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INTEL: Podcast Episode 2

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from around the world
Looking Horizontally – Rainbow Chan

Podcast Time: 17:56 min

Listen to this Episode

Topic: Looking horizontally

Publishing date: Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Guest speaker: 

  • Rainbow Chan: vocalist, producer and multi-disciplinary artist.

Hear tips from artist Rainbow Chan, about the importance of listening to the room, slowing down, and looking horizontally – as strategies for both working interculturally, and getting through this global crisis.

This Hong Kong spring, interdisciplinary artist Rainbow Chan was supposed to be on residency at West Kowloon Cultural District, an exchange with Performance Space, and at Art Central Hong Kong, presented by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. She would have been developing work in collaboration with her Weitou elders, sharing their folksongs and female narratives, as one of Hong Kong’s first peoples. With national borders now closed, and generations physically isolating from each other, Rainbow is at home in Sydney, making music for her audiences online, and writing about counterfeit cultures (real fakes and fake reals).

In this episode, Rainbow Chan talks about the importance of listening to the room, slowing down, and looking horizontally – as strategies for both working interculturally, and getting through this global crisis.

Featured in this episode is Rainbow Chan’s track “Oblivion” from her album Pillar (2019), independently released and available as vinyl or the digital LP from her Bandcamp.

Image credit: Rainbow Chan, Pillar (2019) digital and vinyl LP. Written, recorded and produced by Rainbow Chan. Photo by Hyun Lee. Cover design by Craig Stubbs-Race. Image courtesy of the artist.

Production credits

Sound design: Sudeep Lingamneni

Editing and mastering: Jonnine Nokes

ABOUT THE INTEL: PODCAST SERIES

The Australia Council’s INTEL: PODCAST SERIES is a peer-to-peer market intelligence resource designed to inform and upskill the arts sector on ‘live’, best practice, and innovative approaches to international engagement. The series spotlights guests who are actively forging pathways for the internationalisation of Australian work, and who continue to work within a cross-cultural and cross-border capacity.

Know more about our guest speaker

Click on the ‘+’ to read the bio.

Rainbow Chan

Rainbow Chan

Rainbow Chan is a vocalist, producer and multi-disciplinary artist who has built a reputation as one of the most innovative musicians in Australia. Driven by a DIY spirit, Chan melds catchy melodies and off-kilter beats made up of field-recordings and found sounds.

Both heartbreaking and tender at once, her idiosyncratic brand of pop holds a mirror up to diasporic experiences, and also deeply personal tales of love and loss. Chan’s most recent release and sophomore record Pillar (Independent, 2019) was feature album on community radio stations nationwide and is nominated for the Australian Music Prize.

Her debut record Spacings (Silo Arts & Records, 2016) was feature album on community radio stations nationwide and nominated for FBi SMAC Record of the Year, and AIR Best Dance/Electronica Album. Lifted from the EP Fabrica (Healthy Tapes, 2017), her single Let Me won the FBi SMAC Award for Best Song.