As an an artist-led organisation embedded within the rural and regional context, we provide unique opportunities for artists operating at the forefront of experimental and emerging art practices. Our projects explore the nuances of Country, landscape, agriculture, wilderness, the environment and our communities.
Our roster of artistic collaborators includes high-profile Australian artists, organisations and curators such as Joyce Hinterding and David Haines, Madelynn Flynn, Tim Humphries, Bukhu Ganburged, Oren Ambarchi, Robin Fox, Cat Jones, William Barton, Julie Vulcan, Cat Hope, PVI Collective, Speak Percussion and Field Theory along with notable international artists including Chris Watson (UK), Douglas Quin (USA) and Russell Haswell (UK).
Image (including header image) by Joshua Thomas.
Jump to Previous Projects
Multi-year cultural rejuvenation project with the Wiradyuri community exploring Indigenous agricultural practices. Includes an on-country workshop program, the establishment of native grasslands, weaving and natural tanning to create cultural objects.
Image by Harriet Goddall.
Jump to Current Projects
The agri(culture) project is a series of thematic explorations of agricultural systems and rural communities from ancient Indigenous practices to agri-technology.
Contemporary artists working at the forefront of emerging and experimental artforms are commissioned to engage with rural communities to create compelling live arts projects.
Image by Jacquie Manning, Medicament for Your Predicament.
A collaboration with Chris Watson (UK). ‘Hrafn’ was an ambitious ambisonic sound installation in the dense forest of the Hastings Caves area of remote southern Tasmania, where with the audience was placed at the centre of an unkindness of (over 2000) ravens as they returned to roost and ‘converse’ with each other.
Image by Rémi Chauvin.
This four-day intensive field recording masterclass explored audio documentation in a range of natural habitats via various recording techniques and technologies, through to the application of these sounds in fields spanning the arts, film/screen, environmental sciences, gaming, VR, music and sound design.
Image by Chris Watson.
The inaugural 2017 ‘agri(culture)’ project commissioned twelve interdisciplinary Australian and International artists and collectives to collaborate with agrarian communities, with their creative outcomes presented at the 2017 Wired Open Day Festival.
Image by Joshua Thomas.
The Edge was a multi-year skills development project for young people living in Tumut and Cootamundra, who worked with contemporary Australian photographer, Tamara Dean. Together, they documented the informal rites of passage that young people create for themselves in nature.
The project culminated in ‘The Edge’, an acclaimed photographic series, that was exhibited at the Museum of the Riverina in Wagga Wagga.
Image by Kate Alderman.
The Wired Lab’s contribution ‘Lines of Movement – A Wiradyuri History’ documents a selection of oral histories shared by Wiradyuri Elder Bob Glanville who is based in the Cootamundra (Gundamundhuray) area.
These histories relate to post-contact circuits of movement and settlements of Wiradyuri people in the Cootamundra, Gundagai and Tumut regions. Many of these sites or movements are through, on or adjacent to Traveling Stock Routes (TSR’s). For our audio installation these histories were re-told in Wiradyuri language by Bob’s Grandson Peter Beath who has been active in Wiradyuri cultural reclamation activities including the rejuvenation of Wiradyuri language.
Image by James Farley.
A wild, live non-stop event that attempted to understand the entire world through amateur radio. Radio Roulette provided audiences with the chance to meet HAM radio club members and make connections with others around the globe. Audiences watched connections happen live, as the Radio Roulette hosts gathered local knowledge about each place of contact.
Radio Roulette was commissioned for the ‘Fusion’ Multicultural festival, Wagga Wagga (2015) and the ‘Artlands’ regional Arts Australia Conference and Festival (2016).
Image by Connor Coman-Sargent.
* WINNER OF TWO APRA AMC ‘ART MUSIC AWARDS’
Southern Encounter was an experimental sound art project commissioned for Regional Arts Australia’s 2012 National Regional Arts Conference and Festival in Goolwa, South Australia. Utilising South Australia’s oldest rail route, Southern Encounter was a four-hour arts journey presented on a chartered heritage train. It provided audiences with a landscape-scale experience of ‘happenings’ that incorporated performance, installation, online spaces and the interdisciplinary arts of sound as audience’s traversed coastal Victor Harbor through to inland Strathalbyn.
In 2012 Sarah was commissioned to present ‘Southern Encounter’ for the ‘Kumuwuki’, Regional Arts Australia Conference (Goolwa, SA), one of the largest conferences in Australia. In a national field that included major arts organisations, ‘Southern Encounter’ won two APRA AMC Art Music Awards, ‘Excellence in Experimental Arts’ and ‘Excellence in a Regional Area’. No other organisation or individual had achieved this.
Image by Sarah Last.
The Wires was the inaugural, and formative, project from The Wired Lab, supported by an ArtLab grant from Australia Council.
Founded in sculpture, land art and sound composition, The Wires act as an instrument, consisting of strained spans of fencing wire that stretch across the open landscape. The Wires were installed at The Wired Lab in the Riverina.
Image by Sarah Last.
