I acknowledge the Wadi Wadi people of the Five Islands Dreaming as the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, and I pay respect to their Elders past and present. This is, was, and always will be Aboriginal land.
Zanny Begg is a video installation artist who works across drawing, film, social and spatial practice to explore questions of feminism, migration, and ecological and intergenerational responsibility. Often creating intricate worlds through drawing costumes and backdrops, Zanny is interested in the loops and twists of time that reveal previously submerged or hidden histories. Based on unceded lands in the Dharawal Nation, Bulli, Zanny’s recent exhibitions include Sharjah, Taipei, Labin, Limerick, Odessa and Istanbul Biennales, in THE NATIONAL 2017, NEW AUSTRALIAN ART, UTOPIA PULSE at the Secession, Vienna, STATECRAFT (AND BEYOND), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, MONA FOMA, Tasmania, SYDNEY FESTIVAL 2020, NOVA GALLERY, Zagreb and OK VIDEO FESTIVAl, Jakarta. She is part of two national tours These Stories will be Different (M&GNSW) and Between the Details: Video Art from the ACMI Collection (ACMI).
The Beehive speculates on the circumstances of Nielsen’s murder by presenting 1,344 algorithmically generated possible scenarios… this fragmented, non-linear approach prevents the viewer from seeing the whole picture, or fully resolving their own interpretation of events; after all, the case remains open. What is clear across versions is the connection made between gentrification and colonization, which forms the powerful central message of the work.
LAURA FESLIER, ArtAsiaPacific Magazine.
She is the winner of the 66th Blake Prize Established Artist Residency 2021, she was selected for the ACCA Open commission 2020, was the 2018 winner of the inaugural ACMI and Artbank film commission, the 2016 winner of the Incinerator Art Award, Art for Social Change, the 2016 winner of the Terrence and Lynnette Fern Cite Residency Paris; and was chosen by Werner Herzog to attend his Rogue Film School, in Munich, 2015. She has been awarded residencies in Barcelona (Australia Council for the Arts); Paris (Terrence and Lynnette Fern Cite Residency); Yogyakarta (Asia Link Residency); Chicago (Australia Council for the Arts); and Hong Kong (Australia-China Council). She has been a guest speaker at multiple conferences and workshops including Civic Actions: Artists’ Practices Beyond the Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Artist as Activist, Art as Catalyst, Hong Kong Art Fair, Between Production and Facts: The Reinvention of Artistic Activism, MACBA, Barcelona and New Social Subjects, Cambridge University, the UK. She is currently working on two public art commissions with Orange Regional Gallery and Deakin University, Melbourne.
Zanny is an advocate for the Arts and has been on the Artist Advisory Board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, a mentor for Accessible Arts, and, on the Board of Management for the South Coast Writer’s Centre.
Her recent film works include; Juanita Nielsen NOW (2022), Magic Mountains (2020), Stories of Kannagi (2020); The Beehive (2018); The City of Ladies (with Elise McLeod); The Bullwhip Effect (2017); How to Blow up a Bubble that Won’t Burst; 1001 Nights in Fairfield (2015); and Doing Time (2014).
Contact: zanny.b[at]gmail.com