Suriname Journal

Collection of Photographs taken while in Suriname, 2014
Series 1 of Research & Documentation

In 2014, traveling back to her native Surinamese roots to establish an on-going research and documentation project exploring the core of her identity in a country made up of 90% rainforest.
Along the journey, NVS was sent into the Amazon to visit Maroon villages and to the top of Suriname at Galibi beach with the Carib Indingeous tribe on a video and photo project commissioned from Surinamese Holistic Healer, Loraine Van Tuyl, PhD.

The Suriname Journal is does not end in 2014, Nicole Van Straatum is finding ways to further discover her heritage through personal and sourced experience, photography, writings, and interviews. Series 1 is only the first chapter of Nicole’s life-long voyage of cultural, historical, and individual understanding of being a second generation Surinamese-American.

229mmX305mm, Paint on board, 2016

Universal Love at Mild Manners Gallery L1, 499 Crown St Surry Hills, NSW 2010. 6-8 Thursday the 4th of Feb. Essay By Annette Ekin : UNIVERSAL LOVE – ESSAY ‘The Land is Alive’ by Anette Ekin

DROOL is an audio-visual album created by Cara Stricker, Australian born multi-disciplinary artist in photography, direction and music, and John Kirby, LA Born keyboardist, producer and songwriter best known for his work as part of Sébastien Tellier, Blood Orange, Kindness and Rodriguez.

Terrible Records released the audio-visual Album internationally in June of 2015, through limited edition cassette tapes providing individualised access to the album scored film, coinciding with a video clip, live performances and instillations throughout New York.

The female embodiment of DROOL is performed by Cara Stricker (vocals, guitar, keys), and Madeline O’Moore (keys, electronica), Kate Levitt (Percussion). Various collaborating musicians are invited for live performances.

Half Taiwanese-half french and currently based in Paris, Louise Chen founded the Girls Girls Girls night at Social Club in 2012 inviting acts like Kelela, Sampha, Jackmaster, Moxie, Ikonika, Lil Silva, etc. always aiming to bring together live performers and club culture. After a 5 year run, she now promotes Summer Parties under the pun-name “Chentertainement”, so far inviting prestigious guests Methodman & Redman to perform live! Parallel to her promoter job, Louise has always written about music and travel in magazines like Modzik, I Heart Magazine, Snatch Magazine and she’s had the chance to host a segment on France’s national Mouv’ Radio on Laura Leishman’s night show and later talk music on French TV shows Clique and Le Before du Grand Journal on Canal+.

Originally starting off as a hip-hop and R&B DJ, Louise has grown up with sampling culture and been a crate-digger for a long time. Her endless quest looking for soul, funk, disco and jazz has led her to build her own sound when playing House inspired by acts like Theo Parrish and Floating Points. Today she brings her records to online radios around the world (The Lot Radio, Le Mellotron, NTS, Hotel Radio Paris…) DJs alongside acts like Santigold, Jamie XX, Solange Knowles, Ellen Alien & Bambounou and works on digital content projects with brands like Airbnb, Beats By Dre & H&M.

Facebook.com/chentertainement.inc

Originally hailing from Fremantle, Western Australia, Chelsea Wheatley is an artist who began producing music on Logic software at age 12 and playing bass in a punk band from age 15 with which she toured Australia extensively. Not long thereafter, she found the solo spotlight and emerged as Chela.

Quickly gaining international acclaim with two successive singles released by French tastemaker label Kitsuné, the success of these releases led to appearances at SXSW and Coachella amongst many other festivals and collaborations with the likes of Goldroom, Viceroy & Seth Bogart.

An energetic and enigmatic performer, Chela has become known as an artist with a strong aesthetic sensibility. So far 2016 has seen her recording new music with Chris Zane (Passion Pit, St Lucia, Les Savy Fav) and working on her highly anticipated debut album.
Spotify’s “Spotlight Artist” for 2015