Perth Voice Interactive

NORTH PERTH artist duo Snapcat has been chosen for the prestigious Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Salon 2015.

Comprising Anna Dunnill (26) and Renae Coles (28), over the past few weeks the pair has been amusing and baffling Perth with their “Tiny Parades,” micro marches about little issues like celebrating obsolete technology or mourning all the Perth people heading to Melbourne.

PICA’s Salon Vernissage is the annual bigwig soiree for its elite art1000 and art5000 donors (those who’ve given $1000 or $5000 to the gallery). It’s a rare commercial event for the quirky gallery with first dibs going to donors on opening night, and it’s a big hairy deal for an artist to be commissioned to create a work for it.

“It’s definitely a new opportunity for us,” Coles says. “Every single artist on that list is incredible, it’s such a great line up.”

Continuing on their Tiny Parades theme, the pair created colourful wall murals in the shapes of banners from famous marches throughout history, harking back to suffragette marches, human rights protests and celebratory parades.

The idea for tiny marches came about when, “we had an idea to make one huge giant parade to take over the city and realised it wasn’t in our grasp at this point in our careers nor in our budget.
“So we laughed at the idea of creating a tiny parade.

“It was ridiculous but we really liked the idea of two people taking on the world in a very serious way.”

As part of the research they met with members from the Refugee Rights Action Network, frequently seen protesting on streets and campuses around town in not huge numbers.

They were worried the activists might think they were taking the mickey, but the actual protestors appreciated the project.

“One of the guys from RRAN said, ‘I’ve been to many tiny parades, because often in Perth only 20 people show up, there’s not enough people who care.

“He’d had a very real experience of what we’re intentionally doing.”

Other work at Salon includes Polish artist Gosia Wlodarczak’s digital works, Iranian Hossein Valamanesh’s curious graph/geography mashups, Sydney artist Kynan Tan’s 3D printed sculptures, and Perth Voice favourite Abdul Abdullah’s self portraits with a monkey.

If you’re one of the hallowed art1000 donors the opening gig is July 4, otherwise you can see the arts with the rest of us from July 5 to August 16 at PICA in the Perth cultural centre.

by DAVID BELLY