Here to There – Imaginary Friends and Distant Journeys

Michael Buckley and Sue McCauley (Australia)

Opening: Wednesday 17th September at 20:00 hrs

Wednesday 17th September to Sunday 28th September 2014
Gallery hours: Friday To Sunday 16.00 -18.00 hrs

Michael Buckley and Sue McCauley (Australia) present large-scale graphic images of imaginary friends who have populated the gallery without permission. They are illegally here without travel documents, having entered the country by crossing the border from the artist’s imagination. It is hoped that the imaginary friends will agree to remain within the grounds of FRISE, Gallery, so as not to attract the attention of the immigration authorities.

Also exhibited are projections of “walking” films and video artworks. The selection ranges from performance art works shot in Cambodia and Norway, to fictional and documentary works, which often feature a lone figure traversing a landscape. All these works address the concept of crossing borders in different ways – the borders of the mind, of life and death, love and hate, ethnic conflict and human resilience, colonialism and post colonialism, performance and documentation.

About the artists
Michael Buckley is a filmmaker, cartoonist, animator, and performer. He makes
interactive installations animations, documentary and narrative films. He performs with the vocal noise group Arf Arf. A box set of Arf Arf performances and audio recordings was produced and released by publisher Rumpski Pumpski (Berlin) in 2013. Michael has worked with people with disabilities for many years making diverse range of media projects including comic strips and award winning film productions. Michael Buckley lives and works in Melbourne Australia.

Sue McCauley is an artistic director, and a creative producer of video artworks, interactive installations and performances. Her career spans media and performance arts, community arts, artistic direction of festivals and events, and the development and management of contemporary arts projects.

In 2014 she was the recipient of an Australian Artistic Leadership Travelling Scholarship awarded by The Australia Council for the Arts. In 2012 she was the Artistic Director of the Sonderborg (Denmark) bid for the European Capital of Culture title for 2017. In 2012/13 she was the Artistic Advisor for the successful Leeuwarden (Netherlands) bid for Eureopan Capital of Culture to take place in 2018. Sue McCauley works on creative assignments around the world. She lives in Melbourne, Australia

Images
Imaginary Friend Cut-out on brown paper, Michael Buckley, Australia 2014
The Hawker’s Slipper video still, Keith Deverell, Meas Sokkorn, Srey Bandol, and Sue McCauley, Australia/Cambodia, 2010