CuriousWorks enables communities to tell their own stories: powerfully and sustainably.
We’re constantly innovating the connection between art, education and technology.
We’re steadily building a future where all Australians have regular access to self-directed, compelling stories from the margins of our society.
We do not document or represent those in the margins. We give them the tools and the training to speak for themselves.
We respectfully collaborate with communities to create innovative, acclaimed artistic product that celebrates their culture.
Step by step, we’re growing a new generation of storytellers by building cutting-edge arts and media capacity in the most under-resourced places in the country. Our process empowers – rather than exploits – those communities and brings long term, positive change to lives of our storytellers.
[MEET] Another Australia: Or dig deeper and browse stories from a particular person or group – check out Curtis Taylor,Matta Media and Matt Sutton to get started!
CuriousWorks is releasing an album of songs from its most recent production, The Other Journey.
Lush, immersive and reflective, The Other Journey EP casts four beautiful songs that will take you across the face of the world and back home again.
To celebrate the release, The Other Journey EP is available with a limited edition run of gorgeous printed bird art. You can also choose to take home just the physical or digital album.
Buy the album here: Bandcamp (all options, directly from us) iTunes || Amazon (digital download only)
CuriousWorks is releasing an album of songs from its most recent production, The Other Journey.
Lush, immersive and reflective, The Other Journey EP casts four beautiful songs that will take you across the face of the world and back home again.
The EP’s downtempo, global sound is inspired by the personal reflections of families that fled Sri Lanka’s civil war in the ’90s and ’00s and built a new life for themselves in Sydney, Australia. The opening Sea Song tells of a watery voyage and submersion; Sky Song wonders at the children and what they’ll remember; Sun Song celebrates the joy of being smitten by a new country; and Dust speaks of acceptance – of finally finding the space to grieve for those who were lost along the way.
Kurinji’s debut release also marks the arrival of the remarkable Aimée Falzon – her gorgeous vocals call out across Shakthi’s evocative sound beds, wrapping the listener up in a warm, silken embrace.
To celebrate the release, The Other Journey EP is available with a limited edition run of gorgeous printed bird art. You can also choose to take home just the physical or digital album.
Buy the album here: Bandcamp (all options, directly from us) iTunes || Amazon (digital download only)
The Other Journey EP
released 07 March 2013
All songs by Kurinji (Aimée Falzon and Shakthidharan Sivanathan)
Produced by Shakthidharan Sivanathan Mastered by Kathy Naunton
Guest Artists Tabla (Sea Song): Stephan Kantharajah Bass (Sea Song, Sky Song): Marc Chee
The Other Journey is part of The Lanka Project – a long-term, creative collaboration between CuriousWorks and Australia’s Sri Lankan community. Visit http://lankaproject.net/ to find out more.
From the first few moments it took my breath away.
So incredible. My heart… I don’t know how to feel. So beautiful.
Gut wrenching. The music just takes you in there.
Considering the tragedy inherent in these stories this was a wonderfully uplifting and amazing experience…. beautiful.
This is another level of experience – thank you for the journey, the senses are buzzing.
A sensory delight; informative, dream-like and profoundly moving. Thank you!
Totally immersive! I loved the creative use of space to tell a really engaging story. It will stay with me forever.
I was so moved by the whole experience… Thank you for putting together such a sensory odyssey. Will tell everyone about this.
I just spent three weeks at [international arts festival] being bombarded by art from around the world. This was a breath of fresh air.
The Other Journey is a unique art work: a multi-sensory, immersive storytelling experience.
The work is centred around honest, intimate stories from three people who fled a war in the villages of Sri Lanka to settle into the largest city in Australia. Set to a luscious score mixing South Asian and Western influences, the music and stories are played through portable audio players and headphones. During the work, the deep listening experience takes place in varied, beautiful settings: on a boat ride; under bird sculptures; amidst fire and oil lamps on a river bank; amongst whiffs of cinnamon and jasmine; surrounded by elegant, large-scale, outdoor video art. We like to think of it as an arts adventure.
The movement of refugees and immigrants across the world is usually relayed through statistics, news bites, policy and campaign. Through these channels, public responses generally alternate between scorn and pity. The Other Journey instead relays the intimacy, dignity and compromise that surrounds the decision to flee: and the courage, risk and transformation it takes to belong again to a new community.
The show is always adapted to its local environment and is most suited to quiet, reflective places (ideally by a river) just next to highly-visible, public meeting points. In special circumstances, the content itself can also be adapted to different cities and towns, with stories from the local Sri Lankan or a local migrant/refugee community in that place incorporated into the work.
Contact the director Shakthi Sivanathan to discuss further: shakthi@curiousworks.com.au.
Video footage from the Parramasala preview night with the community and collaborators(courtesy of Guido Gonzalez and Matta Media )
News story from SBS (an Australian TV channel) oftheParramasala preview night with the community and collaborators
ImagefromParramasala closing night (courtesy of the festival)
Imagesfrom theParramasala preview night with the community and collaborators (courtesy of Guido Gonzalez and Matta Media )
The Other Journey is created and presented by artists Shakthi Sivanathan and Aimée Falzon.
The Other Journey has had a few media mentions lately as one of the highlights of Parramasala 2011. Here are some snapshots from our press and links to the full ...
The Other Journey has had a few media mentions lately as one of the highlights of Parramasala 2011. Here are some snapshots from our press and links to the full articles.
Stories spice up Parramatta festival Jo Litson The Sunday Telegraph
Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: The Daily Telegraph
“Parramatta will come alive with the sights, sounds and spicy smells of South East Asia when Parramasala starts next Sunday. Now in its second year, the Australian Festival of South East Asian Arts - focused around Parramatta’s Riverside Theatres and city precinct at Town Hall and St John’s Cathedral Square – will feature film, theatre, dance, music, contemporary art, daily markets and free yoga classes. One of the highlights is the immersive, multi-media performance piece The Other Journey, which will be staged on a stretch of the Parramatta River.”
“Usually people who flee as refugees get turned into statistics. I do feel they are either scorned or pitied – but I guess if any of us were in those situations we’d probably do the same.”
The Other Journey Angela Bennetts Alternative Media Group
“The Parramatta River has witnessed countless tides of displacement and settlement. For this year’s Parramasala (Australia’s Festival of South Asian Arts) it will set the stage for a retelling of one such story, told in a way few will have seen before. Shakthi Sivanathan, of CuriousWorks explains further.
“The Other Journey is my attempt to give these lives a simple dignity and a familiarity. The way they tell their stories in the work, it’s very informal, intimate, reflective… it’s like being in someone’s living room for a night and going through a bottle of whiskey with them as you swap life stories. For the show we couldn’t include the whiskey bit of course, there would probably be some OH&S problems with that.”
