Local

This is a second conversation recorded with Deborah Jago. Deb speaks earnestly and openly during a conversation that some might find difficult to hear. Deb discusses the lack of government support for single parent families in the pre Whitlam days, being tough, generational cycles and burdens, hindsight, the sharing of experience, choices, vulnerability, grand declarations and cruel silence, apologies and owning who you are.

This episode contains graphic content concerning childbirth, adoption, family discord, drug abuse, HIV, suicide and abortion. Please be kind to yourself when listening and remember, you don’t have to listen at all.

The poem played at the top of the episode, ‘Gullies’, was written and read by Kim Nielsen-Creeley, who will feature later in the season.

Deborah Jago is an ex-mainlander turned Queenstown local. Deb and I recorded together a number of times, this is just one of our discussions. Deb defines herself as “loud, rude, obnoxious”, which is all true and yet she is so much more. Deb discusses the implications of being a woman, alone or accompanied, in a bar, what the Hydroelectric Company provided and what they took away, what “local” means, evolution, the cycles and consequences of change, man ferns and what she would do if she were Mayor Debbie.

If you want to find Deb come to Queenstown and ask the first person you see: “where’s Deb today?”

Tim Coad is a multidiscinplinary artist currently based in The Mimili Community on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, in the North-West of South Australia. Emmalie met Tim for the first time in 2020 while he was exhibiting for 'Conglomerate' at Q-Bank Gallery. After a delightful, but short conversation, the pair promised to record a full episode in the distant future. Tim returned to Queenstown with Caitlin Foster to visit with family in early 2021. Despite Emmalie struggling with a blocked nose, they powered through and captured a conversation before Tim and Caitlin could set off to the mainland on a new adventure.

Tim discusses being loved and understood by a family that celebrates the individual perspective, working with large and small power tools to document the environment around us, making machines that stutter, uncover, invade, then disappear and the quiet rebellion of the wallabies in the Knocklofty reserve against one such machine (rage wallabies, rage), learning patience, valuing impermanence and watching as the natural world continues to return the "receipts of our own ruin".

Timothy Hodge is a visual artist and musician currently based in nipaluna/Hobart, lutruwita/Tasmania. Emmalie met Tim while he was participating in the Q-Bank Gallery's Artist-in-Residency program in January, 2021. Tim taught Emmalie how to make delicious coffee regardless of the time or place, then they spent a handful of hours in the Q-Bank wood shed talking topics from fungus to consumer capitalism. In this episode, Tim discusses collage as a radical act of defiance, placing the highest value on conversations in kindness, his metaphorical table of equality, sound and visual art as one, saturating the world in colour so that we might see beyond the noise, the online collage of media as it turns "digital disco nightmare", using our hands, his long standing love-affair with Queenstown and the sound of paint cans rattling across a ute bed as a religious experience.

Michael Hili is a filmmaker and photographer based in nipaluna/Hobart, lutruwita/Tasmania. Emmalie met Michael, his partner, Donna and their wee baby boy, Ori, while Michael was participating in the Q-Bank Gallery's Artist-in-Residency program in January, 2021. Despite the fairly frequent interruptions from Emmalie's raggedy crew of feline friends, they managed to pull together an episode of stories existing across multiple countries and timelines. Michael discusses having a sticky brain, being bored, the labour in making, the triumphs and perils of the collaboration process, seeking total creative control, cold calling as a catalyst for a big career change and turkey carving as performance art.

A cultural podcast exploring PLACE on the Tasmanian West-Coast through the eyes of local and visiting artists and the community embedded in the surrounds.

This is LEGACY, this is SOCIAL, this is CONNECTION, this is LOCAL.

During what would have been 2020’s Unconformity festival, Lou Conboy curated a group show consisting of works made by the past years Q-Bank artists in residence. Several of the artists involved were kind enough to sit down with Emmalie in the gallery’s bedroom to chat about themselves and their work. This is what we’re calling our ‘frankenstein episode’ or ‘Local Live’. Emmalie and the artists started recording prior to the exhibition opening, but continued on throughout the show, so there will be some background noise as the episode progresses.

A group show hosted by Q-Bank Gallery and curated by Lou Conboy consisting of works by past Q-Bank artists-in-residence, Abigail Rothery, Tim Coad, Caitlin Foster, Carl Ross, Joshua Santospirito, Lou Conboy and Leigh Rigozzi.

Paul Eggins is a multidisciplinary artist based outside of Launceston, on the North-East coast of Tasmania. Paul brought his solo show ‘Drugs’ to Queenstown in October of 2020. Having missed the opening at Q-Bank, Henry and Emmalie visited Paul in the gallery. Later in the week, Paul stopped by to chat. Paul discusses being a coastal baby, the Cronulla race riots and how the media manipulates information, jumping around until you find a home that fits, “putting on his big boy pants” and diving into 30 years of debt, the first iteration of his solo show ‘Drugs’, the dangers of the ‘Just Say No’ narrative, modern day shamans and developing his unusual colour palette.

Alex Bloem is a musician, educator and wanderer based in Queenstown, Tasmania. Alex and Emmalie met at a Q-Bank open studio, somewhere between a broken bottle of wine and an olive-topped slice of pizza. Since then, Alex can frequently be found serenading the neighbourhood. Whenever a game night is hosted, Alex signals his arrival with the sharp, but enticing sound of the harmonica. Before playing some cards, Alex and Emmalie sit down with a bottle of wine to record a conversation. Alex speaks on getting to the root of sound, investing your time in slow processes, seeking solitude and finding community, his new, but very old piano and experiencing connection without saying a word in Vietnam.