Lisa Stefanoff
won the Chapman and Bailey Excellence Prize
for her video
'Never Ceded'
Lisa Stefanoff - Never Ceded
Artist's Statement
This work might be a dream, or a quiet nightmare.
It’s about the death of empire in one corner of one of its colonies - this town’s CBD, it’s river and ‘old Eastside’ neighbourhood; Central Arrernte country: this place known variously as Alice Springs, Mparntwe and other specific Arrernte language place names.
On a formal level the work invites its audience to spend 7 and a half minutes attuning to place by attending to a juxtaposition sight and sound.
The piece uses a historic moment to look at once both backwards and forwards, towards other possibly historic moments on our future horizons.
I was trained as a documentary filmmaker. I love the counterpoint work of editing; of composing story and crafting affective impact by cutting and stitching
together sound and image in time.
The surreality of the everyday - a routine and uneventful drive home with broadcast radio on, for example - sometimes needs a frame to hold it in focus. I've used a recording through a windscreen to render uncanny ironies visible and audible.
I filmed the piece in live audio-visual synchrony, on an iPhone 12MaxPro camera.
The ‘decisive moment’ of the work came when I got into my car in the Coles carpark at around 9pm on the 19th of September 2022, and turned the key, activating my radio. What I could see and what I was hearing was immediately cinematic.
I balanced my camera on the dash and drove at a pace that matched the processional dirge of the commentary. In this way, the piece was edited entirely ‘in camera’.
The exhibition and other artworks
Entries for the 2023 Advocate Art Award are now closed.
You'll have to wait until 2024!
Those entrants who do not wish to utilise the online entry form and credit card payment can enter manually in two steps.
First: make your entry payment by EFT/Bank Transfer:
Acct: Central Australian Art Society BSB: 633000 Acct No: 201306206
Second: Complete the form below and submit it
The Central Australian Art Society (CAAS) respectfully acknowledges the past and present
Traditional Custodians of this land on which our members live and work, the Arrernte people.
It is a privilege for the CAAS Art Shed to be standing on Arrernte country.
Address:
PO Box 652, Alice Springs,
NT 0871
ArtShed location:
10 Crispe Street, Ciccone, NT 0870
Phone:
08 8952 0356
Email:
caas@iinet.net.au
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