 My performance on personal grief in devotion to my beloved father and mother. The dining table is the site where grief most manifested in daily life, as my father had difficulties swallowing food after the sudden death of my mother. It's not all sorrowful, as finding lightness and humour within the darkness became a way of relating to my father in his final months.
MAP Fest 2025, Melaka Malaysia Venue: The Baboon House Photo by JK Suah  Performing new work Alt-Text at S.A.M.P.L.E. for the first time! Should be a fun night at the Bowlo!
Let's call it a hatchling of an idea, inspired by AI mobile apps for assisting folk with low or no vision, accessibility screen readers and what rules AI uses to describe us. What could possibly go wrong! Concept Alt-Text. A person of indeterminate age and ethnicity is holding the phone handset in a telephone booth. Her mouth is open and painted with red lipstick. She looks over-dressed for making a free call. Lian Loke is a multi-disciplinary artist, based in Warrane/Sydney, working with the moving body as material. She likes to perform in non-traditional performance spaces to stir up the sediment, spirits and status quo. S.A.M.P.L.E. Curated by Alana Yee Petersham Bowling Club Sunday, 29th June, 6-8pm  Relishing a precious opportunity to make art in service of progressive visions for climate change and adaptation, in collaboration with the amazing visionary Colin Finn. Re-print of the event flyer by Committee of Sydney: Committee For Sydney presents Scenarios For Sydney, 1st April 2025 East Sydney, Rushcutters Bay, and Woolloomooloo are precincts rich in history, culture, and community life. However, they also face pressing challenges, from coastal erosion and housing affordability pressures to the complexities of urban renewal and supporting our most vulnerable. The question is not whether change will happen, but how we shape it. How can we how can we ensure that future development enhances, rather than erodes, the unique character and diverse communities that define these neighbourhoods? At last year's Sydney Summit, Colin Finn of Blue/Green presented a Big Idea - to Rewild Rushcutter's Bay. Join us for an event that checks in on how this Big Idea is progressing and invites urbanists, planners, social advocates, and community leaders—to present their own provocations, exploring what must be preserved, what should be reimagined, and what new opportunities we could embrace to create an inclusive, vibrant, and sustainable future for East Sydney. Speakers include:
Post-event performance: Critical Art Infrastructure Agnès Michelet, Artistic Director/CEO Critical Path - a short intro to what Critical Path is and how it is critical art infrastructure “Entangled” The ocean, a constant presence on the shores of Rushcutters Bay. A source of life and delight. A portent of destruction. As rising sea levels threaten human habitation, the shoreline becomes a contested threshold. How do we respond? Devisors: Lian Loke, Gideon Payten-Griffiths, Ira Ferris Performers: Lian Loke, Gideon Payten-Griffiths [end of event flyer] Text: Gideon Payten-Griffiths Silver mylar courtesy of Lucy Humphries In this second version of Entangled, we opted for a completely different approach. Whereas the first presentation was in the form of an immersive performance installation that created an atmosphere and narrative, given the constraints on time and access this time we decided to build the installation in real time as the speakers delivered their presentations in the Drill Hall. We acted as artist-hosts, inviting the audience into our working space, the home of Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre. We designed an orchestrated scenography that alludes to the sea (climate change) creeping up on us while we're busy living our lives! Throughout the speeches, we worked quietly in the background, manipulating silver mylar, safety mesh, sound and lights to build an environment around the seated audience. At the end of the talks, we took over and led the audience through a safety scenario inviting them to blow up the balloon taped under their seat. We culminated in a dance with the safety mesh, with Gideon singing the cryptic lyrics to Pennies From Heaven.  Photo credit: Stewart Monti
 Entangled (Kogerah Scheming) performance Performers and devisors: Lian Loke, Ira Ferris, Gideon Payten-Griffiths 6.30pm dance performance in Drill Hall within installation by Lucy Humphries. As part of Kogerah Scheming – Reimagining Rushcutters. UTS STUDIO, Masters of architecture EXHIBITION 12th December, 2024 The Drill Hall 1C New Beach Rd, Darling Point Our civilisational polycrisis demands that the world, and the ways we make our place within it, transform, like it or not. This coming crisis was explored by unsettling a dense harbourside site, predicated by changes in climate, culture and oceanic constants. Tom Rivard, Melissa Neighbour, Colin Finn, Pouné Parsanejad and the other collaborators invite you to view and discuss this important work, amplified through the lens of art and dance.  Photo: Rehearsal at Readymade Works, Ultimo.
Video courtesy of Readymade Works Celebrating 10 years of Readymade Works with a 10 hour dance marathon. 40 dancers, 12 minutes each.   Photo by Finton Mahoney In a parallel world dreaming of merging between species, a new creature is discovered. Plucked out of its natural habitat, it feels the curious gaze of the scientist closely examining a specimen. Video artwork by Lian Loke and Paul Warren. Live performance by Lian Loke and Michaela Davies. FEM-me exhibition, Bankstown Arts Centre  Photo by Kristina Mah
 Excited to be an artist in FEM-Me: Feminine Mechanics and Other Kinetic Systems, curated by Dr Deborah Turnbull Tillman and Rachael Kiang at Bankstown Arts Centre. Opening 28th September. Collaborators: Dagmar Reinhardt, Paul Warren. Technical assistance: Marc Katzef, Lynn Masuda. Fabrication: Chris Carroll, Ryan van Dyk, Tim Osborne, Marty Jay, Susana Alarcon.  The Exotic Fruits Lab is a collaboration between Lian Loke and Kristina Mah. Through this week-long immersion, the artists explore and experiment with movement, the body, and image to question identity and transformation. The lab will incubate the development of “Exotic Fruits”, a durational performance taking place at Melaka Arts and Performances Festival in Malaysia, on August 31, 2024.
As Westernised children of South-East Asian migrants, we are caught between worlds. Our parents sought to assimilate into their adopted country, rejecting Asian traditions and superstitions for new found freedoms. Yet we long for deeper connection with our lost cultural heritage, beyond an obsession with the exotic. In this performance we create our own rituals of acceptance and integration, drawing on nostalgic childhood memories of food and festivals. We notice and listen to our embodied narratives and uninitiated understandings of cross-cultural identities, language and meaning. We question and converse through playful rituals drawing on the absurd as ways to reconnect and converse with our broken lineages, with broken language. Asking ourselves the perplexing question, am I a banana or an egg, or something in between? Supported by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art 4a.com.au/events/the-exotic-fruits-residency  Super excited and honoured to be one of five artists in the inaugural Experimental Choreographic Lab, supported by Performance Space and Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre.
Five days of deep diving into process and creative development, culminating in a public showing at Critical Path. I'll be exploring the notion of hybrid bodies, cross-species amalgamations of human/animal/machine. The project begins with an investigation into kinetic body extensions that can engender new movement languages grounded in metamorphic embodiment. |
