Carriageworks Announces Epic 2015 Program

A disintegrating Buddha, giant plesiosaurs, robot operas, Samoan Viennese Waltzes, electronic data installations, performance art-turned-dance parties, live gig record fairs, ten thousand tigers; Carriageworks has unveiled its epic program for 2015. And we mean epic.

Immediately visible for Carriageworksgoers will be Zhang Huan's Sydney Buddha, sure to be a huge drawcard for Carriageworks (and previously announced in conjunction with Sydney Festival) and Jonathan Jones' site-specific exploration of Indigenous connection to contemporary space.

For Huan's highly-anticipated work, two, five metre tall Buddha sculptures made of 20 tonnes of incense ash and its aluminium case, will face each other. Made of incense ash collected from Chinese temples (and set to disintegrate slowly within Carriageworks), one of these giant sculptures acts in the same way a Tibetan Buddhist mandala works — a stunning, complex, time-consuming artwork to be briefly enjoyed and subsequently destroyed, reminding us of the brevity of life.

One artist who has been continuously pushing the limits when it comes to questioning our existence in this data-driven age has been Ryoji Ikeda. After the audio-visual assault of his last Carriageworks show, test pattern [no. 5], Ikeda makes his grand return to Australian shores with his new head-spinning work, superposition — an all-encompassing performance stretching across the barriers of sound, language, physical phenomena, mathematics and human behaviour.

Visual artist Ho Tzu Nyen is obsessed with cats. While emphasis is usually given to Singapore's colonial past, Nyen chooses to reveal his home country's neglected histories – the history of the feline. Premiering in Australia at Carriageworks for the first time, Nyen's visual work, Ten Thousand Tigers pays homage to the symbolic power and sheer magnificence of the Malayan tiger — blending together live performance, video, installation, and sound.

There's no other way to commemorate the start of Mardi Gras except to throw a massive party. Part performance art, part music, and part dance, Day for Night is one cut above the rest. Curated by Jeff Khan (Performance Space) and Emma Price (The Kingpins), the event sees Carriageworks transformed into a large-scale space for queer expression for a full three days — helmed with tunes from local electronic outfit Stereogamous (Paul Mac and Johnny Seymour) and self-described as sounding like a "gay bath house".

Enthusiasts in film, screen and video work won't want to miss 24 Frames Per Second, a truly monumental, ambitious undertaking by Carriageworks. Consisting of 24 commissioned screen-based works by 18 Australian and six international artists, this exhibition has been in development for three years. Ever really looked at a football crowd at the height of intensity? You should really take another look.

The name David Malouf may strike a familiar chord with some. Maybe it was because you read him in high school, or spotted him amongst the literature big guns on the Booker Prize shortlist. Upon the eve of the Gallipoli centenary, Malouf's haunting work comes right in time for a remembrance of its calamities and the perseverance of the Australian spirit in the world premiere of his classic novel, Fly Away Peter, as a contemporary opera. Australian composer Elliott Gyger, director Imara Savage and librettist Pierce Wilcox combine in what will sure be an affecting performance by the Sydney Chamber Opera.

Made for kids but likely to be enjoyed wholeheartedly by adults, Prehistoric Aquarium comes from the geniuses behind Erth's Dinosaur Zoo. Puppetry at its most whimsical and dinosaur-focused, this work lets you dive in to hang with the plesiosaurs.

Then Wade Marynowksy's Robot Opera takes a similar fun-filled adventure using robotics, dancefloors and sound to examine our relationship with technology — and allowing you to throw shapes with a bunch of robots.

Performance is perhaps the strongest card played in Carriageworks' 2015 program. In a collaboration we've been waiting to see happen for years, Bangarra will undertake their very first season at Carriageworks with Ochres, the iconic four-part work that revealed Bangarra as a company and examines the spiritual significance of colour (yellow, black, red, white) to Aboriginal people.

Then, cultural displacement is examined in Siamani Samoa, a new work in which Michael Tuffery and the Royal Samoan Police Band transport their Viennese Waltz-playing daily march to Carriageworks and raise the Samoan flag (simulating their daily routine through the German-colonised Samoan city of Apia).

Some of the Carriageworks program is cloaked in mystery and a cheeky smile, dependent purely on Sydneysiders curiosity and daring to book an unknowing ticket. Renowned French choreographer Francois Chaignaud is set to present Dumi Moyi an intimate, multi-lingual baroque recital performance developed with French fashion designer Romain Brau and inspired by "Indian religious performance, 19th century dime theatres and urban contemporary elements." We're officially perplexed.

Music fans have a few focused gems to look forward to next year at Carriageworks. The inclusion of cult Italian composer Fausto Romitelli has contemporary music fans frothing, as his final work An Index of Metals is taken on by director Kip Williams and soprano Jane Sheldon for an Australian premiere.

FBi Radio's Martin Doyle is presenting At First Sight, part record fair, part live gig, while eclectic Aussie record label Room40 celebrates 15 years with Open Frame: featuring the Australian debut of audiovisual work Hypnosis Display by Grouper and Paul Clipson, Austin Beckett and label founder Lawrence English.

For anyone who visited 13 Rooms at Pier 2/3 in 2013, you might have stumbled across Xavier Le Roy's work Untitled (2012). For the 31st Kaldor Public Art Project, the French artist presents his solo work Self Unfinished and will create a site specific work at the Mosman oil tanks.

On a performance art note, the brand new work by award-winning Branch Nebula, dubbed straightforwardly Artwork, makes people question the realities between stage and life using a very intriguing snare (we can't say much more, we'd ruin everything).

This morning's announcement joins the shiny new excitement-driving elements of the 2015 Carriageworks program with the already-revealed. American artist Nick Cave — most well known for his androgynous, anonymous, nationless soundsuits and for being confused with our Nick Cave — will be appearing in conversation in a free event at Carriageworks on November 13.

Announced for Sydney Festival earlier this year, Force Majeure's unapologetic, stereotype-ditching work Nothing to Lose sees FM's outgoing artistic director Kate Champion collaborate with artist and fat activist Kelli Jean Drinkwater to celebrate the beauty of the larger dancing body. Also announced for SydFest, UK artist Mira Calix's stunning plan to create Inside There Falls, a sound sculpture in the form of a paper maze, featuring choreography from Rafael Bonachela and narration by Hayley Atwell, photographer Greg Barrett's luckily-timed video work Spongebob Squaretimes.

Annually-anticipated staples in the Carriageworks calendar are back for another year. Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week Australia picks the new trends in April; unmissable conference for design lovers, Semi Permanent, returns in May; August marks the return of national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander playwriting festival Yellamundie; and Australasia's new international art fair, Sydney Contemporary, returns after a huge year in 2013. Plus, Sydney Dance Company collaboration New Breed is booked in for a three year residency, with fresh batches of new choreographers crafting works with SDC's top tier.

Finally, Carriageworks' projects in development should stay on the radars of Sydneysiders: Hossein Valamensh's first large-scale new media work Char Soo, Kristina Chan's A Faint Existence is exploring impermanence amidst an electronic score by James Brown and New Normal sees a national strategy initiated by Carriageworks to support the development of contemporary disability arts practice: ten new Australian and international works will be commissioned and presented over five years.

Plus, the program cover will be embossed with shiny gold font. Everyone wins.

Find out more about the entire 2015 Carriageworks program over here.

Words by Amelia Zhou, Jessica Surman and Shannon Connellan.