Attention digital artists, filmmakers, writers and reality-warping creatives.
We’re excited to announce the return of the Adelaide Film Festival EXPAND Lab with a $100,000 EXPAND Moving Image Commission.
Applications to participate are now open and close at midnight, Sunday 27 August. EXPAND Lab will run from Sunday 22 – Friday 27 October 2023.
About AFF EXPAND Lab
AFF EXPAND Lab is an intensive development lab bringing together 30 Australian visual artists, filmmakers, video artists, writers, VR/AR artists and other creatives.
The aim of EXPAND Lab is to enable participants to work in teams to develop concepts for bold new moving image projects for local audiences and beyond. Together, you’ll learn and work with a team of renowned mentors to explore ideas and collaborative processes.
Participants and mentors 2022 EXPAND Lab. Photo by Thomas McCammon.
EXPAND Moving Image Commission
On the final day of the lab, concepts are presented to a selection panel where projects will be shortlisted for further development. Shortlisted teams will receive funding to refine their concept and develop materials for a final presentation in November.
One work will be selected for the $100,000 EXPAND Moving Image Commission to be presented with Samstag Museum of Art during the 2025 Adelaide Film Festival.
In addition, two projects will be selected for development support in the form of mentoring by Illuminate Adelaide and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Mentors
The mentors for AFF EXPAND Lab are time-bending digital artist Daniel Crooks, theatre maker and media artist Robert Walton, and highly-respected moving image and film producer Bridget Ikin. In addition, video artist and filmmaker Amos Gebhardt joins as a mentor for the first part of the lab.
The mentors will provide insight into their practice and work with you to generate new ideas!
Daniel Crooks. Photo by C Summers.
Daniel Crooks
Daniel Crooks has spent his career crafting a distinct visual language unique to his practice. Working predominantly in video, photography and sculpture, Crooks is preoccupied with time and motion in an altered state. He breaks time down, frame by frame. The resulting works expand our sense of temporality by manipulating digital ‘time slices’ that are normally imperceptible to the human eye.
Amos Gebhardt. Photo by Thomas McCammon.
Amos Gebhardt
Amos Gebhardt brings a cinematic force to large scale moving image installations and photography, collaborating with performers, choreographers and sound artists. Gebhardt’s sustained practice of visually rich work is epitomised by a courageous commitment to agitating dominant narratives around marginality, representation, queerness and more than human ecologies. In 2022 Gebhardt was awarded the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize, MGA. In the same year, they were a finalist in both the National Photography Prize, MAMA and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, HOTA. In 2021, a selection of video and photographic work from over a period of six years was shown for PHOTO2021 at The Substation in a major solo show, Spooky action at a distance.
Bridget Ikin
Bridget Ikin has been a producer of award-winning feature films (including Look Both Ways, An Angel At My Table), short films (Kitchen Sink), multi-screen moving image installations (by Hossein Valamanesh, Angelica Mesiti), television series (Art + Soul) and feature documentaries (Sherpa) for about 40 years. She’s been consistently committed to innovation, and to telling stories by and for women. She’s also been a curator for Sydney Film Festival’s experimental strand FLUX art+film (which she initiated), has run SBS Independent for several years, been a long-serving board member of the SAFC, holds an honorary doctorate from AFTRS, and is currently a member of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
Robert Walton
Robert Walton is an artist and director recognised with multiple awards for his work in theatre, screen, installation, writing, interactive art, and research. An Australian immigrant from the United Kingdom, born in England but of Welsh, Scottish and Manx ancestry living and working in Naarm, he currently serves as the Dean’s Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. In this role, he leads the development of performances and artworks that explore the creative potential of ancient and emerging technologies. Major artworks include Alma Mater, Vanitas (Webby Award nominated), and The Heart at Melbourne Connect. Child of Now, his project with Claire G. Coleman, received Honorary Mention from the S+T+Arts Prize 2023, the grand prize of the European Commission for innovation in technology, industry and society stimulated by the arts. Robert Walton was a participant in 2022 EXPAND Lab and will bring his experience of the lab to this mentorship role.
Applications closed on Sunday 27 August.
Thank you to everyone who applied for AFF EXPAND Lab, applicants will be notified on 13 September of the outcome.
Team presentations 2022 EXPAND Lab. Photo by Thomas McCammon.
Contact
Julianne Pierce
Special Initiatives Manager – AFF EXPAND Lab & Publications
[email protected]
AFF EXPAND Lab is an initiative of Adelaide Film Festival with Principal Partner The Balnaves Foundation, and the Government of South Australia, Samstag Museum of Art, Art Gallery of South Australia and Illuminate Adelaide.