How Are You Today – Kiera Brew Kurec and Nicole Breedon

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Transcript

Nick Breedon 0:00
Hey, and welcome to Pro Prac. We’ve been working on a little series that we’re doing on the side and it’s called How Are You Today?

Kiera Brew Kurec 0:07
How Are You Today? is generously supported the City of Melbourne quick response grants. Our aim with How Are You Today? is to keep in conversation with each other as you would an exhibition opening,

Nick Breedon 0:20
or a phone call with your friend.

Kiera Brew Kurec 0:22
Just checking in and seeing how we’re going.

Nick Breedon 0:25
We’re going to be releasing 20 episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. And we’re just going to call and artists that is from Melbourne.

Kiera Brew Kurec 0:35
It’s going to be a little bit less polished than our normal episodes. We are recording at home. There’s birds

Nick Breedon 0:41
There’s dogs there are a lot of chainsaws…

Kiera Brew Kurec 0:44
So please bear with us. But enjoy. Please feel free to reach out to us on Instagram, or email address.

Nick Breedon 0:54
Let us know how you’re going.

Kiera Brew Kurec 0:55
So Nick, how are you today?

Nick Breedon 0:59
Today? I mean, I guess I have a little bit of work on today, which is a been a little bit of a change. I think every day has been really different for me. I’ve been really up and really down. I’ve been having a lot of trouble kind of connecting with what’s going on. I feel very distracted. And I think, yeah, it’s been a real struggle for me to kind of like really sit with what’s happening and connect with what’s happening. And I’m somebody who really likes to meditate and tries to sort of practice mindfulness a lot. I think that’s really helpful for me for anxiety. But, you know, what’s been happening now has just been so Yeah, I guess so massive that I’m finding it a real struggle to just kind of sit with it. And yeah, yeah, that’s how I am.

How are you today?

Kiera Brew Kurec 2:01
Today, today, I mean, a little bit of a doom hole today, I’ve had a couple of days or nights of not great sleep, which hasn’t helped my mood. But yeah, it’s been a total roller coaster and each day is different. And sometimes it’s like, hour to hour is different, and like, moment to moment is different. And some days some things are providing a lot of solace and other days, they just seem like a chore. Kind of Yeah, moving very weirdly in and out of different feelings constantly and just feeling a lot. But this week, I made an attempt to put on an outfit that isn’t like home clothes, or like yoga gear or loungewear or gardening clothes, which is kind of what I’ve been in a lot.

Nick Breedon 3:11
for six weeks.

Kiera Brew Kurec 3:12
Yeah, there’s just been a lot of walking, exercising, gardening and then working from home. And I kind of just missed putting an outfit together.

Yeah, what what have you been? What are the things that you’ve sort of been hanging on to every day There have been a few things there’s been and again, they’ve like really shifted and changed over the time. In the first week or two watching the great pottery throw down which was available on YouTube, I think has been taken down now but it really helped me (laughs). It’s kind of like the Great British Bake Off but clay and there’s like some real amazing humans in the show, that felt good to watch. And then going for lots of walks in the forest and just but then also, I’ve been really enjoying like an afternoon walk that’s like not for exercise. It’s just for like clearing my head at the end of the day. Yeah, just walking a lot. What about you Nick?

Nick Breedon 4:31
Well, I’ve been starting every day with a coffee which has been a really nice kind of routine. I am really struggling to have a routine that makes any sense at all. Coffee has been a great first step, step one, then I’ve been you know I’ve picked up it really terrible is not the right word, but I’ve been binge reading the news. So that’s that’s been my thing that I’ve been doing every morning; having a coffee, binge reading the news, maybe not so much now, but at first that was, yeah, I suppose helping me kind of connect to what was happening. And and what it what it meant, I suppose was, you know, kind of really having as much information as I could. And that’s, you know, like I’m a person who, in the last couple years has really been avoiding a lot of media, I haven’t really been using my Instagram accounts or like scrolling on Instagram or using Facebook anymore, or reading the news, it’s been something that I’ve taken a big break from for a few years to kind of see how it actually really affects me, because I think it was affecting me quite negatively. So yeah, I’ve done a complete 180 on that. And I think it might be time to sort of walk it back now. It’s a lot and I think it, it’s actually just taking up a lot of my time.

Kiera Brew Kurec 5:51
Yeah.

Nick Breedon 5:51
Aside from what it’s doing to, to me, psychologically, I think it is actually very, yeah, it eats up a lot of your time when you when you read like an hour of news in the morning.

Kiera Brew Kurec 6:02
and your energy.

Nick Breedon 6:03
Yeah, totally. So learning to run, again, has been something that I have been, you know, rehabilitating in injury from a few years ago. And, you know, running for me sort of been this unicorn of my kind of rehab goals of really being able to do a really high impact activity. So, but then again, on the flip side of that, also, because I am having such a hard time kind of connecting with anything at the moment, like I do feel very distracted and disconnected from everything, probably not being mindful enough of actually how I’m running. And maybe, you know, like, I’ve been a bit sore from that.

So yeah, that’s kind of it like I I’m really struggling to kind of have a routine every day, but just kind of flip flopping around. But those are the three things that I’m kind of really trying to hang on to for dear life.

Kiera Brew Kurec 7:00
Just wrapping up, is it anything that you’re worried about, and anything that you’re hopeful for at the moment?

Nick Breedon 7:06
I’m really worried about what’s happening in the world, we’ll kind of make a gap or a portal for, you know, all the radical groups that are sort of seeking to oppress minorities, you know, all over the world. You know, we’ve really seen a rise in hate crime. I really, really fear that this might be that kind of that sort of, like world event that, you know, these kind of groups have been waiting for to to really start something really fucking horrible.

Kiera Brew Kurec 7:39
Yeah. what are you hopeful for?

Nick Breedon 7:41
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I kind of keep coming back to is that, that we we might see some really radical reform around welfare in this country. I have doubts, but literally, Australia has shown that it can double, you know, a job seeker payment overnight to to look after their voting base. And I really hope that people see that it is completely unfair, that those people should be so carefully and quickly looked after immediately, and hopefully, some of those people that that were rushed to be rescued by our government will push to have those increases in welfare put in place for those people who aren’t, and don’t have the same access to privilege as they do that, the allowance will be increased permanently. What about you like what have you been? What’s your roller coaster?

Kiera Brew Kurec 8:50
I guess? Yeah. You already kind of mentioned a lot, I’m worried. I’m worried on different levels, from micro levels, to really macro levels and like, in kind of, you know, from things that affect me personally to things that don’t affect me personally, but I feel very passionately about and I’m, I’m really worried about communities and how there’s going to be a erasure of certain communities. And that, that, you know, that’s been allowed or maybe in some cases, actually, you know, encouraged by the governments to erase people. I’m really worried about where people who are seeking asylum and the very little safety that they have right now, I guess just people in really vulnerable situations I’m really worried about.

I am worried about the arts, but I’m also not worried like we are resilient, we will get through this. I think it’s also like, you know, there’s things that are devastating, and there’s these closures and people are really affected. But I’m also like, I just feel like there’s other things right now that kind of concerning me, or overwhelming me more than that. But actually, at the same time, I am really concerned about like, how our relationships with international art communities and what they mean. And I think this will be kind of spoken about with some of our guests as well like that the art community isn’t just the city that you live in. It’s it’s a wider network of the country that you live in and internationally, and we rely on those relationships and when friends and colleagues in other countries are getting perhaps a very different experience than we’re getting in Australia, how that’s gonna affect their lives, and in turn our own. So yeah, I think that that’s, yeah, I said that I’m not worried about it. I am, I guess there’s just other things that are I am more immediately concerned about.

And, the range of worry has really changed, and continues to do so. And I’m sure it will continue to do so as it progresses, and I’m sure there will still be things that are worrying me in a year that are from this period of time. But yeah, but then, my hope…. I think I’m getting really pissed off with people being like returning to normal, because I’m like, what… what Normal?, like the normal that we had was shit. Like, it was really unjust. It was really leaving a lot of people out. It was so kind of defunct. And I just, I want a rethinking and a restructuring of how we live our lives, from how we care for people to how we communicate with people, how we treat workers and how we pay them. I guess that’s hopeful tied up in a bit of rage. (Laughter)

Nick Breedon 12:24
I suppose normal is very much, you know, when we when we think about normal, it’s also wrapped up in, you know, the people that we think of as normal or the situation. And what was normal, it really benefited normal people.

Kiera Brew Kurec 12:37
Yeah, totally. I yeah, I just want people to kind of like, have a deep reassessment. And I don’t know, you know…. I hope that that happens, I hope. I’m actually hopeful that people grieve. That’s what I hope people do. Because there’s been a lot that’s going on in the past few years, few months. And I just, I want a grieving so that the trauma of this doesn’t affect us for a lot longer than it needs to. But I think we need to grieve and I think we need to grieve individually, and collectively.

Nick Breedon 13:14
I think that our leaders are trying very desperately to distance us from our grief and that grief, because it’s not economically.

Kiera Brew Kurec 13:25
Oh, totally

Nick Breedon 13:27
productive.

Kiera Brew Kurec 13:29
Get back to work, get those cafes open.

Nick Breedon 13:32
Get back to normal

Kiera Brew Kurec 13:33
Get back to normal.

Nick Breedon 13:36
Yeah, I’m definitely feeling that disconnection from that grief. And I think I don’t know that must be. That might be just a self defence mechanism. So I’m hoping that as time goes on, there will be a moment that feels right and safe, to connect to that grief.

Kiera Brew Kurec 14:02
Well, I feel like we kind of might need to wrap this up, because this has been

Nick Breedon 14:05
a big chat.

Kiera Brew Kurec 14:07
Yeah. So How Are You Today?, will be shorter episodes and our normal ones. There’ll be about 15 to 20 minutes long. As Nick said earlier, they will be out twice a week. And we’ll kind of document how we’re navigating this as a community. So stay tuned.

Nick Breedon 14:24
Thanks for listening.

Kiera Brew Kurec 14:25
Thanks for listening.

Nick Breedon 14:30
We respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners of the land the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and pay respect to their elders past, present and emerging and the elders of the lands that this podcast reaches you on today. We extend that respect to all First Nations people listening today and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Kiera Brew Kurec 14:47
How Are You Today? has been generously supported by the city of Melbourne’s quick response grants. Follow us at propracpodcast on Instagram or email us at propracpod@gmail.com If you haven’t already, please subscribe on whatever you listen to podcast on.

Nick Breedon 15:02
Please stay in touch. We’d love to hear what you’re up to as well.

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