The Sweat Collective are artists living on Larrakia Country utilising and investigating new ways of being and creating alongside each other in the environmental, cultural, and community melting pot of Darwin.

Collective members Creates a biannual program of participatory, experimental, durational, cross artform and site specific works that celebrate and interrogate the rituals of the Build Up - new, old, and impossible. 

2023: MarketMarket

2020-2021: Sweat Season: an immersive experience embracing natural cycles in a year of disruption

2019: Sweat Season: a celebration of sweaty durational rituals celebrating the build up

Sweat Season Zine created as a part of 2020-2021 program - please click through to check it out.

Sweat collective artists

Current

• Matthew Van Roden

• James Mangohig

• Jenelle Saunders

• Tarzan JungleQueen

• Jessica Devereux 

• Lee Harrop

• Kelly Beneforti

• Tony Lee

• Naina Sen

• Sarah Pirrie

• Britt Guy

Past

• Shaun Lee (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022)

• Haneen Martin (2019, 2020, 2021)

• Amina McConvell (2019, 2020, 2021)

• Gary Lang (2019)

• Tamara Howie (2019)

• Ciella Williams (2019)

• Alicia Scobie (2019)

• Cj Fraser Bell (2019, 2020)

Celebrating the multiplicity of our city.

Diverse intersectional practices that span multiple artforms.

The space between artistic expression and multicultural celebrations.

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Images - Left to right and top to bottom: Grevillea by Matthew Van Roden. Image of Haneen Martin. Beautiful Noise by Jess Devereux. Image of Jess Devereux. Work by Cj Fraser-Bell. Work by Shaun Lee. A Combinatorial Explosion by Amina McConvell. Kelly Beneforti in Landed by Tracks Dance Company. Image of James Mangohig. Kelly Benforti and Cj Fraser-Bell in Queer Territory. Work by Cj Fraser-Bell. Jenelle Saunders and Jess Devereux in Global Positioning by Tracks Dance Company. Tarzan Mcdonald at Octopus Story Studio by StoryProjects. Image of Gary Lang. A Selection from the series '36' at SHEILAS group exhibition by Alicia Scobie. Rock Star by Lee Harrop. Ciella Williams in You Dance Funny by Tracks Dance Company. Image of Matthew Van Roden. Image of Tamara Howie. Work by Tarzan McDonald as apart of ‘Asia in Darwin’ at Survive Garage in Jogjakarta.

Supported by

Celebrate and explore the home of the Rapid Creek Markets through the eyes of local creatives. Experimental artists, curators, thinkers and foodies come together in this program of community gatherings and shared artistic experiences.

Alongside this, a national artist-led lab kicks off with a curated program of discussions, meals and workshops to learn, interrogate and foster new collaborations between local, and visiting artists.

Instigated by ACCOMPLICE and Next Wave as part of Darwin Festival.

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MarketMarket 2023 Program

Image by Duane Preston

If this flesh could....
Kelly Beneforti

Kelly Beneforti is an independent dance artist and long-term dance animateur at Tracks Dance Company who is privileged to be living and working on Larrakia country. Kelly works within an inclusive, movement-based practice led by the curiosity and history of the body, and that of the individuals she is working with. She is passionate about collaborative making, cultural and social exchange, and empowering participatory processes.

If this flesh could... is a durational dance film shot in one sitting, exploring human flesh and the flesh of fruit in slowly shifting conversation. Touching on concepts of human and environmental fertility, nourishment, loss, and sustainability. This experiment draws from questions of the relationship between our inner and outer, private and public spaces.

This work will run between 2-3 hours and will be displayed on a monitor constantly on loop. Feel free to pop in and enjoy a moment, or take it in over an extended lunch or dinner.

As part of Radical Hospitality: MarketMarket Feed
Saturday 26th August 2023 6pm - 9pm
PART OF TICKETED EVENT

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Artwork by Mikaela Lee

Dalirra ( Light in Larrakia)
Mikaela Lee 

Mikaela Lee is a multi-disciplinary artist, working predominantly in painting, digital drawing and large-scale mural work. She is currently exploring the place of craft in her practice with the introduction of beading and sculptural ceramics.

Dalirra experiments with moving liquid light in the Lab and projection design in collaboration with the walls of the Rapid Creek Markets. Interested in the fusion of Larrakia's history and culture and the mixing of colours and light at the Rapid Creek market or originally Gurambai (Rapid Creek) to the Larrakia people.

Mikaela is excited about exploring a different medium and experimenting with colours and the opportunity to bridge colour, and light projection with her Larrakia culture and stories.

As part of Radical Hospitality: MarketMarket Feed
Saturday 26th August 2023 6pm - 9pm
PART OF TICKETED EVENT

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Image by Jett Street

Radical Hospitality: MarketMarket Feed

Radical Hospitality invites you to converge, connect and spark new encounters with artists, thinkers, innovators, friends and neighbours through the radical power of sharing.

Founder of local experimental group the Sweat Collective and producing company ACCOMPLICE Britt Guy collaborates with the visible and sometimes less visible tangles of place and people at the Rapid Creek Shops on Larrakia Country.

Inviting you to heighten your senses as you move through a transitory program of discussion, new media and audio works while feasting on a three course meal prepared by locals whose businesses call Rapid Creek Shops home.

This is an opportunity to take some time to generously connect and listen to our everyday entangled collaborators.

Rapid Creek Shops

Saturday 26th of August 2023 6pm - 9pm

$55

Ticket includes the creative program entry and three course meal.

MarketMarket DJ
Kuya James

Artist and music producer Kuya James (aka James Mangohig) grew up in the tropical and multicultural city of Darwin; the capital of the Northern Territory on Larrakia land. Kuya James is both an ARIA nominated producer and artist. In 2016 he started CLUB AWI as part of the Darwin Festival and it continues to be the festival's late night party spot. With a twenty year career behind him, in the past five years, James has been committed to projects and new performance work which centres around Asian/Australian stories and which are collaborations with Asian/Australian artists. This has been hugely important to him and has included a strong emphasis on partnering and advocating for Filipino artists.

The Rapid Creek Markets are a regular part of his life. Through a friend he has been getting to know the store holders and asking them about their favourite music, what they loved before they migrated (or their parents migrated) and what they continue to enjoy now. These conversations will produce a DJ set including everything from Thai disco to Indonesian psych rock music and everything in between including a healthy dose of pop music from the last 5 decades.

As part of Radical Hospitality: MarketMarket Feed
Saturday 26th August 2023 6pm - 9pm
PART OF TICKETED EVENT

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Image by Migoy Photos

Fruit 
Matthew van Roden 

Matthew’s work explores spaces between apparent binaries as locations for queer creative praxis. Working primarily with wax, text, and digital video, van Roden is interested in ideas about the body, text, language and subjectivity. 

They will experiment with Risographic animations, QR coded to fruits + vegetables at the Sunday Rapid Creek Markets.

Rapid Creek Markets

Sunday 27th August 2023 7am - 2pm

FREE

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Rapid Creek Radio 
Carlo Ansaldo

Carlo Ansaldo is an artist, project manager and community facilitator working across the visual arts and music industries in Gulumerrgin/Darwin. When they are not pursuing their own creative projects, they collaborate to support and showcase Northern Territorian creatives of all persuasions. 

Carlo is primarily interested in developing creative possibilities for how we will move together through this late capitalist world-in-crisis and cultivate a communist horizon. They are currently channelling this ambition into cosmic DJ sets, community radio projects and writing a speculative science fiction novel exploring the commercial industrialisation of asteroid mining from a NT perspective.

Carlo is looking forward to collecting audio material on-site at Rapid Creek and during the labs to develop the beginnings of an audio sound track that has the potential to be broadcast locally. Their hope is that this broadcast will plant the seed for a local community radio project to grow. They are looking forward to collaborating with musicians and sound-based artists locally and nationally to test and develop this idea.

Samples from recordings will feature along side Matthew van Roden’s animations.

Rapid Creek Markets

Sunday 27th August 2023 7am - 2pm

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MarketMarket 2023 LAB ARTISTS

Listed as pictured from top to bottom, left to right.

Nathan Stoneham,
Kristi Monfires,
Kuya James (James Mangohig), Jocelyn Tribe,
Rhanjell Villanueva,
Kelly Beneforti,
Matthew van Roden,
Mikaela Lee,
Britt Guy,
Carlo Ansaldo,
Naina Sen.

A meeting and sharing of artists from across the regions in 2021

Darwin is a city surrounded by ocean and desert, producing art that is on the precipice geographically and culturally. Precipice Arts Lab, produced by local independent company ACCOMPLICE invites artists from across Australia “on the precipice” of artforms, ideas, methodologies and identities. Independent artists will come together online and where possible on Larrakia country for a curated program to learn, interrogate and connect. This arts lab will occur prior to and during the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) in August 2021.

Precipice is born out of a desire to foster genuine artist to artist links. Precipice artists will be interested in:

• Bolstering the voices of First Nations and regional artists

• Learning, sharing and interrogating practice with a group of diverse peers

• Creating and investigating new ways of working in collaboration with people and place

• Fostering networks of peers across geographic divides.

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Meet the Precipice Artists

Jessica Devereux

Jessica Devereux is a passionate dance artist, choreographer and performer born in Kalgoorlie, WA and now resides in Darwin on Larrakia land. Known for her warmth, skill and reflexivity when it comes to collaborative learning and working, Jess nely traverses between small-scale intimate create processes to large-scale community and participatory works. She is drawn to projects that are inclusive, joyous and seek to make a lasting social impact. Currently a Dance Animateur for Tracks Dance Company, Jess is greatly experienced in working across cultures, art forms and worlds; regional, remote and metropolitan. Floating seamlessly between Tracks and her independent practice, Jess is adept at inviting dance lovers of all experiences and abilities to participate in the arts.

Caiti Baker

Multifaceted musician and artist Caiti Baker sings because she needs to, dances because she has to and does everything else because she wants to. Song writing, recording, producing, vocal engineering, dancing, graphic designing, video producing, editing, touring, performing, collaborating, mentoring, networking and bad-joke-telling all make up the “ings” Caiti feels she is “born to do”. From winning an ARIA Award for graphic design; a couple of National Live Music Awards and multiple genre AIR Awards – it would seem that the industry acknowledges this birthright. Signed to independent record label Settle Down Records in Darwin, NT, Caiti continues to create music with long-time collaborator James Mangohig aka Kuya James and collaborates with a collective of local artists to expand her artistic visions. After releasing the concept album “Mary of the North” mid 2020, Caiti is gearing up to press go on her next single “Mellow” on September 3, 2021. The end

Liesel Zink

Liesel Zink is an award-winning, socially-engaged choreographer who creates large-scale contemporary performance works in public-space and uses her creative process as an opportunity for artistic, cultural and intergenerational exchange. Liesel has developed and presented independent work around Australia, Asia and Eastern Europe. She received the 2017 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance for her public space project ‘The Stance’ which has been presented in eleven cities around Australia and overseas engaging over 80 performers between the ages of 8 and 72 years of age. Further independent projects include ‘Granite’ (Australia/Hong Kong) ‘We and the Uncertain’ (Ukraine 2019), ‘ Awesome; a state of wonder and fear’ (World Science Festival 2021), ‘Our New’ (IMA Gallery 2020), ‘Inter’ (Flowstate 2018), ‘fifteen’ (Next Wave 2012, Brisbane Festival 2012). Liesel is currently an Associate Artist with Force Majeure. She also engages with others in her capacity as a producer, provocateur and dramaturge.

Matthew van Roden

Matthew van Roden is an artist of the in-between. Their research involves interrogating the space between apparent binaries as locations for queer creative praxis. Material/discursive; inside/outside; male/female; analogue/digital: van Roden explores the gaps and slippages between these seemingly oppositional points. Their work is made manifest in the overlap of boundaries; on ambiguous surfaces and thresholds of meaning.

Ryan Williams

Ryan Williams is a recorder & ocarina player, improviser, interdisciplinary-performance maker & arts producer based in Naarm/Melbourne. His creative practice focuses on composing and improvising new music, and creating exploratory & transdisciplinary projects through skill-sharing collaborations with artists and communities. Ryan performs and creates within improvisatory & exploratory music, site-specic/installation contexts, traditional music from Eastern Europe, Japan, Ireland and the U.S, western art music & jazz, popular folk music, and video game music. He has performed at major Australian and international festivals including Falls Festival, Setouchi Triennale (Japan), Antwerp Fringe Festival (Belgium), Woodford Folk Festival, and regularly performs with leading arts companies, including Sydney Symphony Orchestra, ELISION Ensemble & Snu Puppets.

David Fischer / Day Knows

Que Film had humble beginnings 5 years ago by videographer David (Day) Fischer as a means to create music video content for a growing music scene in Brisbane, particularly within the Hip Hop landscape. Within those 5 years David has collaborated on all aspects of content creation with some of Australia's biggest staples such as Allday and up and comers such as Camouage Rose, Order Sixty6 and many more. By networking with like-minded creatives in diverse backgrounds Que Film expanded from the music video realm and began working in the corporate and commercial space. This led to an interest in projects based within the community. Whether it be statewide projects such as the 2017 'Stop the Hurting – End Domestic Violence' campaign to more grass roots endeavours with the RADF in the 2021 'Sidetracks' music project, David continues to foster the importance of visual representation for all people in Australia.

Matthew Day

Matthew Day is interested in the potential of choreography to imagine unorthodox relationships and propose new ways of being human. Utilizing a minimalist approach, Day works with duration and repetition, approaching the body as a site of infinite potential and choreography as a field of energetic intensity and exchange. Day's work is invested in the proliferate potential of choreography to contribute unique forms of knowledge to cultural discourse and enable affective experiences. He engages with visual arts practices to challenge traditional notions of image, object and body. Raised in Sydney, Matthew was a teenage ballroom dancing champion. He went on to study Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Western Sydney and at the Victorian College of the Arts. Day has been artist in residence, and presented his work extensively in Australia and Europe. He has just completed a Masters of Choreography at the DAS Graduate School in Amsterdam.

Nick Yates: 

I am a saxophone & clarinet player, improviser, composer and teacher with extensive performance experience across a broad range of musical aesthetics. My primary interests are in contemporary classical music, jazz and improvised art music, and cross-cultural collaborations. I hold a B.Mus (Hons - Performance) & M.Mus (Performance/Teaching) from the University of Melbourne, and a Grad Dip Ed. (Secondary – Classroom & Instrumental Music) from ACU. Since moving from Melbourne to Darwin in 2018, significant projects include forming Whistling Kite New Music, which debuted to sold out audiences at Darwin Festival 2020; performing and recording with The Djäri Project, (Netanela Mizrahi & Jason Guwanbal Gurriwiwi), winner of the 2020 APRA AMCOS Art Music Award for Excellence in Music Education, and nominee for the 2021 NIMA Indigenous Language Award; and forming jazz combo The Changes, who are now one of Darwin's most active and in-demand jazz groups.

In Honduras there is a celebration that marks the day every year when the sky rains fish. In Phnom Phenn the city sprays itself in water as the river annually changes direction. In Darwin a city slows impossibly down as the crime rate rises, the white tourists flee, and jackfruit and mango start fermenting as the ocean turns venomous. 

Sweat Season is an annual celebration of an ancient shift in Darwin/Garrmalang, the Build Up; three months of sweaty, tense, weather culminating in the Wet Season, three months of downpours. In 2020/21 the Sweat Collective, undertook:

• Individual research residences, 

• A collective arts lab, 

• Creative Developments,

• Presentation of new work as part of Sweat Season program in February 2021

Utilising and investigating new ways of being and creating alongside each other in the environmental, cultural, and community melting pot of Darwin, will create new participatory, experimental, durational, cross artform and site specific works that celebrate and interrogate the rituals of the Build Up - new, old, and impossible. 

Sweat Season Opening and Book Launch

Haneen Mahmood Martin in collaboration with the Sweat Collective

To kick off Sweat Season we celebrate with a very special exhibition to launch the Sweat Season Art Book. This book holds the interpretations of nine out of the ten Sweat Collective members. The tenth being Haneen Mahmood Martin. Her words are the result of contemplations and collaborations through conversation.

Sweat Season carves out space for the creation of enmeshed experiences specific to the local place, environment and people of Garrmalang/Darwin. We launch the program with a special exhibition sharing the conversations between members of the Sweat Collective.

Exhibition Opening

Date: Thursday 18th Feb
Time: 6pm - 8pm
Location: Empty Shopfront next door to Dom’s Bar & Lounge

FREE EVENT

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Ab/ob/jections

Matthew Van Roden

Injected, ejected, rejected, subjected, objected, adjected, interjected, abjected, projected; queer artist Matthew van Roden takes their hand to casting in all its forms. Casting of characters, casting digits and casting words into the air, Ab/ob/jections continues van Roden’s longstanding meditation on bodies and texts. Wax, text and flesh are cycled and recycled, turning and returning in a land where the devil makes work for idle hands.

Exhibition Opening

Date: Friday 19th Feb
Time: 5pm - 8pm
Location: Nan Giese

FREE EVENT

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Hail Moon, Full Grace

Matthew Van Roden and Tarzan JungleQueen

In a dark cave shines a light, a prayer, “on earth as it is in heaven”. What more heaven can we know than the Moon? Celestial orb that pulls all the waters of the Earth in her wax and wane. In that cosmic cycle we are all of us drawn up and released. Full and again made new with all the vacillations of energy and rest, fire and nest; the bleeding body knows best.

Date: Wednesday 24th Feb
Time: 6pm - 9pm
Location: WWII Tunnels

FREE EVENT

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Petri Chor, 2021

Lee Harrop

Lee Harrop, Petri Chor 2021, (Hand engraved geological core sample from the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia. Spent diamond encrusted drill bits used in the engraving process of geological core samples, copper wire, tin wire and solder – performance).

The etymology of words tells us about their origin. Petrichor is a term coined by Australia’s CSIRO to describe the unmistakable earthy smell of approaching rain. Derived from the Greek word petra (πέτρα) rock and īchōr (ἰχώρ) the fluid that runs through the veins of gods in Greek mythology. I have hand engraved the word into Australian rock. Like etymology, geology tells us about our planet’s origins – ‘We can read the landscape as a kind of text’ (Prof. M Bjornerud). In Petri Chor rock and words go hand in hand, and for a time, quite literally.

Date: Saturday 27th Feb
Time: 12pm - 1pm
Location: CDU Art Gallery

FREE EVENT

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^-+=(-+.>kinetic notation in three dimensions

Jessica Devereux and Amina McConvell

^-+=(-+.>kinetic notation in three dimensions is a participatory performance art installation which fuses improvised dance and drawing through monotone line and form. Prefaced as a durational art experiment and using a visual key and movement within the abstract parameters of a grid. ^-+=(-+.>kinetic notation in three dimensions will unfold languidly over 3-hours at Tracks Studio, where audience members are invited into a relaxed performance in the air conditioning, to rest, observe, participate and/or witness mark-making and movement-making for a little or a long time.

Date: Saturday 27th Feb
Time: 2pm - 5pm
Location: Tracks Dance Studio

FREE EVENT

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Sweat Season: Sweaty Duets with The Mango Double

Jenelle Saunders and James Mangohig

You’ll begin surrounded by a special a-cappella arrangement of raw human voices. You may notice a lone dancer embodying the visceral. This leads into a shared duet crafted from The Collective and for the people. Next will come plump bursts of sound, each building to further inspire your newfound movement and uninhibited freedom. A crescendo of ripe beats will take you on your way to embracing the heady, seasonal night. Soak the sweat in.

Date: Saturday 27th Feb
Time: 9pm - 12am
Location: Lucky Bat

FREE EVENT

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During social distancing in 2020, Darwin multi-artist Cj Fraser-Bell undertook a residency in Darwin’s Parks, Laneways and Gardens.

This residency considered the many interactions and interventions that can and do take place in these public spaces. Cj questioned what physical evidence of ephemeral moments could look like, how it might accumulate, be manipulated, and in tern, how this could impact our interaction with space and similarly, space’s interraction with us.

As part of their research, Cj collected photos of each site, shown below.

Alf Blasser Park

Anula Greenbelt

Cullen Bay

Easther Park

Wanguri park

Malak Greenbelt

Hail Moon is an evolving body of work exploring projection works of scale across the Darwin Skyline.

BOTANICALs - DARWIN FESTIVAL 2020

Botanicals careful choreographed movements map out the porous embodiments of human and more-than-humankind. Head, shoulders, knees, toes, petal, sepal, receptacle, stamen. Bodily boundaries, skins and textures are traded, shaped and switched in a curious dance of multi-species exchange. Matthew van Roden’s trans-disciplinary practice revels in exploring enmeshed possibilities and indeterminacy of being.

ACCOMPLICE takes this skin-dance to everyday sites across Darwin in a series of surprising projections where surface, skin, boundary, texture become sites for re-entanglement between the urban and natural world as part of Darwin Festival 2020.

Hail Moon - Sweat Season 2019

As part of Sweat Season in 2019 Matthew Van Roden in collaboration with Tarzan JungleQueen created a moving image work titled Hail Moon. This work was presented at Lake Alexander projected into the foliage of a tree.

Hail Moon is a projection of their collective love for a future earth that can sustain temporary bodies. Cutting up/together the speech of Aristophanes on the origin of love in Plato’s Symposium, and Adam Vaughan’s 2018 article, Fracking – the reality, the risks and what the future holds published in the Guardian online. Van Roden and JungleQueen embrace the spirit of the cut-up method King, author William S. Burroughs. Bringing these two texts together, queering both and liberating a narrative they collectively share: Don’t frack the Territory, don’t frack the planet. Be like the moon and fall in love with the waters of the earth.

In 2019 Ben Graetz undertook a residency devising his new work, RAIIN, a cabaret about his experience as a Gay Aboriginal man, and the experiences of other Queer Aboriginal Men in Australia. Ben was joined by 6 collaborating artists from across Australia, Guy Simon, Joel Bray, Kaine Sultan-Babij, Dale Woodbridge-Brown, and Scott Campbell, with Musical Director Michael Tan. These artists spent a week exploring the themes of the work and generating ideas, songs, monologues and dances to inform future creative developments. The residency culminated in a showing of the work in progress to invited members of the LGBTQIA+ and Aboriginal communities.

Larrakia Elder Gary Lang supported this project with a welcome to country and as a cultural consultant to Ben, and Crystal Love supported the project as Community Cultural Consultant.

Lia pa’apa’a, aly degroot and the groote eylandt weavers

Artists Lia Pa’apa’a, Aly Degroot, and the Groote Eylandt Weavers undertook residencies in Darwin Schools and on Groote Eylandt in earli 2019 as part of a shared weaving project which eventuated in hundreds of woven fish and otherworldly underwater creatures being made to decorate and celebrate the closing of the 2019 Arafura Games.

During the residencies, Lia and Aly ran workshops with teachers and students in different weaving techniques, as well as working on huge hand woven fibre art sculptures.

Sweat Season carves out space for the creation of enmeshed experiences specific to the local place, environment and people of Garrmalang/Darwin

On November 30, 2019 the inaugural Sweat Season was held in Darwin. 7 unique locations hosted multi-artform participatory rituals celebrating the Build Up.

Sweat Season 2019 was held on November 30. It involved 35 artists, experimented in 7 different locations, and began as it ended, with our sweaty bodies buoyed in the water.

Sweat Season 2019

The inaugural Sweat Season was held on November 30, 2019. It was a full day of sweaty, surprising, durational rituals to sink your teeth into.

A SWIM with a welcome, movement, and underwater music.

Artists: Tony Lee, Gary Lang, James Mangohig and Jess Devereux.
Location: Parap Pool.

Larrakia Man Tony Lee will welcome you to sweat season. Next, a precipitous dance work by Larrakia choreographer Gary Lang, an underwater listening event by James Mangohig, and a durational duet between Jess Devereux and her giant ice-block.

A MARKET where your cutlery reads you a poem

Artists: Cj Fraser-Bell and Britt Guy.
Location: Rapid Creek Market.

Placed about the markets, this installation is ongoing but not permanent - arrive early to avoid missing out.

A GARDEN with a planting ritual at Lakeside Drive Community Garden

Artists: Amina McConvell and Alicia Scobie.
Locations: Lakeside Drive Community Garden.

Bring the family to make murals and marks with us in the Garden. Contribute to an artwork that will bring luck to the garden, and another that will be buried, 12 months in the making. Traditional rain dance will be performed by Thai Dance Group.

A COLD DRINK with a painting and a story at the pub

Artist: Shaun Lee.
Locations: Lucky Bat Cafe.

Join Larrakia Street Artist Hafleg as he live paints on a wall in the Lucky Bat courtyard and tells stories and answers your questions about the Sweaty Season. Enjoy over a cool beverage, it’s beer o’clock.

A NAP in a place full of strangers.

Artists: Haneen Martin and Tamara Howie.
Location: Nightcliff Foreshore, Windsurfers Corner.

Take a nap, read a note, write a love letter, drown your worries, and see what happens when you take a long, long time to make something.

A PROMENADE, a solitary evening walk, together

Artists: Lee Harrop and Kelly Beneforti.
Location: Nightcliff Beach.

Artist Lee Harrop invites you to Token, an easily overlooked temporary exhibition that’s there one minute, gone the next. Dancer Kelly Beneforti with collaborator Anokai Susi will allow us to glimpse a wave dance out of time, from afar, over and over.

A PARTY where the humidity finally gets to us.

Artists: Matthew Van Roden, Tarzan Jungle Queen, Ciella Williams, Jenelle Saunders and more.
Location: East Point Reserve.

A night to remember! Kicked off with dance by Darwin’s cultural groups including Kultura Dance Collective (the kids will love!), followed by music to move to, projected ode’s to the moon, mad sweaty priestesses and a performing mango slushy. Bar and beats onsite as we sweat into the evening.

Images by Jess Devereux and Paz Tassone.

Capturing the stories, culture and landscape of our iconic region and the people that call it home.

ACCOMPLICE is the producer of the Northern Territory Travelling Film Festival (NTTFF) which celebrates and showcases the outstanding short film, television and video productions from the NT, capturing the stories, culture and landscape of our iconic region and the people that call it home. This project is delivered in partnership with Darwin Film Society.

Each year the festival screens in dozens of locations across the NT, providing opportunities for remote audiences to share in their communities’ stories and for tourism operators to showcase a film experience to national and international audiences that provides insight into our unique place, the Northern Territory.

The ACCOMPLICE residency program undertakes a reflective, challenging and exploratory framework for artists, community and audience to come together to explore work in development.

Our residency program grew in 2018, with funding through Australia Council, into a program of local and visiting residencies researched and developed projects over two to three week periods. The program focuses on artists committed to regional engagement and exploration of the culture and landscape of the Top End.

In 2019 and 2020 we continued to build depth into our established residency program and produced work by creating uniquely Garrmalang/Darwin opportunities to share research, development and outcomes with our audiences.

Residency program highlights and reviews

2020 Residency Artists

Matthew Van Roden
(Garrmalang/Darwin)

Cj Fraser-Bell
(Garrmalang/Darwin)

Sweat Collective Lab
Amina McConvell, Tarzan Junglequeen, Tony Lee, Matthew Van Roden, Shaun Lee, James Mangohig, Kelly Beneforti, Jenelle Saunders, Jess Devereux, Gary Lang, Ciella Williams, Haneen Martin, Lee Harrop
(Garrmalang/Darwin)

2019 Residency Artists

Lia Pa’apa’a, Aly de Groot and the Groote Eylandt Weavers
(Cairns, Garrmalang/Darwin and Groote Eylandt)

Ben Graetz, Guy Simon, Joel Bray, Kaine Sultan-Babij, Dale Woodbridge-Brown and Scott Campbell, with Musical Director Michael Tan.
(Garrmalang/Darwin, Cadi/Djubuguli/Sydney, Narrm/Melbourne)

2018 Residency Artists

Jamie Lewis, Sam Chablani, and Lia Pa’apa’a
(Singapore, Naarm/Melbourne and Cairns)

Weniki Hensch
(Garrmalang/Darwin)

Raju Rathi
(Pushkar, India)

Ben Graetz and Shaun Kerinaiua
(Garrmalang/Darwin and Tiwi Islands)

Matthew Day
(Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Holly Macdonald
(Naarm/Melbourne) - Transitory Residency in partnership with Watch this Space and Katherine Regional Arts

2017 Residency Artists

Holly Macdonald
(Naarm/Melbourne)

Anna Van Stralen
(Launceston)

Leah Shelton
(Meanjin/Brisbane)

Nick Power and Erak Mith
(Gadigal/Sydney and Phnom Penh, Cambodia)

Jamie Lewis
(Singapore and Naarm/Melbourne)

Circa Contemporary Circus
(Meanjin/Brisbane) - Transitory Residency in partnership with Tangentyere Council and Katherine Regional Arts

Tropical Kitchen is presented annually and is focused on building and connecting with community through a love of stories, food and cooking. Darwin’s food market game is strong and provides locals and visitors alike with a slice of Southeast Asian food and ambience. Tropical Kitchen draws on these sites, people, smells and stories to build community programming that uniquely creates an intersection between art, food and the environment. With an aim to bring communities together to discuss, shape and build the future of Garrmalang/Darwin’s community cohesiveness and environmental awareness.

2018 Tropical Kitchen

In 2018 a ten-day curated Tropical Kitchen program of events during Darwin Fringe Festival. The program included two residencies with food artists Sam Chablani and Lia Pa’apa’a, presentation of internationally renowned performance work Wank Bank Masterclass by Adam Seymour, international premiere of durational reading of social commentary work Cup of Nun Chai by Alana Hunt plus a program of workshops and talks in partnership with Charles Darwin Universities Science at Sunset program. This event transported Garrmalang/Darwin locals into a casual world of food, drinks and culture throughout the fringe. Creating an ephemeral space for the growing culture and thinking around food and place.

In 2018 a ten-day curated Tropical Kitchen program of events during Darwin Fringe Festival. The program included two residencies with food artists Sam Chablani and Lia Pa’apa’a, presentation of internationally renowned performance work Wank Bank Masterclass by Adam Seymour, international premiere of durational reading of social commentary work Cup of Nun Chai by Alana Hunt plus a program of workshops and talks in partnership with Charles Darwin Universities Science at Sunset program. This event transported Garrmalang/Darwin locals into a casual world of food, drinks and culture throughout the fringe. Creating an ephemeral space for the growing culture and thinking around food and place.

2017 Tropical Kitchen

In 2017 a program of dinners, workshops and audio tours were created in order to explore the rich tapestry of Darwin locals histories and their love of food. Aiming to create new relationships, seed new ideas and provide a reminder of our capacity and strength as individuals when we work together. Facilitated by Singaporean artist Jamie Lewis

This program engaged the home cook, the foodie or the story aficionado, this hands-on program took participants on a journey through tropical flavours. Drawing on eclectic Asian styles, spicy sambal condiments, local fresh seafood and unknown Asian vegetables we find at the markets!

In 2017 an audio tour - 婆婆 (Por-Por) and me was created and available for anyone visiting the Parap markets in Garrmalang/Darwin.

Take the raw, wild energy of a b*by battle, add skilful contemporary choreography and improvisation expertly performed by dancers from two different worlds, throw in a good dose of humour and you get Between Tiny Cities រវាងទីក្រុងតូច.

This project is the result of a four-year dance exchange run by Darwin-based ACCOMPLICE. The exchange, between Darwin’s D*City Rockers and Cambodia’s Tiny Toones youth program, has seen the two crews travelling, training, battling and performing together across both countries.

Finding the familiar on the other side of the world

"It was about being able to bring an artist that I thought would be really excited about learning about the Indigenous textiles and then also be able to share a pretty rare and beautiful way of making textiles."

Read the full article at ABC News

Lisa Waup reflected on the Residency in Off the Leash magazine

“It was a very intense time and such a soul revealing topic, yet what unfolded that week was truly magical and a great test within myself, and Weniki also”

Read more at Off the Leash

Holly reflected on her Residency in Off the Leash magazine

“I felt and feel connected to this studio of artists through our shared language of clay, a language that they speak deftly, and with an expressiveness that delighted and inspired me.”

Read more at Off the Leash

Chef Sam -- an outspoken, gregarious, tattooed livewire -- is the BBQ dude, blasting kickass flavours into meats, fish, and vegetables seasoned with Asian spices and chillis. He cooks by fire over charcoal; his portions #Pigout; his motto #SpiceisNaise; his war cry #NoBurnNoTaste.

^ Chef Sam on his love of cooking and his ACCOMPLICE residency

Lia’s practice explores her cultural connections, learnings and nourishment as a Woman of Colour and mother living as diaspora in Australia. Lia’s cooking, hosting and sharing in deeply rooted in her desire to provide everyday solutions that support the wellbeing of her people.

“My experience at ACCOMPLICE allowed me to share my emerging practice in a safe and nurtured way. I loved that I could include my family in the process and share the tastes of my ancestors with the Darwin community.”

— Lia Pa’apa’a

ACCOMPLICE in 2017 commissioned Singaporean artist Jamie Lewis, our June artist in residence, to create a body of work under the annual program Tropical Kitchen.

Jamie creates and performs works using the making and eating of food as a catalyst for storytelling. Given Darwin’s love of eating together and enjoying a yarn, collaborating with Jamie was a match made in heaven. She created a series of workshops and community dinners, before developing a program of market tour lunches and indulgent dinners, as part of Darwin Festival. The work invited people to become lost in the stories the food conjured, while also significantly shifting the role of artist and audience, into collaborators.

Matthew undertook a two week residency at ACCOMPLICE in September 2018 working between Mayfair Gallery and the Darwin Botanical Garden.

Matthew Day is interested in the potential of choreography to imagine unorthodox relationships and propose new ways of being human. Utilizing a minimalist approach, Day works with duration and repetition, approaching the body as a site of infinite potential and choreography as a field of energetic intensity and exchange.