The Red Room Company
The Red Room Company is a non-profit organisation based in Sydney, Australia. Its aim is to "create, promote and distribute poetry by new and emerging Australian writers to the public in unusual ways."[1] It was established by Johanna Featherstone in 2002, emerging from the Red Room Radio Show, which broadcast on 89.7FM Eastside Radio from 2001.[1]
The Company fulfills its aims by creating alternative forms of poetry publication, such as radio, video, and new media.
Current projects
- Papercuts is the name for The Red Room Company's poetry education program which, with generous support from the Keir Foundation and the Ian Potter Foundation, was piloted in four NSW high schools during 2007. In 2008 it was expanded into Victoria and in 2009-2010 moved further interstate to Norfolk Island and Queensland schools. Papercuts focuses on Australian poetry and poetry's role in contemporary society. Written and implemented in conjunction with teachers, students and professionals in the education sector, our program has the potential to transform the way poetry is taught and experienced in Australian schools. Our education program is based around a single Red Room project we have already implemented successfully in the public sphere. For the 2009-2010 program we offered schools the options of The Cabinet of Lost and Found, originally presented at the 2006 Sydney Writers' Festival, and Toilet Doors, a project featured in 2004 and 2006.
In November 2010, KPMG hosted a Papercuts 'poetic excursion' to promote the program. A small anthology was printed, and Papercuts continues to grow in 2011. Papercuts is currently the only national poetry program available to high school students across Australia, unique in that it is designed to be a flexible unit of study that matches syllabus teaching and learning outcomes with the creative development and expression of students, through exposure to practising Australian poets. This exposure to contemporary poetic practise provides a level of insight that cannot be achieved through other means, allowing students to interrogate the process, as well as the end product, of their own and others' works. Our view of the importance and potential of poetry has been endorsed by students, teachers, poets, and education professionals, as well as by our benefactors.
- Sun Herald 'Extra' Poems sees poets old and new submitting their work to The Red Room Company for publication in the 'Extra' section of the Sun Herald. In 2009 the Sun Herald asked The Red Room Company to collect poems from their archive to be featured over the summer. Since then the focus has shifted to publishing writing from young and emerging Red Room collaborators.
- Stacks is The Red Room Company’s poetry-in-libraries series in 2011. A series of poetry readings and workshops for students and the general public, will be held in City of Sydney Libraries, facilitated by eminent Australian poets. Each workshop will make use of the collections and physical spaces unique to each library. Participants will experience new ways to approach poetry as readers, writers and library users. On 7 April Andy Quan will host a poetry workshop at Surry Hills Library, on 13 April Judith Bishop hosts a kids' poetry workshop at Glebe Library, on 7 May Eileen Chong hosts a poetry translation workshop at Ultimo library and on 13 May Toby Fitch hosts a poetry workshop at Kings Cross Library.
- Unlocked explores the transformative powers of poetry and literacy by running a series of workshops in Dyllwinia and John Morony Correctional Centres. The workshops, which ran into early November, were facilitated by Sydney poets Gareth Jenkins and Lindsay Tuggle, with guest performances and readings from Philip Hammial and Rob Wilson. Unlocked has offered an exciting opportunity for The Red Room Company to really explore the social value of poetry and creative expression; its transformative and regenerative qualities. The project has been developed in collaboration with Corrections NSW Audiovisual Unit, 2SER's Jailbreak radio show and education staff at both centres. The first Unlocked special on the Jailbreak radio show was broadcast on 25 January 2011. 1 December 2010, marked the launch of the Unlocked Anthology, showcasing the work of students, educational staff and facilitating poets, produced throughout the Unlocked project. More radio, film and anthologies can be expected in 2011.
- ATYP Workshops sees The Red Room Company pairing up with the Australian theatre for young people to teach young actors how to read poetry. Saturday 4 December 2010 was the first day of what will be an ongoing collaboration between the australian theatre for young people and The Red Room Company. The project consists of a series of workshops between contemporary Australian poets and the young actors involved with atyp, teaching them about poetry, how to read it and how to recite it. It is an intense, intimate process in which the actors spend time one-on-one with the poets, sharing insights about the writing and performing process. These workshops may feed into further projects involving collaborations between poets and actors.
- Clubs & Socs is one of The Red Room Company's major projects for 2011, pairing contemporary poets with clubs and societies from across Australia. One poet from each state and territory will be partnered with a broad range of clubs and societies representing Australia's diverse cultural landscape. Astronomers, hackers, stamp collectors, crochet clubs, anyone can get involved in this project. The commissioned poets will become members of the club, attend meetings and events, learn to speak the language of its people. This experience will then inform a new poetic work. For the purposes of this project The Red Room Co. defines poetry broadly, so the works may take the form of collaborative installations, visual or audio works, or performances.
Past Projects
Past Projects include:
- Sea Things saw four new poems commissioned from poets in Hobart, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin, and from secondary school students in Perth, Darwin and Thursday Island, as the project charted a seafaring odyssey up the East and West coasts of Australia - and back again via the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. The poems, carried in two duffle bags, made the journey in private, commercial and naval vessels from October to November 2009, travelling from all five ports, to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. Along the way, members of the public, writers' groups and schools added incidental sketches, poems and literary souvenirs. A logbook was kept by the ship captains to record weather and marine sightings along the way. The bags were met on Thursday Island by the local community, and The Red Room Company was there to hold a school poetry workshop and to film the reception. Sea Things poems, the fact sheet, images and documentary can be viewed at: [1]. An official 'opening' of the duffle bag was held in Sydney in November 2009, along with a screening of documentary footage from the project. From March - June 2011, an installation of the trips 'poetic cargo' is on display in the window of the Australian Council for the Arts at 372 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, Sydney. The exhibition was arranged by Sydney visual artist Miriam Chatt.
- Poetry for Governor Macquarie involved the The Red Room Company in partnership with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Macquarie Fields High School to celebrate Governor Lachlan Macquarie's Bicentenary. Poet Lachlan Brown led a select group of students from Macquarie Fields High School in interpreting Macquarie’s well-known inauguration speech as part of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Open Day on 28 March 2010. This project invited the poet and students to utilise the Conservatorium as the site of a musical society that was uniquely shaped by Macquarie’s vision. Through a series of workshops students created their own poems and performed these pieces at the unveiling of the Macquarie statue at the opening ceremony. The Con Open Day celebrations featured outdoor back-to-back concerts all day, featuring a variety of musical genres and styles. The Greenway Building hosted mini concerts, an instrument petting zoo, roving minstrels, mini-talks on all kinds of musical research and study, a self-guided treasure hunt and theatrical performances focused around Governor Lachlan Macquarie and Mrs Elizabeth Macquarie Bicentenary Celebrations. The Red Room first worked with Macquarie Fields High School in 2009 as part of our Papercuts education program.
- The Poet's Life Works was a series of performances and installations featuring four high-impact Australian poets. Showcasing a different poet each month, the project presented four events in various spaces around Sydney, exploring each poet's life through objects, music and visual interpretations by four contemporary artists from Chalkhorse Gallery. The series was launched by Queensland poet, MTC Cronin who also delivered the 2009 minislec at the Sydney Writers' Festival. In June, the project delved into the deep, ironic, angry, laconic and spirited poetry of Tasmanian poet, Tim Thorne. Internationally recognised poet, critic, philosopher and theologian, Kevin Hart, inspired the third event held at St James Church, Sydney, in July. Hart spoke about the place of faith in his life's work, the theme and exploration of death through poetry, and the choice of lyricism over politics. The fourth and final event in the series celebrated the life of Murri poet and activist Lionel Fogarty. Fogarty is a leading spokesman for Indigenous rights in Australia, particularly deaths in custody following the death of his brother, Daniel Yock, at the hands of police in 1993.
- Dust Poems [2] explored the words of truckies and their experiences of the road, showcasing the language that carries truckies’ unique perspectives on Australian life (and death), landscapes, foibles, practices, fauna, flora and humanity. At the same time, the project paid tribute to the men, women, families and animals who ply the highways and byways of this vast and awesome nation and help keep the country running. The project commissioned three truck-driving poets David J. Delaney, Mick O'Brien, Olivia Richardson and three professional poets, Brendan Ryan, Lindsay Tuggle, Judith Bishop who work in non-trucking industries. These poems were exhibited in interactive ways at Sydney Olympic Park from March to June 2009.
- The Sound and Text Files, was an online archive of poems and interviews with poets, as well as related project material. This educational, and artistic resource was supported by ArtsNSW.
- Red Room Radio was an in-studio series, where individual poets were commissioned to write a poem for community radio broadcast and online access, as integrated podcasts. Each session profiled new and established poets, or individuals who work with or have interesting views on poetry, such as readers, publishers, filmmakers, farmers and scholars, and was followed by an informal chat with the live audience.
- Pigeon Poetry [3] commissioned eight poets from across the country to each write a poem that would be raced by thoroughbred pigeons on 3 August 2008. The birds homed from Stanwell Tops to Mt Ousley on NSW's South Coast, covering about 60 km between 15 and 20 minutes. A virtual booking system documented the project, poets and poems. Poets included Brook Emery, Robert Adamson, Ivy Ireland, Andy Quan, Alan Gould, Craig Sherborne, Kate Fagan and Anthony Lawrence.
- Nightwriting drew attention to poetry as an art that requires few external materials to exist; it encouraged people to use all their senses to explore poetic language. The project featured Mike Ladd, Lachlan Brown and Esther Ottoway with British poet, Jacob Polley delivering the mineslec. The poem-pod installation, designed by Camilla Lawson – was a trio of walk-in booths fitted with audio Braille and tactile alphabet versions of an original poem. The project premiered at the 2008 Sydney Writers' Festival and later toured to the 2008 Tasmanian Writers' Festival.
- Sustainable Sydney, a partnership with the City of Sydney council, and Art and About. Eight poets ran workshops in schools in inner Sydney, collecting the words and visions of students about Sydney in 2030. They then used these to write five-line poems, illustrated with the students’ images, and displayed on public buildings in Sydney.
- Occasional Poetry, an installation of poems, dressmakers dummies, and related costumes at the 2007 Sydney Writers' Festival. Writing about fashion, the slogan, and dressing for an occasion were Australian poets Claire Potter, Adam Aitken and Greg McLaren. Drawing on the disguises and wit of Gwen Harwood, the project muse, poet and editor Pam Brown also delivered the mineslec at the project launch, and online.
- The Poetry Picture Show, a series of poems on the theme of film and the moving picture. These were accompanied by filmic interpretations of the poem, directed by Johanna Featherstone, and a project blog, all of which are hosted on the Red Room website The poems were written by John Tranter, Nathan Shepherdson, JS Harry, David Prater, Emma Jones, Ivy Alvarez, Kate Lilley, Briohny Doyle, Felicity Plunkett and SJ Holland-Batt.
- The Cabinet of Lost and Found, an installation of poems, and the personal objects that inspired them at the 2006 Sydney Writers' Festival. The featured poets, Ella Holcombe, Emily Ballou, Alicia Sometimes, Luke Icarus Simon and Ben Michell.
- The Wordshed, a series of six half-hour television programmes, about all kinds of writers, reading and creative processes. The Wordshed was broadcast on Television Sydney in collaboration with the University of Western Sydney’s Writing and Society Research Group. Featured writers included David Malouf, Delia Falconer, Sonya Hartnett, Catherine Rey, Brian Castro, Luke Davies, John Tranter, Christos Tsiolkas, Peter Goldsworthy, Anna Kerdijk Nicholson, Jane Gibian, Ivor Indyk, Ashley Hay and Samuel Wagan Watson.
- Poetry Crimes, new Australian poems on the theme of crime and justice. This project, launched at [http://www.hht.net.au/museums/jp/justice_and_police_The Justice and Police Museum, featured poems and interviews with poets Jennifer Maiden, Jaya Savige, Ian C Smith, Alan Wearne, Jennifer Compton, Justin Lowe, Brenda Saunders, Chris Edwards, Kate Middleton, Ian McBryde and A Frances Johnson.
- Toilet Doors Poetry, a series of illustrated poem posters for display on the backs of public toilet doors. This public space project, featuring the work of emerging writers, aimed to put poetry back into public life and public places, and ran in 2004 and 2006. In 2004, poets included Bonny Cassidy, Gerard Elson, Elena Knox, Fiona Wright, Jonathan Jaques and Michael Brennan. In 2006, the posters featured Elizabeth Allen, Andrew Slattery, Keri Glastonbury, Lisa Gorton, Liam Ferney and Ed Wright. Through a partnership with The Letter Corporation, the 2006 poem posters were displayed in Greater Union cinemas and Qantas domestic terminals across Australia. This project also included the first mineslec, a poetic public address, delivered by Bronwyn Lea [2] Toilet Door Poetry has been partially funded by the Australia Council.[3]
The Red Room Company Board and Staff
The Red Room Company's directors are Bret Walker (chairperson), Libby Davidson, Matthew McCarron, Eliott Wheeler, Jane Thorn and Johanna Featherstone.
The Red Room Company's patron is John B Fairfax AO.
The Red Room Company's permanent staff includes Johanna Featherstone (Artistic Director), Tamryn Bennett (Administrator and Copywriter), Joel Scott (Editor and Copywriter) and Tony Britten (Education Officer).
Poets
The Red Room Company has collaborated with a huge number of poets down the years. Prominent names include Judith Beveridge, Bonny Cassidy, Eileen Chong, Tricia Dearborn, Brook Emery, Kate Fagan, Mike Ladd, David Malouf, Greg McLaren, Derek Motion, Andy Quan, Craig Sherborne, Sandra Thibodeaux, John Tranter and Fiona Wright.
A full list of poets can be found at the Red Room Company's website
External links
References