China Not China
Richard Tuohy, Dianna Barrie, 14mins, 2018
Hong Kong marked twenty years since its hand over; halfway through the planned forty year “one country, two systems” transition. Taiwan, once imperial China, once Formosa, now ROC on the edge of the PRC. Multiple exposures of street scenes distort space and place creating a fluid sense of impermanence and transition, of two states somewhere between China and not China.
Dianna Barrie
Dianna Barrie (Australia; b. 1972, Melbourne) found her way into filmmaking as a middle ground between the pursuit of abstract music and philosophy, both of which she has studied formally at the postgraduate level. Ever pushing the limits of the hand processing of Super-8mm led to the establishment of Nanolab with Richard Tuohy in 2006. Dianna's film work could perhaps be characterised as "direct chemical" filmmaking. In 2012, Dianna helped establish Artist Film Workshop, where celluloid is embraced and advocated by a community of practitioners in Melbourne. As a notable figure in the international artist-run film labs movement, she and her partner spend a significant amount of time each year touring their joint film programs and conducting workshops and masterclasses in hand-made film practice. Dianna was also a founding director of the Australian International Experimental Film Festival.
Richard Tuohy
Richard Tuohy is one of the most active experimental film artists currently working on celluloid in Australia. His film ‘Iron-Wood’ won first prize (ex aequo) at ‘Abstracta 2009’ experimental film festival in Rome. He runs Nanolab in Australia – the specialist small gauge film processing laboratory. He actively encourages other artists to work with cine film through his Artist Film Workshop initiative (see artistfilmworkshop.org). He is also a founding director of the Australian International Experimental Film Festival. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Richard was an active member of the Melbourne Super 8 Film Group. During this time, he was interested in narrative film making and made three long works on super 8 and 16mm. He then detoured into academic life for 7 years studying philosophy, first at La Trobe (where he received the David Hume honours prize for philosophy in 1995), then with an APA scholarship to undertake a PhD at the Australian National University (with a period in Germany). After philosophy, Richard moved to Daylesford, built a house, and studied music and botany (privately) for some years. In 2005 he returned to filmmaking, but this time in the experimental/abstract cinema direction. In 2006 he and his partner started 'nanolab' as an artist run film laboratory offering super 8 processing. In 2009 he began submitting his films in international film festivals. Richard also helps to convene the Artist Film Workshop - a screening and educational forum in Melbourne for encouraging the use of film in art practice. He has run numerous AFW workshops both at nanolab and in Melbourne.
