Fortnightly radio show on art and environmentalism, with poetry and field recordings. On Eastside Radio 89.7FM. Produced and presented by Ira Ferris.

This program takes place on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation, traditional and ongoing custodians of this land.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sympoiesisradioshow
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sympoiesis_radio_show

The word 'sympoiesis' is taken from environmental philosopher Donna Haraway who defines it as 'making with'. She writes: “Sympoiesis is a simple word; it means “making-with.” Nothing makes itself; nothing is really autopoietic or self-organizing. [...] Sympoiesis is a word proper to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems. It is a word for worlding-with, in company.” (p58 in Staying with the Trouble)

SYMPOIESIS : RADIO SHOW hopes to inspire this interconnectivity and re-kindle our lost relationship with the natural world.

Sympoiesis (radio show) - Eastside Radio 89.7FM

These interviews took place on air, on the Eastside Radio 89.7FM (Sydney, Australia).

https://eastsidefm.org/

ARTemis Projects RADIO interviews

Conversation with performance artist Alan Schacher who works across the terrain of dance and installation, with an interest in architectural experiences and the performativity of public space. His performances “attempt to eke out the essence of site, materials and objects in relation to and with the performer’s body, the situation, and memory of place.”

From Friday 27th to Sunday 29th of December, Alan will take a performative drawing residency at Drawspace gallery in Enmore. The project is titled CHASING SHADOWS and in this residency, Alan will capture the outlines of shadows and reflections as they fall onto and into the DRAW space. 

More about Alan's work: https://alanschacher.net 

Originally aired on Eastside Radio 89.7FM on 23 December 2024.

Sympoiesis radio show is produced on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation, traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respect and gratitude to the elders past, present, and yet to come.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sympoiesisradioshow
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sympoiesis_radio_show

PRESENTER/INTERVIEWER: Ira Ferris (www.instagram.com/artemisprojects)

EP69: Alan Schacher (Drawspace, Chasing Shadows)

Conversation with artist Carolyn Craig about their most recent solo exhibition – ALGEIC INTENT – on at Firsdraft gallery (Sydney) until 15 March 2025. ALGAEIC INTENT investigates the ways in which Algae thrive in the wreckage of capitalism. The work intermingles breathe, sound, image and desire through diffractive echo, to leak affect and challenge conventional narratives around social responsibility that isolate bodies as discrete entities that sustain the meritocracy myths of capitalism.

Carolyn’s practice operates through conceptual ideas of how power is embedded within material exchanges – between bodies, objects and at a quantum level. They see material practices as a relational act connected to political spaces and the broader arts ecology, and have founded artist run space SCHMICK Contemporary in Haymarket with this ethos in mind. Carolyn is a lecturer at the National Art School, and a member of research group Intermedial Composition Network at the University of New South Wales.

More about Carolyn's work: http://www.carolyncraig.com

Originally aired on Eastside Radio 89.7FM on 17 February 2025.

Sympoiesis radio show is produced on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation, traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respect and gratitude to the elders past, present, and yet to come.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sympoiesisradioshow
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sympoiesis_radio_show

PRESENTER/INTERVIEWER: Ira Ferris (www.instagram.com/artemisprojects)

EP70: Carolyn Craig (Algaeic Intent, Firstdraft)

Conversation with choreographer and dancer EMMA HARRISON about HIGH OCTANE, her latest choreographic work premiering at Campbeltown Arts Centre on 27 March 2025. 

HIGH OCTANE is a super-charged dance work that reflects on the forces that drive us. This electrifying performance challenges us to rethink our relationship with success, power, and the relentless pursuit of more. In a world fuelled by competition, HIGH OCTANE takes us on a high-speed ride through ambition, self-identity, and the price of making it to the top.

More about Emma's work: https://emmaharrison.info

Originally aired on Eastside Radio 89.7FM on 17 March 2025.

Sympoiesis radio show is produced on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation, traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respect and gratitude to the elders past, present, and yet to come.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sympoiesisradioshow
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sympoiesis_radio_show

PRESENTER/INTERVIEWER: Ira Ferris (www.instagram.com/artemisprojects)

EP71: Emma Harrison (High Octane - Campbelltown Arts Centre)

Conversation with artist THOMAS THORBY-LISTER about his solo exhibition SITE ACTIONS showing at Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf from 9th of April. to 11 May 2025

SITE ACTIONS is an exhibition of site-responsive paintings that engage with the natural environment that surrounds Woollahra Gallery. The landscape acts as an active participant in the creative process, with elements such as rain, wind, sun and water leaving marks on the sheets of linen, which are eventually rendered in subtle monochromatic tones to reflect the natural hues of the environment. 

Allowing the natural forces to shape and imprint their textures onto the fabric, Thomas Thorby-Lister relinquishes a part of his agency to give a greater voice to nature and engage in the collaborative process of ‘making with’ more-than-human. 

More about Emma's work: https://www.thomasthorbylister.com

Originally aired on Eastside Radio 89.7FM on 31 March 2025.

Sympoiesis radio show is produced on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation, traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respect and gratitude to the elders past, present, and yet to come.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sympoiesisradioshow
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sympoiesis_radio_show

PRESENTER/INTERVIEWER: Ira Ferris (www.instagram.com/artemisprojects)

EP72: Thomas Thorby-Lister (Woollahra Gallery - Site Actions)

Conversation with dancer and choreographer JASMIN SHEPPARD about PREPARING GROUND – a new dance work that invites us to join First Peoples’ care of Land as an urgent act for our shared future.

PREPARING GROUND is a First Nations-led dance work co-directed by pioneering indigenous artist Marilyn Miller, alongside Jasmin Sheppard and Katina Olsen. It dances of the future Future—a world where care for Country and community continues generationally. It reminds us that our survival depends on an enduring relationship with the land, and that the path forward is one we must walk together.

More about this work: https://www.blakdance.org.au/articles/preparing-ground

Also featured on the show, a music from SOUND THE ALARM, a 16-piece ensemble led by double bassist Clayton Thomas, in response to the genocide in Palestine. 

The track was recorded during their live performance at Johnston Street Jazz (June 2024). The music is a composed improvisation, described by Clayton as “a sonic allegory and a simple way to collect human energy in the right place for the right reasons.”

All the proceeds from the album go towards humanitarian aid in Gaza: https://claytonthomas.bandcamp.com


Originally aired on Eastside Radio 89.7FM on 12 May 2025.

The track featured at the very beginning is by Samuel Pankhurst who is a sound designer on PREPARING GROUND. 

Sympoiesis radio show is produced on the Gadigal land of the Eora nation, traditional custodians of this land. We pay our respect and gratitude to the elders past, present, and yet to come.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sympoiesisradioshow
Instagram: www.instagram.com/sympoiesis_radio_show

PRESENTER/INTERVIEWER: Ira Ferris (www.instagram.com/artemisprojects)

EP73: Jasmin Sheppard (Preparing Ground)

ASTRID LORANGE is Sydney based poet, performer, researcher and academic whose book ‘How Reading is Written’ (2015) explores the legacy of Gertrude Stein and challenges the settled conventions of language. Astrid believes that language – both in writing and reading – should be open to experimentation; always kept fresh and innovative. Language, in other words, should be a constant discovery. On 27 February 2015, Ira Ferris interviewed Astrid on Eastside Radio 89.7FM. 

For more about this episode see: https://artiris.wordpress.com/2015/03/07/queering-the-language-with-astrid-lorange/

Interview with poet and researcher Astrid Lorange: QUEERING THE LANGUAGE (Feb 2015)

Recorded on the occasion of DEAR SYLVIA exhibition, a group photomedia exhibition inspired by life of American poet Sylvia Plath.  

The Australian Centre for Photography (ACP)exhibition was curated by Claire Monneraye and featured works of nine female international artists who examine the representation of the female body and the female condition in contemporary society – whether this society is a developed, Western world (i.e. France, UK, Australia, Netherlands) or a country such as Romania, Ukraine, Palestine, South America, and Israel where not only female but human rights in general are under constant and extreme threat.

Through variety of photographic styles and genres, these nine female photomedia artist depict female body as both fragile and suffocated, as well as a powerful and vibrant agent of revolutionary change. In doing so they portray the complexity of Sylvia Plath’s own condition as unconventionally passionate women, a spirit eager to fly high and free in a society where freedom, joy and superfluous love was discouraged, perhaps even ridiculed.

On Thursday 5 February, Ira Ferris spoke to Claire Monneraye, the exhibition’s curator and Marlous van der Sloot, a Dutch photographer whose body of work features in the exhibition and examines the ways photography can be used to restore physicality to our overly rational minds; to encourage return to senses in what could be seen as a “touch starved” society. Marlous images re-establish connection between animal and human creating distortions that prompt us to re-learn to see.

“So we shall walk barefoot on walnut shells
of withered worlds, and stamp out puny hells
and heavens till the spirits squeak
surrender: to build our bed as high as jack’s
bold beanstalk; lie and love till sharp scythe hacks
away our rationed days and weeks.” ~ Sylvia Plath

Interview with curator Claire Monneraye & photographer Marlous van der Sloot (Feb 2015)

Sydney-based performance artist Frances Barrett discusses the long-durational performance art: the strategies employed in physical and mental preparation for the endurance pieces, potential ethical concerns involved, questions of time and altered state of consciousness this genre of performance art elicits, and much more. 

Is the intention behind the long-durational performance to put the audience in an uncomfortable position? Click play to find out. 

This show was inspired by the visit to Australia of the renowned New York based artist Tehching Hsieh, who is considered a “master” of the durational performance genre.

More info:
https://artiris.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/on-endurance-art-with-frances-barrett-2/

Interview with performance artist Frances Barrett: ENDURANCE ART (April 2014)

Macushla Robinson, assistant curator of contemporary international art at the Art Gallery of NSW, talks about Sol LeWitt, conceptual art pioneer whose 40 years of practice is currently showing at the Art Gallery of NSW. 

In late 60s Sol LeWitt wrote famous Paragraphs and Sentences on Conceptual Art and forged a new way of thinking about art practice, where idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work and the execution is only a perfunctory affair. 

More info: https://artiris.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/talking-sol-lewitt/#more-574

Interview with curator Macushla Robinson: TALKING CONCEPTUAL ART PIONEER SOL LEWITT (March 2014)

When we think of Pop Art we usually think of it as being a male dominated movement. Names such as Warhol, Lichtenstein, or Hamilton immediately spring to mind while it is almost impossible to recall a single female artist. But back in the days (1960s) pop art was not all about the blokes; female shared the art scene and the success with their male peers grappling with sexuality and consumer culture as much as their male counterparts. What has happened since and why have they fallen off the art historical map?

We speak to curator Maura Reilly and art historian Catriona Moore to shine the light back on them and expand the preconditioned understanding of what falls into the pop art movement.

Maura Reilly is a New York and Sydney-based curator, arts writer, and educator. In 2007, together with Linda Nochlin, she co-curated critically acclaimed Global Feminisms exhibition, a major international exhibition of feminist contemporary art. Maura is also a Founding Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, the very first exhibition and public programing space in a U.S. museum devoted exclusively to feminist art. Her most recent publication Curatorial Activism: Toward an Ethics of Curating will be available in 2015.

Catriona Moore is art historian and the University of Sydney lecturer specialised in modern, postmodern and contemporary art with particular interest in feminist art and writing. In 2013, Catriona co-founded Contemporary Art & Feminism project steered by academics and curators with a long-standing commitment to the making, documentation, analysis and promotion of art practice and art writing informed by feminism.

Interview art historians Maura Reilly & Catriona Moore: DESTABILIZING THE POP ART CANON (Dec '14)

PODCAST-CONVERSATIONS with artists and art theorists, from visual to performing arts, discussing conceptual frameworks and philosophical outlooks. Also some SOUND-COLLAGES, assembled together on variety of themes, such as: sleep, silence, intuition, collaboration, failure, and more. 

Available via iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/artemis-projects/id1462300886

PRODUCER & HOST: Ira Ferris (https://www.artemisprojects.com.au/projects-ira-ferris)

EP73: Jasmin Sheppard (Preparing Ground)

Artemis Projects