Golden Bilby Award

At last year's Putting On An Act, the performance manager at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), renowned local choreographer Chrissie Parrot instigated an award for the best / most innovative act of the week long contemporary performance season.

Somehow, a bronze of a bilby (a small endangered Australian marsupial) was procured from somewhere and stuck on a small plinth. One was given to the recipient last year, another was engraved as a perpetual trophy and this year, after the show last Saturday night, I was given one too! I was pretty shocked and actually in the middle of doing the nails of a Taiwanese sound artist who is here in Perth on a residency. So ducked around the corner of the PICA library where I had set up my week long interactive instillation doing nails and walked into the PICA bar to get the gong.

Funny, nobody in the rest of the world knows or cares about a tiny homespun thing like this but here in Perth WA, for me it meant a lot. No, I didn't have an Oscar moment although I did manage to forget to thank my support network my tech support Jude and my partner Jamie. Doah. Sorry you guys. But I did get to see that beyond the typed notes, hand-written secrets, and the yelled-out audience confessionals (in the live report on stage) that people got it.

It makes it all worth while when an audient get it. Apologies grammarians because I don't know the singular of audience. It is awesome when loads of people dig your work but even if only one does it still makes a difference. Yes the more the merrier and it would seem that a bunch of people saw the ideas in the Manic Cures Project, and yes it may be in the most isolated city in the world and completely unimportant for everybody else not here, but that's not the point. It's not my point.

My point is that if you show up and put it out there, no matter where you are, no matter what the cost there is always the chance that someone is gonna see it and embrace it. That makes it worth while. Sure, I got a few negative responses, peeps not digging it so much. I grateful for those too. But people were moved to respond; people embraced the concept and the content and responded appropriate to the level of their comfort with the project. Some where moved to reject it others were moved by it. I felt tangible interaction with a wide variety of people over the course of the week and that is a pretty amazing thing to experience I have to say. I am inspired and fascinated by the variety and generosity of responses that this project has received.I feel a debt of gratitude and hope that the manicures I give in some way make recompense to the people who share their confidences (anonymously) with the project.

My thanks to all the Putting On An Act punters who stopped by and to PICA for their support and encouragement too.

See you next gig...

Tawds