Performance Contemporary and Art Night

The seventh edition of Sydney Contemporary is set to take place at Carriageworks, with the return of Art Night and a stunning Performance Contemporary program, it will be an unmissable event for art lovers. 

Boasting its largest showcase to date with over 95 emerging and established galleries from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, and Singapore, the event will also include live performances, music and culinary experiences. 

Curated by Samantha Watson-Wood and Katie Winten from Friends with Strangers, Performance Contemporary presents an engaging program of experimental and ephemeral performance works by some of Sydney’s most exciting contemporary artists, including:  Amala Groom, Riana Head-Toussaint, Morgan Hogg, and Fetu Taku.  

“This year’s Performance Contemporary delves into the intricate relationship between the body and its surroundings. Through play, projection, song, and dance, these artists leverage the remarkable architecture of Carriageworks as a launching point to guide both the audience and performers through time and space,” said the curators. 

Amala Groom, a Wiradyuri conceptual artist and cultural practitioner, channels her passionate activism into acute and incisive commentary on contemporary socio-political issues. Groom’s renowned work “RED TAPE” will be presented during Thursday’s Art Night program. She will sing a Wiradyuri medicine song and utilize the space as a meditative portal, wrapping herself in 44 meters of red tape symbolising 44 years of navigating bureaucracy. The performance will culminate with her jumping through hoops, engaging with the audience.

Riana Head-Toussaint, an interdisciplinary artist, draws deeply from her embodied experience as a wheelchair user, legal practitioner training, and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Bridging creative expression, activism, cultural exchange, and disability justice, Head-Toussaint challenges entrenched systems, structures, and modes of thinking while advocating for social change. Her video work “Animate Loading” will be projected, accompanied by a live performance incorporating bodycam footage, drone work, and surveillance-style cinematography on Thursday night.

Morgan Hogg, an emerging artist of Cook Island-Australian descent, employs installation and performance art to visually express her exploration of cultural displacement and identity through the lens of her Kūki Airani heritage. Through oral exchanges inherited from her mother and family, Hogg continues the narrative of her ancestry, preserving traditional practices within her work. At Sydney Contemporary, she will perform on Friday night, presenting an expressive and costumed dance that takes viewers on a journey through time and space, celebrating the cultures and places we originate from, and uniting them within a shared space.

Fetu Taku, a multidisciplinary artist and transgender woman, utilizes her extensive hip-hop and vogue training to push the boundaries of the body and the spaces it occupies. Through bespoke sound design and choreography, Taku’s mesmerising works

Music at various performances will be provided by renowned DJ duo Stereogamous. Sydney icon, DJ Sveta has curated a music program for a special performance work. 

September 7 – 10

Carriageworks located at 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh 

  sydneycontemporary.com.au/