Montsalvat is excited to be hosting a video installation for Shelley O’Meara, former Montsalvat Artist-in-Residence and the inaugural winner of the Montsalvat Film Prize at the Victorian College of the Arts.
As part of the installation audiences will be treated to screenings of two of Shelley’s works, Bellows of a Church Shaped Hall , developed in collaboration with Gemma Notara and Caroline Ellis, and Four Seasons of Apocalypse, developed in collaboration with Gemma Notara and Chelsea Byrne.
Please also see below for further information about both films, with a trailer link to give you a sneak peek as to what to expect. You will also find biographies for the contributing artists to acquaint yourselves with their work.
Shelley O’Meara
Bellows of a Church Shaped Hall and Four Seasons of Apocalypse
The Residents Gallery
30th July - 7th November 2021
Bellows of a Church Shaped Hall - https://vimeo.com/562588922
Shelley O’Meara
A figure is confronted by an incomprehensible entity, and so, they dance.
As the first waves of the pandemic broke across the world in 2020 the artist was living alone
in a haunted cottage with little budget and no tripod. As all plans and goals for the year fell
away, Bellows of a Church Shaped Hall (2020) emerged frame by frame as an examination of
existential and intangible threat.
Featuring a score recorded on site by long time collaborator Gemma Notara and the dance of
Caroline Ellis, all elements of this film were made over the three months the artist lived in
residence at Montsalvat Arts Centre.
Four Seasons of Apocalypse
Gemma Notara and Shelley O’Meara
Four Seasons of Apocalypse (2021) is a series of short audiovisual works by sound/video artist
Gemma Notara and videographer/animator Shelley O’Meara (crossed wires collective). Made
over the course of 2020, each work is a means of processing the dysphoria of living through
multiple global crises, from natural disaster to health epidemic, as well as an expression of
disillusionment, isolation, and frustration with ignorant political leadership and archaic systems
of oppression that need to be destroyed.
i) APOCA2020
The 2020 Summer bushfires were catastrophic. After escaping fire-torn country, witnessing
crowds diving into the water to escape the oncoming flames, and spending an unanticipated
New Years Eve in an evacuation centre with families and children who had lost homes and
relatives, the artist wrote APOCA2020 in order to process this trauma. Using field recordings
and video footage collected during the chaos of the bushfires at the turn of the new year,
gemma notara collaborated with videographer/animator Shelley O’Meara to collate this
documentation with footage collected during the Montsalvat artist residency into a short
artfilm. A primary focus of this piece was texture, using colours evocative of the terror and
damage to the land that ensued. APOCA2020 is a powerful account of the catastrophic
endemic crisis of climate change in the modern world.
ii) RESPITE DANCE
During Melbourne’s first lockdown, Gemma Notara spent three months living inside a
climate-controlled, sound and light-proof giant refrigerator at Magnet Studios in the city’s
north. This piece expresses the relative isolation and wholly bizarre experience, while also
signifying the importance of human warmth, the healing power of friendship, support and
community.
iii) A LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS
The third work shows a struggle to relinquish the dis-ease and apathy with the state of the
world; feeling powerless to dislodge the political puppets responsible for hundreds of
thousands of deaths, displacement and poverty, knowing those in power are never held
accountable for their destruction. Watching civil war and genocide play out on screens,
witnessing the greed and willful hoarding of wealth, medicine and aid by the richest nations
whilst others perished - yet knowing that yielding to hopelessness and disengagement will not
create change.
iv) CYCLE FOUR (root synthesis collective)
Only love, compassion, allyship and collective action can fight evil and create change. Featuring
choreography by Shelley O’Meara and movement by Chelsea Byrne, Cycle Four is about finding
resolve and learning to keep faith in the face of adversity. Grief is a process - the only power
we have is how we respond to it. This piece serves as a reminder of the power and importance
of an open heart - acceptance; adaptability; generosity and hope.
SHELLEY O’MEARA
Shelley O’Meara is a Melbourne based video artist, animator, and dancer. Having recently
completed their Honours degree in Animation at the VCA, Shelley’s work combines live
movement, projected animation and intricate video layering techniques to develop highly
immersive works on and off the screen. Concerned with power, autonomy and the politicisation
of bodies; movement is Shelley’s primary storytelling tool and in 2019 they began training in
contemporary dance to broaden their understanding of dynamic movement and embodiment.
Shelley is a core member of interdisciplinary collective Root Synthesis and moonlights as a
performer with sight specific theatre group Gold Satino.
Winner of VCA’s “New Voice Award” for Of Safe Return (2016), recipient of the Signal Screen
Commission for An End in Itself (2017) winner of the Montsalvat Film Prize for It’s Brutal Baby
(2019) current participant in Dance House’s Emerging Choreographers Program (2021).
Opperating on Wurundjeri lands, Shelley recognises the sovereignty of Australia's first peoples.
CHELSEA BYRNE
Chelsea Byrne is a dance artist and educator based in Melbourne. She is VCA Masters of Dance
and Postgraduate Diploma of Performance Creation (Choreography) graduate, who’s
movement practice privileges image based improvisation and composition techniques
influenced by Rosalind Crisp, Deborah Hay and BodyWeather. Notable performance credits
include Hypnagogia (Amanda Lever 2015) and Tangi Wai… The Cry of Water (Victoria Hunt,
2017) for International Festival, Dance Massive. Production credits include, Body Acousmonium
(Melbourne Fringe 2019) for Slow Twitch Collective. Chelsea has a passion for community
engagement; she was Victorian Coordinator for global community dance festival Big Dance
2018 and currently working with Wild at Heart’s Hip Hop crew, Inkrewsive. As a member of
Root Synthesis Collective, Chelsea has collaborated on several live and screen works. She
directed Evolv (VCA, 2016), You. Me. Us. Here. Now. (VCA, 2016), Duets (VCA, 2017) and Play
(Inhabit Festival, 2018).
GEMMA NOTARA
Gemma Notara is a Sydney-based composer, sound and video artist. Gemma’s work
incorporates the organics of acoustic instruments, interwoven with digital manipulation and
electronics to create beautiful illusive soundworlds for the listener in both composed
acousmatic work and live multi-disciplinary performance. Their back-catalogue consists of
original electro-acoustic musical scores for contemporary dance performance, theatre and
experimental audiovisual works, as well as a newfound interest in videography.
Previous credits include Hothouse Theatre: Celsius2020 Independent Theatre Program,
Aotearoa Audio Arts Festival, SXSW Austin: Melbourne Hub, Federation Square Soundwalk for
Signal Screen Commissions, Works For Loudspeakers Listening Sessions (NZ), Music From Her:
Suffragettes Exhibition (NZ), Inhabit Dance Festival 2019, La Mama Theatre Explorations 2019,
The Zoo Creations for Projection Dance Co and more. They have released music with labels
Sonorous Circle and Works For Loudspeakers compilations, and host an experimental ambient
radio show Shift on Melbourne DIY station Pretend Radio. Gemma is a First Class Hons
graduate of both RMIT University and Victorian College of The Arts.