted in films that were not part of the disability narrative, and I pretended that I was not deaf, even though my voice was very different to the rest of the cast.
All of the voice training at NIDA did not give me a 'normal' voice and I still mispronounce words. I then realised I had something more authentic about disability to say.
I looked up the word ‘authentic’ on Google. It means ‘of undisputed origin’, not a copy, genuine. I thought it would give me the definition of authorship, or to be an author. Authenticity means you have the real deal, and ultimately that is what audiences want.
There is a critical mass now that did not exist 20 years ago here or internationally. They want to be in charge of the disability narrative, and should be supported as such. Even when work was created that did not overtly create the disability perspective, it still created a different perspective. It shapes the world that we inhabit as individuals.
As a woman, it is a positive space to be in, but disability can now be framed by artists with a disability alternative to being unwanted and undesirable.
There is a lot to disability that is unfair, painful and plain sucks. But what sucks most is when we can't tell the narrative when it is shaped and told for us.
I will skip over a couple of decades of being an actor, director, playwright, screenwriter, mother, and now to my role as being manager at Accessible Arts, to being a screenwriter at Screen NSW. I find myself working with another woman who definitely has something to say, Courtney Gibson at Screen NSW.
There is an initiative that was announced yesterday towards fostering diversity in the industry. It is a scheme that enables people to break into and consolidate their skills in the industry and on a professional level.
We will ensure 50% of the applicants will be females, we'll be looking to employ them in set building, make up, writing, directing, visual effects, composing, editing... There will be opportunities in programming, scheduling and commissioning departments.
The first part of the scheme is an internship of eight people for two to six weeks, with training provided by Bus Top Films just before the placement. There will be an annual festival here at Carriageworks, some will be things like the ‘Footy Show’, ‘Playschool’, Matchbox pictures, and many more.
Applications have opened and will close on October 21. I wish this opportunity had been available to me 10 or 15 years ago, and I strongly feel now is the right time to be an artist with a disability, with something to say. Thank you.
(Applause)
VERONICA PARDO:
Thank you. I think that's an incredibly exciting opportunity - a huge change, and I'm sure there will be many people in the room keen to support you in that endeavour. And Screen NSW, congratulations to them for kicking in that. It puts the other screen agencies to shame, and we look forward to them starting similar programs, I think.