Art/Work Interview with Keg de Souza

This week Art/Work sits down for a cuppa with artist Keg de Souza. Keg is one cool little lady who never fails to have her fingers in every pie. From social activist to book binder to screen printer to Rizzeria handler to tour guide to pun maker to home brewer - how she manages to fit in her day job, we don't know...

Most days you'll find me starting my day by walking our snowdog to get a coffee, (for me, not him) reading the paper then I begin my 'working' day by checking emails and whittling away at whatever project I'm working on at the time - sometimes it's exciting like building a boat to paddle across the harbour, sewing a giant inflatable igloo or binding a book but most likely it's life administration which usually takes up the better part of my day!

When I am not there I am at the Bookbinding Guild making books, if it's a Wednesday. I also often work collaboratively so sometimes I'm working or meeting with the various groups I'm in; SquatSpace, You Are Here or the Rizzeria. Basically I'm usually scheming about something.

My day job is working as an educator at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The rest of the time I do odd bits of illustration, run workshops and whatever casual paid work I can muster up.

At the moment I am working on researching a project based around the Rocks area, continuing my interest in neighbourhoods.  It's just the beginning of the project but I have already found some pretty great stories from the area and I am excited to create a new work there. Also, I'm collecting broken umbrellas for it - so if you have any send them my way!

If money wasn't an issue I'd just do more making and less of the other odd jobs.

Being an artist in Sydney can be a struggle, just living in Sydney can be a struggle but I find that often inspires me to make stuff about that very thing.

My neighbourhood is Waterloo, right next to Redfern Park which is a pretty great. In 2005 due to the anxiety we were feeling about the area's mysterious and rapid changes, SquatSpace - one of the collectives I work with, developed the Redfern/Waterloo Tour of Beauty. The tours take people on bike and bus tours of the area with various local speakers. We've been running these since then so I feel pretty connected to the area. The area has, and continues to change a lot. The rapid gentrification of the area is pretty intense - there is a fast spreading new-café rash across the park on Redfern Street and then there's Danks Street to the East but don't even get me started on that. All I can say is thank goodness for the Public Housing so we have a little diversity still, at the moment…

My favourite spot in Sydney is listening to the bats in the Botanic Gardens, which unfortunately is all about to change with the plans that are already in place to evict them…wah.

For a full rundown on all of Keg's projects click here or for her blog click here.