How has lockdown changed the way Sydney's creative minds work?

Pop star Jack River, who just released brand new single We Are The Youth, says lockdown has changed her creative process in strange ways. “I usually dream up songs and ideas when I'm traveling. There’s endless inspiration in movement, bouncing off the world and other people. So I have relied on my relationship with my diary to process and understand WTF is going on.” 

She's been working on her next album.“We first imagined it would be recorded in an old farmhouse with everyone coming in and out to create this beautiful, organic piece of art. Fast forward to reality and it’s been made by amazing real humans, but all in different places and all through a screen."

Of course, shooting music videos hasn't been an option, so they turned to archive footage for We Are The Youth. “It turned out to be a great decision, but again, we made it completely over the internet in back and forth texts and emails and calls."

River has found herself falling into bouts of doubt. “When there is no physical feedback from audiences, it’s easy to start looking at Spotify numbers and likes on Instagram to get that feedback and my god that is not a great idea. At the end of the day, I came to the realisation that you need to create for yourself and yourself only, which is empowering, and something I need to keep remembering during this extremely wack time.”

The inimitable man about town, Mr Law says that in many ways life hasn’t change all that much for him, even though there's no about town to be doing. “I usually work from my home office anyway, because I’ve always been a freelancer and even before lockdown, there were days where I wouldn’t leave my apartment complex.”

It does mean that the writers’ room for a TV project he’s working on has to happen online only. “Admittedly it’s tough, because the fun is in the electric exchanges and wrestles [in the room]. All these things are massively collaborative. The Zooms have still been great, and I think it’s a tool we take for granted, but at the end of the day, your eyes are red and shoddy internet connections can make it hell.”

He’s also missing his daily swim, “Which was my ritual and routine. I can’t wait to swim again and to see my nephew who's started speaking and walking during lockdown.”

Theatremaker Shari Sebbens says she’s really missing rehearsal rooms. “But the silver lining is, I’ve had time to go deeper into the parts of theatre-making that you sometimes feel a bit pressed for time on – research, imaginative work. And that only enriches the work.”

Her time with the cast of STC's A Raisin in the Sun only lasted two weeks online before it was cancelled. “Since then I’ve been involved in a few developments with Moogahlin Performing Arts, Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company as they nurture the next wave of playwrights. The latest project I’m so fortunate to be a part of is STC’s Rough Draft development of Daley Rangi's play Curiosity, which you should definitely log on and watch."

She's unlikely to take on a project that is explicitly about lockdown. “Artists should feel free to reference it however they like, but I personally cringe when I see it front on, purely because I’m trying to escape it.”

When she can, there may be Swedish meatballs ahead. “I can’t wait to get back to theatres, friends’ houses, yummy food joints and, dare I say, maybe even Ikea.”

Performer Tim Draxl explored his other great passion in lockdown: painting. “As an actor and singer, I’m somewhat conditioned to cope with prolonged periods without work. But nothing really prepared me for lockdown, which all but decimated the performing arts industry.”

He had to find a new outlet. “The creative energy that had been suppressed for so long came out in an explosive way and I began to turn to painting as a means to let it out. The process itself became my salvation in a way. It shifted from something I enjoyed to something I had to do. A means for maintaining some sanity."

He says it became a refuge and a sanctuary, and he can see a marked difference between the two exhibitions he has produced. “There was still an inward reflection that came through in the first collection of paintings, but the second to me seems a lot more present. Focused on the future, rather than what might have been.”

Writer, performer and activist Sara Saleh says lockdown has scattered her structured focus. “Now everything feels all over the place as we contend with notions of productivity in an environment of liminality and languishment.”

Her focus has shifted. “I'm thinking about my body more, that confluence with mind, learning to rest and reset, and I am practicing acceptance and showing myself kindness. It’s OK to not hit a word count, and to do nothing on a Sunday morning. I’ve done the lockdown thing of becoming a plant mum.”

She's working on chapters from herupcoming debut novel, amongst other writing. “I am writing in short bursts to escape online fatigue. I think one of my ways to cope with lockdown is to not talk about lockdown in my art. But it’s certainly brought perspective on place and the environment, on privilege and power, on the body and health, and especially on people and love and what happens to that in the face of rupture and disruption.”

The unlock can't come soon enough. “I cannot wait for salty seawater to kiss my cheeks and having coffee-fuelled conversations around the kitchen table with all my aunties and the beloved women in my life.”

Fine art photographer Brad Walls has used lockdown to capture Sydney and surrounds from on high, which is pretty convenient social distancing.

“The inconsistency of our lockdowns led to two things. First, I became more methodical with the execution of my photoshoots. Prior to the pandemic, I was perhaps more laissez-faire, taking the photoshoots as they come. Secondly, I moved my photography into the fine art space, which allowed more time to create the concepts and produce the images when I was unable to shoot.”

Working across four major series during lockdown, his latest is Detached, in Harmony. “It’s inspired by the pandemic and an iconic vogue photoshoot by Clifford Coffins (Models on a Sand Dune). As an artist life became quite distant and repetitive during this time, and I placed a keen focus on this within the series translated through the repetitive figures and negative space highlighting the social distancing.”

He's hoping to publish a book on another series, Pools, from Above. “I’m looking forward to international travel to capture more pools overseas.”

Cabaret star Catherine Alcorn has hosted several online shows during lockdowns this year and last. “Friday Night Live, a variety show I co-hosted with Rodger Corser, kept over 45 industry colleagues employed, from directors, to make-up artists, performers, editors, lighting and sound techs, musicians and engineers.”

She and director Ted Robinson have since set up their own production company, Roadcase, and are working on a bunch of new projects together. They kicked off with Catherine & Friends, a collaboration with Melbourne Digital Concert Hall. “It featured Aussie drag royalty Verushka Darling as my eternally hilarious sidekick, and both it and Friday Night Live will transfer to main stage for live national tours when we’re given the green light.”

In the meantime, she's whipping up a storm in the kitchen, and has set herself an Instagram-driven challenge to only buy sustainable and ethical Australian-made and owned products. “It’s not as easy as I thought.”

There may even be a nod to the current shemozzle in her new work, including a solo show she’s pulling together with support from comedian Janelle Koenig. “Comedy is a coping mechanism and the fact that this pandemic is the one thing that we have all gone through together is so unique. It instantly connects us, and that’s what theatre and live entertainment is all about.”

One third of Australian indie electronic trio Mansionair, singer Jack Froggatt found writing new songs a bit of a challenge during lockdown. “But it’s also taught me so many new skills that I would have otherwise relied on someone else to do for me. Things like technical aspects of recording, and trusting my gut on lyrics I think are good. I’ve learnt how to show up, day in, day out without any real catalyst for inspiration outside of just existing.”

He says the absence of gigging has allowed more time to explore ideas. “We’ve been able to collaborate with so many other artists in this time, taking on new projects, as well as maintaining our goals. Breaking the mould of the standard 'write an album, release it and tour' schedule, we’ve been able to really focus on what we wanted as writers and artists. Of course it’s come with some difficulties, but overall I feel way more engaged with the art itself. Lockdown has made me so grateful to do what I do for a living and relish being alive.”

He’s still hanging to play live, though. “It’s such a vital part of who I am. Feeling that energy in the room and connecting on a deeper level with our audience. Outside of that, I’m pretty bloody excited for a fresh-poured schooner at the pub with my pals.”

Choreographer, filmmaker and installation artist Sue Healey says sustaining creative practice through this time has been a mind-bending affair. “The cancellation of shows, exhibitions, performances and residencies is completely devastating. In many ways, it has just been about survival. Trying to remain positive and enjoy the quiet, hoping a better way forward might be imagined, because let’s face it, artists were already in a fragile ecosystem.”

While artists are experts at problem-solving and will find a way to keep creating, Healey worries for emerging talent who aren’t benefitting from the same support of artistic networks. Until we do unlock, she’s been progressing film projects, including a new work called On View: Panoramic Suite which she jokes has already undergone 99 pivots. “I have again completely re-imagined it for Liveworks as a filmed broadcast with fewer dancers and very little face-to-face rehearsal."

I realise I’m incredibly privileged to be able to keep evolving and pivoting and re-imagining, in spite of the pandemic, but to be honest, it is exhausting and quietly terrifying.”

Poet Omar Sakr has spent the longest lockdown in Auburn, one of the hardest-hit LGAs. “I worked from home at my desk every day. What’s changed is my ability to be a person outside and away from my work. To be with my family and loved ones. To diminish as a person is to diminish as a writer as well, and I have felt that keenly.”

As difficult as the distance has been, he has used the time to complete the manuscript if his debut novel, Son of Sin, which will be published by Affirm Press in 2022. “It began as a short story published in the anthology After Australia, that was set within the unfolding chaos of a racialised pandemic. I swiftly moved away from this premise once the actual pandemic hit, in part because the speed of events was too fast and too ridiculous to keep pace with, let alone overtake. I took the protagonist and his family, the voice which was the heart of the work, and spun a tale set in his formative years instead.”

Until he can hug loved ones again, he’s thinking a lot about where we’re at and is working on his new poetry collection Non-Essential Work. “What is the impact on a body of being constantly timely, relevant, subject to the degrading and ruinous hyper-focus of a national spotlight? These are some of the questions that have fuelled me lately.”

Western Sydney-based award-winning playwright Donna Abela has found space to go deeper into her writing. “I wasn’t having to jam my projects between jobs and commutes and earning a living, so my attention and energy wasn’t fragmented or depleted. I start each morning with yoga and meditation before going straight to my desk before the outside world rushes in. One beautiful thing I had time to do was write a poem every morning in July. I do this sometimes, not as discipline, but as devotion to creative practice.”

She's currently working on two new plays, Stella Started It with Green Door Theatre Company and Hearing with Australian Theatre for Young People. “My plays urge outwards beyond containment, so restrictions of various kinds are there as starting points, but I have no desire to write literally about lockdown.”

She can’t wait for shared experiences again. “Whether that’s a cup of tea in the sun with a friend, or sitting cheek by jowl in the Old Fitz while an actor flicks sweat off their forehead only a metre in front of you. I’m really tired of experience being mediated by a screen. I want to use my long vision again and drink in an endless panorama.”