based on notes from parenzana residency notes

• Sarah Neville and family are in residence at foam for 3 weeks in October 2013, firstly at Castello Parenzana near the legendary town of Motovun in Istria and amidst the urban landscape of Brussels. In company with her five month old daughter Florence and together with Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney, Sarah is investigating ancient and contemporary myths formed from making meaning of natural disaster. Sarah’s husband Matthew and four year old daughter Miranda are contributing to the project remotely from home in the Adelaide Hills in Australia. Miranda is sharing her understanding of the natural world through creative storytelling and painting and Matthew is participating by responding to the concepts emerging at Castello Parenzana through an exploration of sound.
• This project has been on slow boil for Sarah for several years. She has struggled to contextualise her research within the contemporary dance or theatre worlds and feels that the project has been finally seeded in suitably fertile ground within the cultural laboratory of foam.She has been aware of foam since its inception as she enjoyed a couple of successful collaborations with Nik Gaffney in Adelaide in the late 90's and he has kept her informed. However its only now, 13 years later that Sarah has a project that she feels fits with the vision of foam and at the same time it feels like high time she worked with Nik once more. Sarah's husband Matt also collaborated with Nik and Matt in the past and was looking forward to the family in residence along with four year old Miranda. When local funding fell through for Sarah, the family had to ecomimise and decided that Sarah and Florence would travel to Europe and Matt and Miranda would contribute to the project remotely via daily skype meetings and email.
• The area of research stretches over the fields of history, psychology and anthropology. Artistic forms put into play include photography, story telling, poetics and theatrical improvised movement.

• This project is based on ancient world fables that spring from anxiety about the future. I am investigating the time old tradition of looking back to look forward. Hence, mining mythology to decree the future of a conflicted world anchored in the anxieties of our times.

Nowadays with climate change on the political agenda and summers becoming hotter, there is a real fear emerging about the future of the globe. Hail in Melbourne CBD in March might once have been interpreted as the wrath of an angry God. Delayed flights in Europe due to the explosion of the Icelandic volcano are named by insurance companies as, “An act of God.’ The question is how does the superstitious imagination make sense of all this? Why is the volcano angry and why are the summers too long? I am extremely interested in the sublevel panic that pulses through current media hinting at a dire future of floods, famine and fires. It triggers reasoning inspired by practical knowledge about the impact of greenhouse gasses and the evolution of natural disaster along side creative narratives born of moral blame. By referencing past myths through a highly contemporary lens, we can assure ourselves of our ongoing capacity to deal with and understand natural and social disaster through our imaginations and creativity.

• When we arrived in Istria I expected to delve into local legends whilst discussing current climate change issues.

• concise description of the way the research will be (has been) developed from establishing the problem definition to the final results
• justification of the methodology

• concise description of the actual outcomes of the research

• comparison of the expected and the achieved results
• suggestions and comments on the research process and its results
• description and suggestions around the collaboration process (if applicable)
• suggestions for the future work based on the conclusions of the research
• comments on the response of the public (if applicable)

• literature used in the research (books, magazines, journals, URLs…)
• media used in the research (film, audiovisual media, photographs…)
• visual/sonic/tactile material generated in the research to be archived at FoAM