Unmasked - Episode 4

Jasper Peach 00:01

This is Unmasked. My name is Jasper Peach and where I'm standing is Stolen land. The rightful owners are the Wirantjuri people of the Kulin Nation. There was also time spent on Jara Country where I live in the lead-up. And these places hold histories that were once caring and kind for country, for all living beings, for the waterways and earth and sky. Then an arrogant decision was made that none of that was real and that the white men knew better than the oldest living culture on planet earth.

There was a monumentally bad choice made that still impacts First Nations people, country and all of us today. It's important to frame where we are, what memories are held in places and especially when we're launching into a show about a group of people and we're telling you who we are and showing you.

I've been looking in the rearview mirror lately, reckoning with all the times that I thought I wasn't good. I'm rewriting that historical account of self -hood with a far more compassionate gaze than I had capacity for in the past. I spent a lifetime feeling perpetually mystified by my inability to find ease in the way I assumed my peers did. 

Picture it, it's 1987. I'm in grade one, it's really exciting, it's nearly Easter time and my beautiful grade one teacher had laid out some activities for us to do. Colouring in some Easter eggs and drawing some rabbits and there was egg decorating. Two dozen eggs lay pristine, all the egg blown out of them through little pinpricks, just sitting there in their carton waiting to be decorated by all the kids. I knew I was clumsy but I was so scared and embarrassed when I couldn't pick up a single egg without crushing it. I kept trying and they all shattered one after another as I became more and more worried that I was going to ruin Easter for everyone. It's very powerful to be an egg crusher in this world where neurotypical fine motor skills are assumed. 

I don't remember what happened next but I do remember that feeling of my heart just stopping. Why can't I do this easy thing? Why do my actions mean that other kids will miss out? I'm trying so hard, I'm focusing as best I can. I still feel that sharp pain associated when I do things wrong but now I understand the why it is so much kinder in my head.

Neurodivergent people are everywhere and the world isn't usually designed with us in mind but we find our way. We make new pathways, new ways of living, we eventually find our people. It gets better, it can be tricky, both these things are true. So let's hang out in a safe space, do our thing, nobody has to handle any eggs today. I think of neurodivergent possibilities and it kind of reminds me of weddings. If you've only seen a penguin and a meringue getting married in a church you've probably got no idea that it's possible to wear overalls and go on a ferris wheel when you get hitched.

There's more than one way to skin a carrot. So the people that we're talking with today create visual reminders of that. Hopefully none using eggs. Let's unmask. to Neil, you are here. Thank you for joining me on Unmasked. People might know you as Ten Fingers with a Z because it's gangster. So the whole thing with this show is called Unmasked because if we feel like saying weird stuff that pops into our head, that's what can happen and that's going to happen a lot because already you were going at this and I was, I had to do it too and now I kind of want to do a bit of a, yeah.

But we're talking about visual art and creating and how people express themselves and I'm really excited to have you in. So can I say stuff that I think is true about you and then you can tell me if I was on the money and then what was missing? Okay, yeah. So here are the things I think are true about you. You love purple. Do you know? It's just, I just had a feeling. You're a brilliant writer I love your writing. We met through our friend Mech and you joined the emergency services to do some doomsday prepping kind of education and involvement and you enjoy and are exhausted by attending doofs.

You create moveable, physically moveable, wearable visual art which is also commentary on fast fashion and landfill and the climate emergency... and now I'm going to throw it over to you. What do you reckon?

Teneille Clerke 05:14

Okay, so yeah, I love doofs, but there's no good doofs in Australia putting it out there. Maybe one secret doofs that I know about. Yeah, I've joined the Victorian State Emergency Services to give back to my community as well as low-key prep for the apocalypse. And yeah, I also do broadcasting on like Twitch and also recently on Triple R. And sometimes I do theatre, all kinds of things.

Jasper Peach 05:47

Yeah, how did you come to be making this kind of visual art?

Teneille Clerke 05:53

Well, I originally studied photography and media arts and through that I started working in the fashion industry as a photographer and a stylist and quite quickly realised that I don't really fit into like a nine to five job or even do very well at freelance sort of stuff where I have a client and then I met some artists who are doing performance art and just very improvised, silly sort of radical self-expression type things and then just fell in with that crowd and then I mean it's a long story but like the short of it is that we decided as a group that we wanted to start putting on some kind of event that people could come and experience art.

And we realised we wanted to put on fashion shows and so from that we started putting on underground fashion shows - that started in a warehouse not far from here, an elephant warehouse with a runway built out of milk crates, and just showcasing performance art and visual art and fashion and then over the years it's evolved into like I realised people were still just coming and sitting there and just consuming which I found really boring and thinking Oh I'm really cool, I'm going to a fashion show... and I was just like No, this isn't enough.

So now we force people to actually create the fashion show with us. People come down, we have a pile of clothing waste, people rummage through the clothing waste and then they make outfits sometimes just using safety pins or sewing machines and then there's a runway show every hour on the hour that you then wear your creation in so that you are the model and the maker.

Jasper Peach 07:48

Yeah, something that stuck out from what you just said was it wasn't enough, I know that feeling. I need more intensity, I need to lean in harder to this idea, I need to do seven different projects in the time that it would take someone else one year to do. And do you think that's like a neurodivergent thing, where it's a sensory seeking?

Teneille Clerke 08:14

Oh, definitely. I just finished, like, a stint of three months of, like, really hardcore art making. Like, me and my art collective had a residency in North Melbourne called Decay Mart, and through that we were putting on workshops and events all the time. And at the same time as that was happening, we were doing shows down in Geelong at the Wool Museum there. We did a residency in a school. Then I had a show on Triple R as a summer film. And then we went up to Sydney Festival and did, like, the biggest gig we've ever done.

And then I've gone to no stimulus and, like, a creative come down. And I think it's something that we don't talk about enough of, like, what do you do after? Because I have a tendency to spiral into depression. So this time I've been trying to sit with, like, the low stimulus.

Jasper Peach 09:06

Do people often say to you, Why are you doing so much, that's so much and they'll they'll put like a measurement on on the intensity that feels like a regular kind of day in that is it like a boom and bust cycle, like sometimes that works for people...

Teneille Clerke 09:23

Yeah, I don't know if it works for me, but I can't stop.

Jasper Peach 09:27

What's the alternative? 'Cause I know it doesn't work for me either. I mean, let's be real. It goes very badly. But I find the transition from one state to another so excruciating. And how do you not just go Clunk? How do you ratchet down, kind of?

Teneille Clerke 09:50

Well at the moment it's helping because I collaborate with, I have two art collectives and one's called Fast Fashion and we just had like we called it our annual general meeting. Not a company or anything. But this is what we discuss because we have a reflection of other people and we're all chronically ill, disabled, neurodiverse, mentally ill, all have different capacities at different times... and we're like, this isn't sustainable, what we're doing. And we're called Fast Fashion just like, we don't need to be fast.

Things should be slow - so we're starting to like plan years in advance and do projects like apply for things that are next year. What? I know. Is that exciting?

Jasper Peach 10:31

Yeah, it does. You're blowing my mind, man. Yeah.

Teneille Clerke 10:36

And that's just come out of, like yeah, pure necessity of We can't keep it up. Also we're all in our late 40s, late 30s I mean. It's not the same as when we were making art in our 20s or even early 30s, it's like, it's... we just can't be up all night at the last minute making something or...

Jasper Peach 10:57

Yeah, can you show us a bit of your work?

Teneille Clerke 11:01

Yes, here's something I prepared earlier!

Jasper Peach 11:07

So this is a zine, magazine, and there's been a few additions.

Teneille Clerke 11:12

Yeah so this is the second of three editions. I didn't have one of the... latest one on me because we just got them reprinted. So our art collective has a zine, and this is when we do these events that I mentioned before, we try and take photos of everything that's created and then they go into the zine. Our latest zine, the subtitle on it is Dress Rehearsals for the Apocalypse - because in what we're trying to do is engage people in an understanding of what's going on with different aspects of the climate emergency, and giving people a place to express how that makes them feel.

And then I wanted to take that to the next level, which is like, starting to be prepared for what's coming and what's happening right now. And so our latest zine is all about different writers and thinkers ideas of what they think you should know to be prepared. So there's stuff like mutual aid, creating a first aid kit, using herbs - something that you can do yourself, different things about protest culture... I wrote a profile on someone, a queer who moved to the bush from the city to the bush, this thing that we're... lots of people dream of doing and living on a farm.

Jasper Peach 12:30

What I've loved about talking with you about, I guess particularly like apocalypse preparation, is that you also have things to say about making it accessible for people. Because I think about the emergency services and I've got a lot of physical co-morbidities where, you know, if there's a flood, I can't climb onto the roof. I can't live stuff. I just assume game over. Wow, it's getting dark. That's just where it goes. 

But yeah, what are the ways that people who, I guess, might be close to mental health crisis at any given moment or have physical disability or chronic illness, what are ways that we can be caring and involved in preparing for hardship that's coming as a result of fast fashion and the terrible crimes that have been permitted against this planet?

Teneille Clerke 13:37

Well I guess one of the things like the main thing for me is just like, everyone should just start connecting with other people and... building community, and that doesn't mean you have to even do anything, just like be connected with other people - and then if you want to start talking about like people who live near you setting up little mutual aid, checking in on other people and just talking about what would you do because especially like, you live out where there's like threat of bushfire, and so you'd want to be talking to neighbors and friends about like what what theior plans are, what to prepare. 

And then there's like... lots of different resources online, like the SES just has quite easy basic, like they, how to put together an emergency kit, and that information... there's information for children as well as adults, and so like there's, why not look at something that's for kids - way more fun! I'm obsessed with like, the community education that's for kids, and I'm like Well we should just use that for adults too. Like they have like a fish tank and they'll just put all these different stuff that's in flood water, and there's like a fake snake in there, and I'm like, See that is going to get people's attention.

Jasper Peach 15:01

And it's it's kinetic. It's it's dynamic. You're actually interacting with it. And it's not just a flat screen with words where it looks like soup to lots of us. Yeah, I don't know...

Teneille Clerke 15:11

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And just, yeah, the SES, I mean, I obviously just, yeah, preached for the SES, but like a lot of their resources are just very accessible. Like, they've been thinking about it for a long time. And so there is just like videos that you can watch if you want to know about floods and what to do in a flood. And also the SES, if you're in a flood zone, and there is the risk of flood, they'll probably come and knock on your door and tell you. Yeah.

Jasper Peach 15:43

We had a flood at our place about two years ago and the front yard was like a lake and my kids, they just took off all their clothes and swam in it.

Teneille Clerke 15:55

Wait, before you go on, because I just want to say you shouldn't get in floodwater because it often has syringe in it, or snakes.

Jasper Peach 16:03

Yeah. It's not a good idea. I would love if my children would be reasonable but they are not. Don't drive through floodwater. Please don't get in the floodwater. Thanks for having a juicy chat and I'm going to bring in our next guest.

Jasper Peach 16:18

But yeah, I'd like to welcome Antonia Sellbach. Hello. 

Antonia Sellbach

Hi. Thank you for having me. 

Jasper Peach 

Thanks for being here in the telly. So I'm going to say some things that I think are true about you and after that you can tell me if there's other things that people should know or if I've got anything wrong because I'd please do tell me. So I feel like you and I, we're both these deeply sensitive reactive people. We're really massively impacted by emotion in ourselves and others. 

You're a member of the post-punk indie rock band Love of Diagrams and your visual arts practice. It's so fascinating to me. It belies a simplicity. It's almost a meditation on shape, repetition and meaning. How did that description feel for you?

Antonia Sellbach 17:11

I like that description.

Jasper Peach 17:11

Alright, thank you. Is there anything you want to add to tell people about yourself and your art?

Antonia Sellbach 17:19

Sure, I think in, so in my artwork, I started out by using a lot of like self-imposed rules and setting like limitations for myself to follow that were quite like restrictive. And then I noticed like over time that that helped me reveal all of these little like idiosyncrasies and differences and like wobbly edges and things like that. And yeah, that's I guess sort of what I find interesting about making work is that like paradox between sort of following, you know, repetition and following rules and structure, but then sort of exploring the more freeform stuff within that.

Jasper Peach 18:10

What does it feel like in your mind and in your body when you're painting?

Antonia Sellbach 18:17

I would say that I go into a flow state where everything just kind of calms down and all the background noise goes away and I can just kind of focus on the shapes that I'm working with.

Jasper Peach 18:31

So, when people respond to your art and tell you how it makes them feel, do you connect to that or does that feel kind of separate to you?

Antonia Sellbach 18:44

No, I love that. I love that because, you know, art is all about connection, that's why I make artwork and it's that desire to sort of reach beyond yourself and, you know, your weirdness or your idiosyncrasies, and kind of put tendrils out there into the world and sort of connect, so it doesn't matter at all if somebody has a different perspective on their work, I welcome that.

Jasper Peach 19:13

I loved earlier when you were describing that the background noise fades away when you can get into that flow state. Is it kind of a swift process for you to drop into that? Or I don't know if drop is the right word, is it ascend to that or how do you help yourself get into that mode?

Antonia Sellbach 19:35

I would say that it's almost instantaneous and the things that helped me get into that mode would be picking up an object, looking at it, standing back, you know, going to get a new vantage point, just moving around the room and handling objects and then maybe painting something and then just getting into relationship with the objects and the colours and the forms in a space that also involves movement. I think it's a combination of all of those things but it's almost instantaneous.

Jasper Peach 20:11

Yeah, I'm jealous of you because it could take it could take me like I need to faff around for ages and do something that's not related to the thing I actually need to be doing for it to click into gear. Like I have all these rules in my head like Oh, I can't possibly be creative until the kitchen's clean... which is really good that it doesn't matter to anyone else whether the kitchen is clean, but it's like these steps to to being allowed to be in that expressive space.

Antonia Sellbach 20:46

Do you find that you can be creative doing mundane tasks as well?

Jasper Peach 20:50

I feel like it kind of marinates while I'm doing Bozo stuff, and then all of a sudden I'll be like Oh... and I need to go and run to the keyboard and start writing or whatever it is, yeah.

Antonia Sellbach 21:04

Yeah, because I had a big break from art making over the summer holidays just because my [kid?] was at home with me. And I went back to the studio for the first time the other day and I just felt all of these ideas just drop in.
And it was like, from not doing anything with those ideas and being distracted and doing kind of, you know, mundane tasks and also joyful tasks during the holiday break. I'd kind of given myself this break, and then all of a sudden the rubber band just kind of snaps back, and as soon as I was in the studio I just heard Ping ping ping ping! You know, ideas so maybe you know, those mundane tasks are actually productive.

Jasper Peach 21:45

Can you show us some of your art? Is that your art behind you?

Antonia Sellbach 21:51

This is my art behind me, I'm not sure how well you can see, I can just try and do this. So this is from the series that I was telling you about before where I was kind of following this rule of doing paintings. Like I did 50 of these large scale paintings and they all involved these straight lines... and there were like all the lines are 4.5 centimetres wide, but then within that as I was kind of undertaking this series I started to find that I was carving into the edge. And that there were like wobbly lines and paint was bleeding out and there were all these sort of little details that I otherwise wouldn't have really noticed.

Another example, I've got my PhD here. It's  a hefty tome.

Jasper Peach 22:48

Gosh.

Antonia Sellbach 22:49

So this isn't odd.

Jasper Peach 22:50

I'm sorry, should I, okay, Antonia, should I have said Dr. Antonia Sellbach when I introduced you? 

Antonia Sellbach

No, that makes me uncomfortable. 

Jasper Peach

Okay, well, I will not do that then. That's beautiful. And when you're, when you're creating a PhD around your artwork, I've never done a PhD. I don't have an undergrad. I have no idea what happens in that world. How do you, how do you go about writing about something that comes so naturally to you? Is it about describing what happens and what it means or what happens for you in that...?

Antonia Sellbach 23:27

I think it was quite a long, fraught process and I think a lot of people who have done it would say similar. I think for me what I had to do was learn to discern that instinct is powerful and that intuition is powerful and then to sit with the uncertainty of not knowing if my experiment, like my research, was going to fail or succeed, but just to kind of follow the breadcrumbs. So if something excited me or I heard something related to the ideas I was looking at, I think, Great, another breadcrumbs.

Whilst also feeling completely like imposter syndrome, completely not academic. You know, it took me seven and a half years to do, so it wasn't an easy thing. And particularly as someone with chronic illness and anxiety, it was like a whole process of going between bursts of activity and then getting burnt out. But it was super rewarding as well because I got to follow these ideas which led me to really interesting places.

Jasper Peach 24:47

There's some themes that have come up for both of you today about sitting in discomfort and learning how to, I guess, accept that that's part of things. I find that really hard too, like does anyone have an app or something where we can fast track just feeling better in discomfort? What are the tricks? Do I just need to do the work? I mean, what have you found, Antonia, in your relationship to discomfort? 

Antonia Sellbach 25:27

I don't know. Discomfort sucks. I don't know. I think maybe what helps me, admitting that I feel uncomfortable, being in spaces, and I think spaces around us in the world are slowly changing to become a little bit more welcoming of people and their feelings. But yeah, being able to tell somebody that I feel uncomfortable definitely helps. But I do also think we're sort of living in a broken society and I think it's becoming an invisible tool of us at the moment.

And I think we're probably all, I think everybody in general is dealing with levels of discomfort that I don't think are tenable and that do lead to things like burnout. And actually maybe another answer to that question would be, for me, regulation, co-regulation, which does happen through connection.

Jasper Peach 26:29

Yeah, you were talking about building community and connecting with people, again another theme that's come up that's so important and I know when I feel isolated and disconnected from others that's when my thoughts can race and I can assume bad things about myself or others.

Jasper Peach 26:58

I'd love to hear a bit about the ways you're communicating your values and your beliefs in your artwork. What is it that you want people to know, and how are you telling them?

Teneille Clerke 27:15

I think like fundamentally that we're not alone, and that there is other ways of doing things and... like I was really raised to question authority and question anything and everything that is put in front of me, and so I think a lot of what's behind my art practice is reminding people that in different ways.

Jasper Peach 27:42

Beautiful. So Antonia, when you're painting and you're in that beautiful flow state, and I can only assume it feels sort of like, like mine, it just feels really like I'm just, I don't have brain constipation anymore. It's all happening. And is there, is there a message that you are trying to communicate to others or is it more about the exploration of your inner world?

Antonia Sellbach 28:11

I think often with my painting, I just, I add and subtract forms until something happens in my brain where my brain goes, ah, and it's like my brain is happy and the balance there is perfect and it doesn't make any sense, it's not like a formal balance, like everything's in the centre perfectly. They're kind of weird and often they're jarring in a bit of kilter, but there's something about the combination that just makes everything in me relax. 

And I've had interesting feedback from people who live with my work where they say that they can disappear into the work and it makes them feel relaxed as well. So it could just be that there are some innate qualities to do with forms and space that we don't fully understand with our brains but that they do have an effect in the way that we feel. So I know if I feel like that then the painting is finished and then I sort of just get it out there into the world and let it live its life.

Jasper Peach 29:23

What's it like to sort of release them, I guess?

Antonia Sellbach 29:27

Yeah, well, I guess I have documentation of them. It is sad. I kind of think of them as little friends. But it's also nice to think that somebody saw something in that work and is living with it. So it's nice to imagine that.

Jasper Peach 29:48

I've been thinking about neurodivergent possibilities and frankly I think we could do a better job with big picture stuff as a group, as a community and we've got this kind of representation of our collective brain power. I'd love for each of you to give me something to put into the bucket and at the end of the series I'm going to write up a story of them all put together, woven together. Would you like to go first Teneille

Teneille Clerke 30:22

Yeah, sure. Okay, so I don't know how big-picture this is, but I'd just like to be able to lie down more. Oh, yes. Just like, just wherever I am, just like...

Jasper Peach 30:35

Yeah, I am all for that particular idea. Would you like to add it to our Utopia bucket? Thank you Teneille. Beautiful addition. And Antonia, because your magic pixels on a screen, I'm going to write for you if that's OK. And summarise as best I can. What would you like to add to the bucket?

Antonia Sellbach 30:55

I would say just further education on, like regulation and co-regulation, so that people start to kind of hone their skills, discerning where another person is at and what their needs might be.

Jasper Peach 31:18

That is so juicy. Oh my gosh, I'm already excited about our Utopia. If you want an invite, you've got to be inclusive and cool. So thank you both so much. It's been so nice to have a chat with you both and really just to explore what's going on for both of you. I'm really, really, really lovely to think about all these ideas and talk about them together and build a little world here. It's, you know, it's really important when someone comes to your brain cave that you give them a gift.

So I've got, look, I'm not allowed to take this box home. It's full of unfinished craft projects. And I think for you, Teneille, I've got lions that I made when my first child was born in 2017. I was like, I'm going to make every astrology sign. And so I made Leo the lion, and I think I made two of them and that's as far as I got. So if you'd like to continue, you can also say no because I'm not the boss of you. And Antonia, I think, hmm, I wonder if you'd like something that's a bit like outside of your regular thing.

Do you want me to make a little panda? Yeah, I'll make a panda. Yeah, I got that from the servo one day when my youngest was, man, they were so angry at me because I wouldn't let them buy bubblegum. And I was like, You can have this, and then I promised to finish it for them and I did not. So would you, yeah. I will finish it for you. 

Antonia Sellbach

Oh, I really appreciate that. 

Jasper Peach

I love to send these tendrils out. I think we, did you say the word tendrils before, Teneille? I don't know. Someone did and I was like, was it you? Thank you. Yeah, such a good word.

Teneille Clerke 33:17

I'll be really honest, I will never finish this for you.

Jasper Peach 33:20

Okay, do you want to take it or do you want to give it back and put it in the tub? It's completely up to you. 

Teneille Clerke
I want to put it back. 

Jasper Peach

That's alright, yeah. Thanks for being honest, and we don't have to do stuff that's just going to be boring and sit there forever.

Teneille Clerke 33:34

We have like an entire room just filled with clothing waste and like, you know, half of the projects and stuff, you know, it's a, I can give you stuff.

Jasper Peach 33:44

No. My partner would not be happy if I came... this is the tip of the iceberg. All right, I'm going to drop this in your letterbox, Antonia. Thank you so much for Unmasking together and it's been a great day of chat.

Antonia and Teneille  33:58

Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Thanks.