We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the place now called South Australia, and all First Peoples living and working on this land. We celebrate the history and contemporary creativity of the world’s oldest living culture and pay respect to Elders – past, present and future. We acknowledge Kaurna, Peramangk and Ngadjuri peoples on whose lands our events and activities are imagined, planned and held. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.
Reaching Out is a pilot project by Tutti Arts. Starting in 2021, Reaching Out was completed in 2022. Learning disabled and neurodiverse visual artists from Tutti Arts worked alongside their non-disabled peers. The artists worked in pairs and responded to cultural institutions.
Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli responded to the Art Gallery of South Australia. They had extensive access to the Art Gallery of South Australia and got to see behind the scenes. They created an alternative guided tour ‘Nutritional Index’ unlike any other. They presented their tour as part of the 2022 Adelaide Fringe Festival for three sold out tours. Using food and nutrition as their lens, the artists playfully reinterpreted the collection. Nutritional Index won the 2022 Fringe Best Visual Art and Design Award.
Drawing on this success, Kurt and Emmaline were commissioned to create a visual essay for Artlink magazine. They also worked with filmmaker Eloise Holoubek to create a film work: Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet: 5 essential rules to help achieve an Auguste Rodin torso in under two months. The film was humours and light-hearted and presents a series of rules for good nutrition and a healthy body. It references the artworks in the gallery and things from popular culture.
The film was screened at AGSA during the 2022 SALA Festival and won the City of Adelaide Incubator Award and the UnitCare Services Digital Media Award at the SALA Awards.
‘Nutritional Index opened up the Gallery’s collection in a new way and created transformative experiences for audiences.’
Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art, AGSA
Artists and tour guides Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli
Explore the exhibition:
Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, Nutritional Index tour, 2022. Photo by Thomas McCammon Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, Nutritional Index tour, 2022. Photo by Thomas McCammon Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, Nutritional Index tour, 2022. Photo by Thomas McCammon Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, Tour Cue Card Fish Catch at Dawes Point, 2022. Courtesy of the artists Kurt Bosecke, Emmaline Zanelli and Eloise Holoubek, Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet, 2022. Courtesy of the artists Kurt Bosecke, Emmaline Zanelli and Eloise Holoubek, Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet (video still), 2022. Courtesy of the artists
Watch the video:
Below is a video containing short clips of Nutritional Index, an alternative guided tour presented at the Art Gallery of South Australia by Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli. It shows Kurt and Emmaline wearing suits and taking on the personas of tour guides. They show people different artworks and discuss them through the lens of nutrition. While talking about an Auguste Rodin sculpture of a torso they instruct two men in suits to do side planks. At the end of the tour, Kurt and Emmaline are in the gallery courtyard. They use blenders to make smoothies which are then handed out to the audience.
Read the visual essay:
A few months after the Nutritional Index tour took place, Artlink commissioned Kurt and Emmaline to create a visual essay. You can view, read or listen to it at the link below.
‘I love that people like my work. I like being in my head. Art is relaxing. It’s a good headspace. I like the funny side but it’s also serious.
Me and Belinda and Lee Rob came up with the ideas. Peter Booth also came up with some great ideas. I like Yayoi Kusama and Kabocha, the pumpkin. We all talked about those ideas. I’ve been coming to Tutti since 2013.
I don’t do singing. I don’t do acting. I’m an artist. I’m not a performer. But I’m part of Bait Fridge, me and Kasper. Kasper Schmidt Mumm.
I first started working with Emmaline in 2020, on September 5th. I do want to continue. It’s relaxing.’
Emmaline
‘Kurt and I do performance as part of a collective called the Bait Fridge. There are about ten to twenty of us and every Wednesday night we get together at a joint studio about 20 minutes east of here and we do music and performance together. Over the last two or three years, Kurt has been getting progressively more involved but the last twelve months, a lot more so. Because we are both part of that collective, we already had that experience going on for each of us.
Kurt brings a lot to my practise. Also, a lot to the group at Bait Fridge. He has done for years. He has really strong boundaries which has been good for this project. He is a really good communicator. He says, “I don’t understand this” or “I’ve had enough for now, let’s stop working for today”. I think that takes a long timeline to achieve that kind of communication. We worked twice a week for an hour. We didn’t leave it later or vary it or anything. He also has a very strong and disciplined work ethic. He really takes his art very seriously. That was really instrumental.
I think that throughout the making a lot of the communication was coming through me which gave me a dominant role in terms of the power hierarchy. Tutti wrote up an Easy Read contract for Kurt but I feel like because the project went on for so long, and within the workings of large institutions, it’s really hard to understand the concept of consistent, enthusiastic and informed consent in that context. I’d love to talk more about that.’
Artwork
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