The COFA Blog

Rochelle Haley

Name: Rochelle Haley
Graduated: Graduated from COFA, UNSW, with a Doctorate in Fine Arts

Artist and COFA PhD graduate Rochelle Haley has returned to Australia briefly to attend the graduation for her Doctorate in Fine Arts. Haley has spent the past four months, out of a year long artists residency, at Rimbun Dahan, a centre for developing traditional and contemporary art forms in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Rimbun Dahan literally translates to ‘laden bough’ and as well as being a private home for well known architect Hijjas Kasturi and his wife Angela Hijjas, it has also been the residence, for year long periods, for many Malaysian and Australian artists for the past fifteen years.  At present Rimbun Dahn is also home to COFA graduate and painter Monika Behrens, choreographer Angela Goh, writer and poet Mike Ladd and collaborator Cathy Brooks, sculptor Dan Wollmering, painter Dadi Satiyadi and Samsudin Abdul Wahab.
The compound of Rimbun Dahan is 40 minutes outside of the city of Kuala Lumpur and is on land spanning 14 acres. Over the past fifteen years it has developed into a ‘laden bough’ as both a place of cultivation of artistic culture and conservation, being the only garden in Kuala Lumpur completely populated by indigenous species.
This is of particular interest to Haley as her practice deals primarily with the investigation of the relationship between the land, the body, and the representation of both, having recently completed a PhD thesis entitled “Land Incorporated: Moving Through the Landscape”. Employing experimental drawing techniques such as utilising the mediums of incised paper, etched mirror and ‘drawing’ with blades and carving into heavy white paper, Haley creates seemingly delicate artworks that require the viewer to negotiate light and texture. As subjects for her works Haley mainly focuses on landmarks of great cultural value and has shifted her interest from the Australian to the Malaysian landscape.
“When you fly over Kuala Lumpur you see lush green vegetation into the distance as it’s a country with lots of rain fall, but the closer you get, the landscape reveals itself as an expanse of palm oil plantations” explains Haley of her new environment.
Haley chose Ribun Dahan as she thought the residency would be a good opportunity to become familiar with Malaysian culture and contemporary art.
“Considering Malaysia is such a close neighbour of Australia I think it is important to build bridges between the two places… I see this as a rare opportunity to take a year outside of my ordinary Sydney based practice, experiment with new skills and develop some old ones,” says Haley.
Haley was also very attracted to the idea of a complex for artist, dancers, and choreographers all working closely together with the possibility of future collaborations.
Haley’s year long stay at Rimbun Dahan will culminate in an exhibition that is held annually in the underground gallery and in the gardens, with a selection of works being donated to the permanent collection, which consists of works all by former resident artists and shows the diversity of the Rimbun Dahan residency programme.
When asked about what will come after her stay at Ribun Dahan Haley goes on to say that another residency in Southeast Asia will be looked into, as she would like to further develop her links with the area.

For more information on Rochelle Haley: http://www.rochellehaley.com/
For more information on Rimbun Dahan: http://www.rimbundahan.org/home.html

Vaughan O'Connor

Vaughan O’Connor is a COFA graduate who is currently working at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre. After completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts, O’Connor received a combined College of Fine Arts/ UWS/ Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre Scholarship to study Master of Arts Administration at COFA in 2007.  The Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre/ UWS scholarship was created as a way of building local professional expertise for students from Western Sydney and is awarded to a student who has the tools to take leadership positions within the community.  The awarded scholarship included tuition fee sponsorship from COFA and also offered a paid internship with Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, which provided a practical application for the theories and concepts of Arts Administration being learnt through the COFA sponsored Masters degree.  O’Connor started out as an intern and has since become more and more involved with the operations of the centre.  One of the first tasks O’Connor undertook during his internship was assisting with the relocation of the Casula Powerhouse’s Collection in late 2007/ early 2008, as the gallery had recently had a $13 million dollar makeover after a 22 month closure. When the Casula Powerhouse re opened, it did so with a grand scale exhibition entitled Australian, which O’Connor also worked on, featuring artists and COFA graduates Sean Codeiro & Claire Healy, Shaun Gladwell and David Griggs. O’Connor has since been the leading hand on the restaging of Vietnam Voices at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.  More recently, O’Connor has coordinated the international, interstate & local freight and logistics for Casula Powerhouses’ current show ‘Nam Bang!’, featuring artists Peter Daly, Dinh Q. Le, Kelly Manning, Liza Nguyen, William Short, My Le Thi, Le Thua Tien, Dennis Trew, and Tran Trong Vu.
At present O’Connor has taken on the role of his mentor and supervisor, Georgia Connolly, also a COFA Art Administration graduate who has moved on to the National Gallery of Australia, and is now Collections Assistant/ Exhibitions Registrar at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.
O’Connor has contributed to Artlink Magazine with a review of the 2008 Campbelltown Arts Centre exhibition Without Borders: Outsider Art in an Antipodean Context curated by Glenn Barkley and Peter Fay.
Also, in the traditional COFA style of students growing into staff, O’Connor has also guest lectured in the Master of Arts Administration Registration and Handling unit.

For more information on Casual Powerhouse Arts Centre exhibitions and events please visit: http://www.casulapowerhouse.com/
For more information on COFA offered masters degrees, including the Master of Art Administration, refer to: http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/futurestudents/postgradcoursework/
For more information on scholarships on offer at COFA please visit: http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/futurestudents/scholarships/