Live art exists only while it is being performed, and then it disappears. How do we create an archive of the ephemeral?

• Its ephemeral nature means it is transient and impermanent, and cannot be experienced again in precisely the same way.
• How do artists hold on to the works that they make?
• The show reflects her focus on curating and re-framing interdisciplinary work to address the limited opportunities for recognition of contemporary independent Australian performance.

Meticulous design

• Marked by a spare, distinctive design, Archiving the Ephemeral is located in the Magdalen Laundry at the Abbotsford Convent.
• Along one side of the space, 132 brown paper packets are laid out in a continuous line on the floor.
• An accompanying video depicts Shelton’s meticulous process of burning, piece by piece, her entire performance archive to ash.

A living archive

• The exhibition includes an opportunity for each of us to become part of the living archive through conversations with two ground-breaking elders of Australia’s performance art scene, Jill Orr and Stelarc.
• We discuss Kantian notions of time as he tells me about his Re-Wired/Re-Mixed Event for Dismembered Body (2015).
• The sheer number of pages is overwhelming, and the breadth of audience commentary – joyful, moved, connected, inspired – is breathtaking.

A practice of care

• Archiving the Ephemeral fosters a practice of care and acknowledgement which extends to the practical ways in which our trajectory through the room and engagement with the artworks is enabled.
• Typewriters, brown paper, string, awls and aprons are part of the painstaking construction process.
• Read more:
  A litany of losses: a new project maps our abandoned arts events of 2020