ALLAN GIDDY: Hi, I'm Allan Giddy, and my practice involves
well, a starting point is sculpture.
I've moved into energy systems primarily autonomous solar systems.
And they meet public art because that enables the whole work
to come out and meet public spaces that don't expect energy systems.
So I work with that and I do some curation as well
around that taking artworks and making exhibitions in areas
that are not expected, like Broken Hill, like the Eco Park at Randwick,
like up the coast and in the beaches.

QUESTION: WHY IS COLLABORATION AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR PRACTICE?

Why?
I can only speak for myself, but you need a reason to collaborate.
I'm quite autonomous, as are my objects.
But very often I'm working in a field and I...
that crosses over maybe into graphic media,
online stuff, or there might be an area that I think this work
is gonna move in that area.
Now, we've got a small community here in Sydney.
So very often there are people that are involved in those areas,
if they know me, and I know them, we sometimes get together,
they either ask me and need a hand or vice versa.
And the collaboration works I think most successfully
when you have fairly strict rules about
where your responsibilities lie, and where the other person's lie.
And also control of the aesthetic.
Otherwise, it ends up being somebody's gig,
where somebody is helping.
A true collaboration is, you know, a situation where both parties
have a really good aesthetic set of choices to make,
and they have control over those choices.
That's what I think anyway.

QUESTION: HOW CAN ARTISTS LEARN FROM FAILURE?

It almost starts at failure I think.
Personally, the serendipitous is crucial.
Often when I have a misunderstanding, I'm trying to understand
something and I'm failing to understand it,
or I mishear something because I'm quite deaf,
I used to work in industrial situations.
And the misunderstanding leads to a set of circumstances
that leads to the artwork.
So funnily enough, it's at the kernel of the germination
of practice, as far as I'm concerned.

QUESTION: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE SEE YOUR WORK? 

Because I worked for some years at the MCA,
as a preparer, I got to see people coming through the MCA
looking at artworks spending their designated 10 or 15 seconds,
and realised quickly that this dialogue, if it was gonna occur
had to occur in kind of two sections.
So that's the way I tend to play it.
Firstly, there needs to be a hook like a good riff in a song
where somebody comes up to our work, and it has an engagement,
it engages them, either visually, or sonically.
Then, after that engagement has occurred,
and they're actually working with the work.
I hope there are layers that take them through the dialogue,
their dialogue with the work, which hopefully
would be personal for each individual.

QUESTION: WHAT ARE YOU HOPEFUL FOR?

I'm most hopeful that Australia recognises art
for the force that it is here.
There are a lot of very hard working vibrant artists.
I think I'm hopeful that Australia starts to realise
that artists work hugely hard.
Everywhere we've gone and everyone I've worked with
in the shows that we've put on around the country,
once we've been there for two weeks or so doing this,
people soon realise just how hard we work
and we earn their respect.
I hope that starts to be realised and I really hope
that Australia realises longevity isn't the answer in life.
It's the quality and the unusual nuances in life
that make life worth living.
Art provides all of that.
Without it we have nothing.
We need more.