INNER BEAT PROJECTED Set for Arts Centre Melbourne

The complex identities of young African emerging artists will be explored in a series of dramatic art installations projected on Arts Centre Melbourne's forecourt and Hamer Hall terrace for a month from July 3. Inner Beat Projected, a partnership project between cohealth Arts Generator and Arts Centre Melbourne, explores the identities of the young artists from Melbourne's West. The work was created through a process of close collaboration between eight young South Sudanese men and a young Ethiopian woman, with professional artists Liss Gabb, Joe Motley and Mohammad Komba, who specialise in contemporary cross-cultural work.

The first piece - presented on the Arts Centre Melbourne Forecourt - projects images of the young artists sleeping via an 80" LED screen that will be housed in a Perspex bed. Visitors watch them breathe and change position in slow motion. While they watch, they are invited into their inner world through a spoken word piece written by each sleeper and a musical soundscape created by a group of young musicians and a professional producer Mohammad Komba through Arts Centre Melbourne's Dig Deep program. The opening of a peacock's tale or the movement of a honeybee in flight grace each figure momentarily as the tribal totem of each young person and speak to the strong bond to their tribe and homeland in Africa.

The second work - a projection on the Hamer Hall terrace - displays large-scale portraits of the sleepers' faces. We watch them listen to and reflect on their own stories of struggle, sorrow and resilience. Each face (in real time) is listening to a story, a letter or a poem written by the person listening.

A third piece will open at Gertrude Street Projection Festival on July 10 on the corner of George and Gertrude Streets, Fitzroy. The work explores cultural exchange between Aboriginal and African community members. This piece was shot on the Atherton Gardens Estate and will be presented on the window of Aboriginal organisation Meysa as part of the Gertrude Street Projection Festival.

All three pieces were shot by Ez Eldin Deng, a young South Sudanese filmmaker who is fast making a reputation as a talented music video maker and story teller for his people, the Melbourne South Sudanese community.

Artist, creative producer and curator Liss Gabb said the work was born out of many hours of conversation with the young people.

"It honours the sorrow experienced by this group of young African Australians who carry the burden of coming to Australia from war torn countries as children and teenagers," Ms Gabb said.

"These young people have much to offer their new homeland, which has not always made them feel welcome".

"Inner Beat attempts to engage the viewer by using universal truths and powerful storytelling in a public space."

The spoken word elements and the soundtrack draw on the expertise of hip hop artists and producers Joe Motley, and Mohammad Komba aka Momo who is half of the groundbreaking duo Diafrix.

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