Green Room: Breaking Ground, books of the year
SA arts and culture news in brief: Country Arts SA announces Breaking Ground award recipient, Guitar Festival set to go on the road again, an opportunity for young playwrights, 2022 book industry award winners and more.
'Precarious Resilience' (detail), an installation by Breaking Ground award winner Gail Hocking.
Breaking Ground
Artist Gail Hocking.
Normanville-based artist Gail Hocking has been awarded Country Arts SA’s 2022 Breaking Ground Award.
Hocking – whose practice includes sculpture, installation, site-specific works and new media – will receive $10,000 to develop a body of work for a solo exhibition at praxis ARTSPACE during the 2023 SALA Festival, plus a $5000 mentorship.
The Breaking Ground Award aims to help regional artists take the next step in their career. Previous winners include Adnyamathanha and Luritja woman Juanella McKenzie, who used it to undertake research into her homelands in the Flinders Ranges which resulted in a body of work exhibited at Light Square Gallery during last year’s SALA Festival.
Country Arts SA visual arts manager Lauren Mustillo says the Breaking Ground applications this year were of very high standard, with the selection panel “delicately” weighing up a number of competing factors.
“The panel was impressed by the consistency and continuity of Gail Hocking’s artistic practice, together with a strong exhibiting history, including solo shows… Gail will use the Breaking Ground award to expand her sculptural work into large-scale installation for the first time.”
Winning books
Adelaide Hills author Hannah Kent’s latest novel Devotion was named audiobook of the year at the 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) this week.
Devotion – a queer love story with a supernatural twist, partially set in 19th-century South Australia – was also shortlisted for the ABIA literary fiction book of the year. The audiobook was narrated by actor Emily Wheaton.
The winner of both the literary fiction book of the year and the overall 2022 book of the year award was debut novelist Diana Reid’s Love & Virtue.
Both Love & Virtue and Devotion were listed among InReview Diary of a Bookseller columnist Jo Case’s top eight books of 2021.
Other ABIA award winners included My Adventurous Life, by Dick Smith (biography book of the year), Before You Knew My Name, Jacqueline Bublitz (general fiction book of the year) and The Storyteller, Dave Grohl (international book of the year).
Calling all aspiring young playwrights
State Theatre Company SA has extended the deadline for applications for the 2022 Flinders University Young Playwrights’ Award, a long-running award offering young writers an opportunity to “introduce their voice and perspective to theatre professionals”.
Prospective applicants now have until June 30 to submit their play (details here) for one of the two categories: the junior award (ages 13-17) and the senior award (18-25). The winners of both awards will receive script development guidance from a theatre professional, with the senior winner also offered a public reading of their work.
On the Road
Music duo Hussy Hicks will play several gigs as part of On the Road.
The full line-up for Adelaide Guitar Festival’s On the Road touring program was launched this week, with participating musicians including Slava Grigoryan, Jeff Lang, Laura Hill, Kelly Menhennett, Hussy Hicks and Nathan May.
The tour begins on July 8 and takes in 10 towns across the Eyre Peninsula, Mid North, Yorke Peninsula, Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills. Venues for the free gigs range from pubs and sports clubs to community halls, with some towns presenting full-day “micro-festivals”.
See the full program online.
Art of design
Guildhouse has launched a new residency program in which four artists have been selected to take part in a “creative exchange” with JPE Design Studios that will culminate in a work being presented during either the SALA or Adelaide Fringe festivals.
While the initial callout offered two residency opportunities, Guildhouse says the quality of applicants was so high that it decided to add a further two positions. The successful JPE artists in residence are Matthew Fortrose (SALA 2022), Craig Glasson (Fringe 2023), Michelle Kelly (SALA 2023), and Henry Wolff (Fringe 2024).
Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture.
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