- For Artists
- Creative Developments
- The Road Knows
The Road Knows
A work that examines the stories and people that travel the 199 Bus Route in Brisbane.
Dates
20 - 27 Feb 2023Location
Metro Arts Studios, West EndDuring his creative development, poet and writer Greg Manning will delve into the history of Brisbane via the 199 Bus Route.
The ideas underpinning The Road Knows were conceived in 2014, when he was an operator of the City Sights bus tour.
From the Artist:
“The city, between Brunswick and the Queen streets speaks. They say, “Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Dead, knows that Judith Wright wrote a poem about the Queen’s sister.” Ereshkigal wants to the see the Judith Wright Centre, but she cannot, so she sends her gatekeepers on the 199 bus route.”
“This work is designed for commuters. Most people feel quite familiar with their regular journeys. However, they may have never heard the route they use speak for them-self. The City, in this performance, is both co-writer and character. As co-writer, they are telling a particular tale. As a character, they are showing that they have many tales to tell.”
Image: Russell Shakespeare
The artists
GREG MANNING - Co-writer and Concept artist
Greg is a poet and writer. He works in collaborations, where conflicted and conflicting communities explore their fragile experience of shared identity. Greg’s collaborations involving poetry and audience engagement began in New Delhi, amongst emerging HIV epidemics during the global ‘war on drugs’.
During his term in public health work, Greg’s creative approaches and artistic practice occasionally bubbled into public prominence. There was an artist’s book in the Pompidou Centre in Paris, a film festival in Canada, and musical programmes in remote tribal churches in India, for example.
The ideas underpinning ‘The Road Knows’ were conceived in 2014, when he was an operator of the City Sights bus tour. Since then, he has been developing his artistic practice based upon how people combine place names in their day-to-day lives. The August 2022 edition of the ‘Queensland History Journal’ contains Greg’s recent essay, ‘Good-bye Redcoats’.
PIYALI GHOSH - Visual Artist
Piyali Ghosh is a multi-disciplinary artist, receiving a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India and Bachelor’s in Visual Arts from Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship, Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata. Piyali has exhibited widely both in India and internationally and has completed artist residencies in London, Brisbane, Townsville, Russia, Ireland.
She has participated in international video art programs (recently in Torrance Art Museum, 2022). She participated in X Shyriaevo Biennale of Contemporary Arts, Russia, 2018 and has had many solo drawing performances and site-specific installations nationally and internationally. In 2019 she participated in a group exhibition in Venice and delivered a live drawing performance during the opening week of the Venice Biennale.
Piyali was Artist in Residence at the Museum of Brisbane in 2019 and her work was featured in “Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945” published by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
NASIM KHOSRAVI - Performance Director
Born in the south of Iran. Nasim has a background spanning almost twenty years in theatre; devised performance, playwriting and directing of theatrical productions.
Nasim migrated to Australia and founded Baran, an Iranian-Australian theatre group in Brisbane, 2013, and has developed and created 3 performances at Metro Arts.
‘Vis and Ramin’ was subsequently performed in Melbourne, and ‘Tower of Babel’ was nominated for a Matilda Award for Best Video Design. Nasim is a theatre graduate from Tehran University, Faculty of Fine Arts.
FREDDY KOMP - Technical Director
Freddy works in theatre and event production and loves delving into multi-disciplinary forays across AV, Set, and Lighting Design (nominated for 2 Groundling Awards and 2 Matilda Awards).
He worked on such AV Visual Arts Installations as “Living Rocks: A Fragment of the Universe” (Venice Biennale 2019) and ZKM Karlsruhe’s “The Beauty of Early Life” 2022. He loves a good challenge that demands a variety of skills and creative problem solving.
Freddy led the production teams at Adelaide Film Festival (2015-2018) and Hybrid World Adelaide (2017, 18) before returning to Queensland (as technical manager for Brisbane Festival 19’s Arcadia, and technical director for Little Red Company’s first Lord Mayor’s Christmas Carols 2021).
Freddy has worked with accomplished directors including Bridget Boyle, Margi Brown-Ash, Shaun Charles, Daniel Evans, David Fenton, Michael Futcher, Eugene Gilfedder, Nasim Khosravi, Benjamin Knapton, Andy Packer, Benjamin Schostakowski, Garry Stewart, and Genevieve Trace
BRISBANE CITY - Co-Writer
Brisbane City has joined the creative team for ‘The Road Knows’ as co-writer. The City’s narratives come in the form of relationships summarised by combinations and sequences of place names. T
he City has had a long career in the broadcast media of print, radio and television. They have featured prominently in advertising, commonly scripting short 2 word phrases, such as addresses, which explore the surprising and unlikely relationships between street and suburb names. More recently, the City provides one of the most popular prime-time radio voices, in the binge-worthy three word phrases of traffic reports.
‘The Road Knows’ creative development, marks a significant transition from broadcast media to live theatre in the City’s artistic practice. The sequence of place names along the 199 bus route has never been a secret, but the City has finally decided that it is time to bring some stories to the stage
WATCH INTERVIEW
Acknowledgements
The Road Knows is part of Metro Arts 2023 Creative Development Program.