Artists and artisans
Image: Fruzsi Kenez, Story telling through illustration workshop, 2019. Photo Rosina Possingham
Artists and artisans are valued, respected and have opportunities to thrive. Discover below how we celebrate and support the creatives in our city.
SALA City of Adelaide Award
The City of Adelaide Award recognises an artist whose work connects to Adelaide. This award is open to artists working in any medium who are taking part in a SALA exhibition within the City of Adelaide (including North Adelaide).
An artwork's connection to Adelaide may be obvious or subtle, intentional or retrospective. It could be through the exploration of city culture, diverse community, people, creativity, landmarks, history, place, flora, or fauna; or may be a more abstract embodiment of Adelaide’s identity as a centre for playful, thought-provoking, and world-class art experiences.
More information on this award visit Awards and Opportunities – SALA
The winner for the SALA 2023 City of Adelaide Incubator Award is Kaspar Schmidt Mumm for his exhibition Rockamora at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.
ROCKAMORA is the first major gallery exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Kaspar Schmidt Mumm expanding the artist’s fascination with puppetry as a tool for social change. Named after his mother’s primary school bully, ‘Rockamora’ is a thug taking a bath in the gallery. By feeding, cleaning and caring for this bully, ROCKAMORA encourages us to empathise with a larger-than-life, misunderstood antagonist as a way to counter harassment, discrimination, and oppression.
Influenced by his mother’s own art therapy programs in hospitals, aged care and community centres, Schmidt Mumm’s practice is based in a belief in the rehabilitative qualities of art.
This exhibition is an outcome of the Porter Street Commission – ACE’s annual award supporting new artwork commissions by South Australian artists. This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the South Australian Government through Arts South Australia.
The exhibition was featured on national broadcaster ABC Video here ABC ARTS.(link: This playful art installation is a tool for healing | Art Works - YouTube)
IMAGE: ROCKAMORA BY KASPAR SCHMIDT MUMM, PHOTOGRAPHY EMMALINE ZANELLI
For SALA 2022, Bosecke and Zanelli present Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet: 5 essential rules to help achieve an Auguste Rodin torso in under two months. The short film takes a humorous look at the artists' time spent in the Art Gallery collection. It reframes the works of art on display through popular culture references and the everyday language of food, offering visitors an alternative sense of 'taste'. The project was produced in conjunction with South Australian filmmaker, Eloise Holoubek, and in partnership with Art Gallery of South Australia. This presentation is an outcome of the Tutti Arts pilot project, Reaching Out which was supported by the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the 2022 Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund.
Image: Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, Still from Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet: 5 essential rules to help achieve an Auguste Rodin torso in under two months filmed by Eloise Holoubek. Image courtesy the artists, SALA Festival and Art Gallery of South Australia
Yoko Kajio is an Australian/Japanese artist, working in the field of installation art, moving image, photography, sound, and art performance.
A graduate of the South Australian School of Art, performance and photographic artist Yoko Kajio has exhibited steadily in Adelaide and internationally since around 1998. Significant exhibitions include 'GLEAM' at the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, travelled to The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand during 2001. Kajio has also participated in international exhibition and events recently in Japan, Korea, Italy, Brazil. She has also presented numerous moving image works in the public realm with the City of Adelaide.
Image: Yoko KAjio, Lights & water in a space, (installation view), 2021, mixed media.
Alycia Bennett’s Negative Space arts project and activity centre focuses on creating a space for sharing social practice including art making, exhibitions, workshops, presentations, free markets, skill sharing and community dinners. Her work highlights the culture of sharing and connects many different, sometimes unlikely communities together including local apartment owners, SA Housing tenants, homeless people of Whitmore Square and the Adelaide art community.
IMAGE: ALYCIA BENNETT
Artist Profiles
Which five words best describe your project?
Collaborative, creative, diverse, artwork, workwear
How have you found your experience as Adelaide City Library’s Emerging Curator?
The experience of working in this environment, the unique layout of this library has definitely made this exhibition what it is. It has allowed me to work with the space, create more of a maze, rather than using an empty gallery room. The exhibition is all about work through an artistic/creative lens. So it really has brought out the best in that. It’s also really Unique to have a paid curation role as well - it has allowed me to do a lot more with it and bring in my design skills to actually do all the branding and do the curation and bring in artists that I’ve developed relationships with.
What is your favourite place to visit in the City?
I live in the City of Adelaide so I have lots of favourite places – I grew up in the Adelaide Hills so I am loving being so close to everything. I always think of the Grace Emily as my favourite go-to pub. Also places like Floating Goose for art exhibitions and Asian Gourmet for laksa in the markets. I also love the new Lucky Dumpling and Noodle near me in North Adelaide.
Which other local artists inspire you to create?
There’s so much creativity happening in Adelaide that is inspiring, it’s hard to pick. I would say that local fashion brand Closet Mod inspire me. All of the artists in this exhibition inspire me in diverse ways and this is why I have brought them together in Art Work & Wear. Each individual reminds me of a unique moment in my journey when I reflect on when and where I met each person. The Adelaide arts scene is such a wonderful community to be a part of.
What’s next for you?
I’m going to be doing my own solo show in November, at Collective Haunt in Norwood. The title of the show is Handle – I am repurposing old kitchen cupboard doors to paint on using leftover mural paints. I really love upcycling items where possible so I wanted to explore that a bit more.
About Lucinda
Lucinda Penn (LCND) is an artist and designer using symbolic imagery and colour theory to explore site-specific stories and everyday human experiences. Working from murals to digital illustrations, she has worked all over South Australia. She loves collaborating with clients to tell stories and bringing together communities with her mural painting workshops.
Lucinda Penn is the 2023 SALA Adelaide City Library Emerging Curator, a program which is facilitated by City of Adelaide through a partnership with SALA.
Lucinda’s show Art Work & Wear showcases an artwork and a set of workwear of 23 diverse artists creating and or living in the City Adelaide in 2023. This exhibition explores the relationship between the work artists produce and the clothes they wear to do so.
You are encouraged to match up the artworks with their workwear!