Evenings with DADo: Fell / How To Build A Forest / Garden of the Legend of the Golden Snail

Join us at Walsh Street for our next Evenings with DADo, a screening of Fell, How To Build A Forest & Garden of the Legend of the Golden Snail followed by a panel discussion.

Fell (2022)
Collaboratively made by Thandi Lane, Yaseera Moosa, Julia Quirk and Mitchell Pollard
Run Time: 4mins 30secs
Language: English

‘Fell’ is the culmination of a body of research into the extraction and refinement of Eucalyptus regnans into the popular timber product, Mountain Ash/Tasmanian Oak — simulacra of a colonial fantasy. Set in Toolangi, an old growth forest implicated in allegations of illegal logging by VicForests, the film speculates on a lump of wood found on the side of the road as an artefact of entangled climatic conditions, material relations, and human encounters.

Using LiDAR scanning — a technology used by the forestry industry and restricted in its capture of only surface — combined with archival film footage from both Victorian and Tasmanian State Libraries, these limited mediums offer a critical perspective on exclusion. Finding fuzzy edges with analytical tools and moments of multiplicity in compartmentalised categories, the film asks — how can we rupture the hegemonic gaze which sees objectivity everywhere?

How To Build A Forest (2022)
Directed, Animated and Produced by Jenn Tran
Writers: Kelly Bartholomeusz, Jenn Tran
Cinematographer: Veronica Charmon
Sound: Mara Schwerdferger
Run Time: 6 minutes.
Language: English

Centering her perspective from Agnes Denes’ land artwork ‘A Forest For Australia’ (1998), a scientist from a distant future returns to Earth to understand how her colony might build its first forest. What begins as a scientific mission becomes a meditation on place, memory and the weight of progress.

Accompanying their beautiful film on the evening, we will be joined by ‘How To Build A Forest’ Director and Animator Jenn Tran, Writer Kelly Bartholomeusz and Cinematographer Veronica Charmon who will be sharing insights into the film’s inception, their creative collaboration and storytelling processes. 

Garden of the Legend of the Golden Snail (2019)
Directed by Oliver Husain
Voice: Aliya Pabani
Sound Design: Michelle Irving
Run Time: 14 min
Language: English/Indonesian (w/ English Subtitles) 

Built on the initiative and ideas of the late Madame Suharto, Keong Emas (The Golden Snail) Theatre was inaugurated in 1984 as the first IMAX theatre in Indonesia. The building’s unique architecture references a popular fairy tale about a princess turned into a snail – but was also meant to promote a new source of protein, the Golden Apple snail, introduced to farmers in Indonesia around the same time. Moving between tiny and monumental, soft and solid, mythical and invasive, this graceful animal is taking on many forms, making its slow-paced way through the topography of IMAX cinema itself. The film was commissioned and produced by Outer Worlds / Public Access Collective / True Frame productions in IMAX 3D format.

Panellist:
Jenn Tran
Jenn is a Vietnamese-Australian moving image artist whose work spans across experimental animation, analogue film and cine-essay documentary. Her video work has been screened at Sydney Film Festival, SEVENTH Gallery, Composite Moving Image and Footscray Community Arts.

Kelly Bartholomeusz
Through writing, creative and community development work Kelly explores the intersections of place, culture and politics. She is  especially drawn to ideas of resistance, opacity, justice and care. She was a recent participant in West Writers and a 2022-23 recipient of Signal Boost, a Wheeler Centre initiative for audio producers. You can read more about her work at kellybartholomeusz.com.

Veronica Charmont
Veronica Charmont is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Naarm/Melbourne, who primarily works with film and photography. By welcoming chance and coincidence, she captures subtle narratives and connections that emanate from being alive. Through her camera she documents the intricate nature of these narratives, intertwining memory, time and history. Veronica completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2022. Recently she has exhibited at the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Sawtooth Ari, Sheffer Gallery, and Blindside, and was the recipient of the 2019 Majlis Travelling Scholarship.

This event is generously supported by Konpira Maru Wines, Molly Rose Brewing and Shelter. When you subscribe via – shelter.stream/rbf – the Robin Boyd Foundation will receive 10% of the revenue.

DADo overview
Evenings with DADo offer an intimate commingling of film and conversation, centred around diverse historical and contemporary stories of architecture, design, landscape and urbanism. Feature-length films, documentaries, shorts and animations all find a home in Robin Boyd’s living room at Walsh Street, the social, energetic hub of the Robin Boyd Foundation designed in 1957. Guest speakers contribute unique perspectives on the various film subjects, kicking off the living room conversation in a home which decidedly sought to reject convention.

DADo’s 2023 program is presented by Thandi Lane, ​​Rebecca Roke and Andrew MacKinnon.

Doors will open at 6.30 pm to allow attendees to explore Walsh Street and enjoy refreshments in the courtyard. The screening will commence promptly at 7 pm.