Writer and performer is UNSW’s new Alumni Artist in Residence

Performer, writer and curator Mish Grigor has been chosen as the UNSW School of the Arts and Media (SAM) new alumni resident artist. But first she has to finish a Sydney season of her autobiographic show that explores what happens when you start talking about sex with your family.

Grigor completed her Honours in Performance Studies at UNSW in 2006 and for 10 years has been part of the theatre collective Post, alongside Zoe Coombs Marr (also a UNSW alumnus) and Natalie Rose.

She will use the SAM residency to develop a new performance piece, Situation – Tragedy, made in collaboration with artist Jessica Olivieri. The pair will be playing with notions of narrative, exploring them through improvisation of image and text, the use of disembodied voice on stage, playing with light and developing instructions for an audience to activate the stage space.

The work continues the collaboration between the two artists that began with Grigor’s Man O Man at Artshouse (Melbourne) and continued with Olivieri’s work Narrow But Deep at the Museum of Contemporary Art. 

The SAM Alumni Residency Program was launched last year to support recent graduates in their professional creative endeavours. It offers a grant of up to $5000 and provides resident artists with access to SAM facilities and resources for up to four weeks, including rehearsal spaces, recording studios, audio-visual equipment, workshops, and props and costumes stores. Resident artists also have access to the expertise of the staff in the Creative Practice Lab.

Grigor is appearing in The Talk, a participatory theatre work based on real conversations with her own family, at Carriageworks until 6 November. It is part of Performance Space’s 2016 Liveworks festival of experimental art. See the story about The Talk in the Sydney Morning Herald here.

In January Grigor will perform with Post in the world premiere of Ich Nibber Dibber for the Sydney Festival.