Season Three – JD Reforma

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Resources

Instagram handle @jdreforma
www.jdreforma.com

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Transcript

00:00:00 Kiera Brew Kurec
Hi, I’m Kiera Brew Kurec

00:00:01 Nick Breedon
And I’m Nick Breedon.

00:00:02 Kiera Brew Kurec
Welcome to Pro Prac,

00:00:04 Nick Breedon
where we explore the professional practice of artists

00:00:07 Kiera Brew Kurec
and hear their stories.

00:00:09 Nick Breedon
JD Reformer is an artist, curator, writer, and arts marketer. Over the last 10 years. He has presented extensively across Australia, including exhibitions at Firstdraft, Mop projects, Alaska Projects in Sydney, success in Western Australia, and Bus projects in Melbourne. He has been commissioned for major exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Australian Center for Contemporary Art, Campbelltown Arts Center, Casula Powerhouse and Cement Fondue. He has been a finalist in major prizes, including the 2013, 2018 and 2019 New South Wales Visual Arts Fellowship, the Blake Prize, the John Fries Art Award, and most recently the 2023 Ramsey Art Prize. As an arts marketer, he has led major campaigns and projects for organizations including Artspace, the Biennale of Sydney, UTS art Gallery and Collection, and Firstdraft. JD was co-director at Firstdraft from 2013 to 2014, overseeing the organization’s historic relocation to Woolloomooloo and is currently a member of the City of Sydney Cultural and Creative Sector Advisory Panel, and a member of the Board of Directors of Art Month, Sydney.

00:01:19 Kiera Brew Kurec
JD, thank you so much for joining us in the studio today. We are really happy to have you here. Can you kick things off by, letting us know how you got to where you are today and a bit of history about your practice?

00:01:33 JD Reforma
Sure. My practice kind of came out of, where I grew up in Sydney in a way. I grew up in like a lot of different suburbs in, I guess what you’d call Western Sydney. They’re probably more southwest, like the Lakemba Kempsey, and then finally Ingleburn. And that was really, our family sort of following my Mum as she chased her dream of, building a dream home. And this was like a very, I think, powerful influence, not just on me, but my sisters and I. And she was, you know, for a great part of that, working single mother. So we lived, we, we, she had this incredible work ethic and so we were all really influenced by that. She would work, you know, three jobs a week for, three jobs a day for 20 years or something. It was quite insane. And she had this, dream of building a McMansion in the western suburbs of Sydney as many, immigrants, but particularly Filipinos do. So she really just followed her friends into that, down that path. And, you know, as a result we moved quite far away from the city and that, that kind of created another different sort of aspect of our lives, which was commuting and traveling to work and study. My sisters, went to, as we all do in, so, so many of us do in Sydney, very expensive private schools. And so when it came to my education, there was not really much money and I had to, I applied for a singing scholarship, at a school in the city. And so I think from a really early age, from about eight, I was traveling quite a lot and working a lot. You know, God, with practice and rehearsals, it would be, 10 or 12 hour days, sometimes six days a week, and, you know, a day of Mass. And, so I, I think I learned from a really early age, great sense of discipline and responsibility and patience with traveling and commuting. And, and then also this particular place that we had settled, was a real kind of like ticky-tacky boxes on the hillside, type of, what would you call it, domestic Mise-en-scène. And, it was, it was beautiful. It was really great community. But you know, with that came a sort of sense of like values and aesthetics, and, demographics of people I guess that we encountered. And that kind of, that came into play a little bit later as I you know, as, as an artist, I began to kind of think of like, what, what are the sort of values and interests that I’m interested in pursuing as an artist? And so sort of like backtrack a little bit from there. My dad was, my dad wasn’t the picture, he wasn’t, working so much due to injury, but he was really creative. He taught my sisters and I how to draw and I, it’s, it sounds really mordant, but I would just like fill whole days and books, with drawing. And, I really wanted to become, I, I, I guess I, I excelled in art ’cause it’s not really design subjects when you’re in high school, but, I really wanted to become a fashion designer. I. I didn’t quite acquire the marks to go to UTS, which was the dream. And so I had really great encouraging high school teacher called Michelle Marshall. And she just encouraged me to go to art school ’cause it was just down the road from where I was. I’d never really thought of being an artist. I thought I was just more like, I had really good applied skills, like I could sketch and copy. And I guess I couldn’t think of being an artist because I just didn’t really think I had anything to say.

00:05:30 Kiera Brew Kurec
Do you think when, ’cause you had the singing scholarship did you ever pursue music at all?

00:05:37 JD Reforma
No. It was really like, oh. ’cause I mean, it was a really musical school, so yeah, we. We all had to be in the orchestra when we were there and sing in the school choir as well as the cathedral choir. So I think the main, the main thing that I associated with music was exhaustion. So I had no desire whatsoever to pursue anything musical.

00:06:02 Nick Breedon
So you went into art instead because it’s so much more relaxing.

00:06:06 JD Reforma
So much more rewarding. Yeah. Really chill vibes. No, because art was sort of like my respite. And it was what I did to fill those, like very onerous hours of traveling and commuting and, so yeah, no music I had, there was, there was no association with pleasure with music. Unfortunately. That’s changed for me now, but, yeah, it just, it changed my whole life. Like, I was just exhausted all the time. And, and you know what? I, as soon as I. My voice broke. I really fell out of love with singing. Because, you know, as a treble or a soprano, you are the protagonist. You are like, you’re singing the melody. And your, your voice is the impression of the song that the audience has received first. And then you move slowly down and my voice broke really quickly. Like it was the last to break, and then it broke so quickly. So you go like alto, tenor base, and then most boys sort of broke into alto, and then another year would pass tenor another year or another two years base. And then mine just like, was eviscerated within six months. I was like down to base and I hated being base. It’s so boring. It’s so boring. And, yeah, I, I, I think that was what, like year nine or 10, so by that point I was just over it. And yeah, so by the time I was not a soprano anymore, I just had no interest in pursuing music, unfortunately. But I really loved it up until that point mostly. And so I went to art school, because it just felt like what I was like naturally good at. And, my idea was to bridge over into UTS. But I had this like, I. I had this like one high school bully who I hated. I think it was a formative experience in some ways, but I had this high school bully who just like hated me, because I like beat him at art. And like that he, he hated me. Like he would, he hated me and my friends and he would like, sabotage us, who would sabotage our art projects and all this stuff. It was just like so heinous. And, so I just kept beating him for the hell of it. And then, and then when it came to like making a selection of stuff, he, everyone knew that I was just gonna go to art school. He didn’t tell anyone. And then I rocked up to orientation day at COFA and he was here. And I was like, what the, I was so livid. And it turned out he had the exact same idea as me, that he wanted to go and study fashion. And I was like, absolutely, no, I am not enduring an entire degree with this person. And so I stayed here at COFA and really enjoyed it and kind of learned to find my own sort of voice or feet. But I really, I think like apart from a sort of, you know, an interest in picking up skills and craftsmanship and working towards the kind of briefs and assignments that you get at COFA, I didn’t really have a sort of vision for what I wanted to say myself as an artist for a really long time. And that came through like my peers and stuff.

00:09:26 Nick Breedon
Practice, yeah.

00:09:27 JD Reforma
Practice, yeah. And I had one, I had a group of friends, particularly here at COFA, like Marilyn Schneider and Giselle Stanborough, and Rosie Deacon and I, and they were so inspirational, like so as hardworking, if not hard, hardworking than I am, but they had a sort of vision, and, an aesthetic or a set of ideas that they knew, like, and I was so astounded by it. And Marilyn, I think, her and i’s sort of conceptual interest probably aligned the most because she was someone who, We were both like, I guess like fashion girlies and we both loved shopping and being in malls and being around sort of like luxury boutiques and those sorts of like high fashion finishes. And that materiality. And then, you know, she sort of moved down more into that route. She kind of explored a lot of different aesthetics around, retail and Westfield in particular. And then I kind of splinted off into sort of exploring that particular, aesthetic of, McMansion architecture in Sydney. And that also then kind of splinted off again when I started, Marilyn and that group really introduced me to a group of Western Sydney artists. Working at a Parramatta artist studios actually, I. And, they were like Tom Polo, David Capra, Heath Franco, Jody Whelan Liam Benson, George Tillianakis, all these like really wonderful artists working in this really tight-knit community. I had absolutely no conception that there were artists in Western Sydney until that point. And they were just so incredibly generous, like such great champions, of me and really encouraging. And that sense of like, people my age or in my generation supporting me, was, felt, felt really new to me. So, that they really opened me up to a lot of different opportunities and ideas in my practice. And then I feel like I’ve skipped over a whole bit, but I don’t know. That’s, yeah. So that, that sort of period in, in. Around the Parramatta artist studios. I never actually, was in residence there. I just hung out a lot with those artists and around that space. And I think it also gave me a sort of sense of pride in that area, which I didn’t really have. ’cause, you know, going to school in the city, and then basically just commuting back. There was just no in-between for me. And, yeah, that was, that was really nourishing and encouraging in a way that I hadn’t experienced before.

00:12:13 Nick Breedon
Would you say that, your, your development, you know, from that, from that moment where you, you know, felt like you didn’t have a lot to say as an artist when you started, art school until, you know, now, you know, obviously you have a lot to say in your practice, but where, where do you feel like that change kind of occurred when you started developing your kind of sensibility as an artist and, and your voice and, and, you know, feeling kind of more confident in, in that expressing,

00:12:45 JD Reforma
Yeah, that really changed, I think when we all just had to start exhibiting. And, we, Marilyn, Giselle, Rosie and I would apply for exhibitions together all the time because, that was just the most affordable way for us to do it back when you had to pay to exhibit at ARIs. And in, in some ways it felt, like paradoxically in some ways that made it more accessible for some certain people. It obviously wasn’t, but there. That wasn’t the point. We just having to put ourselves forward and compete and, differentiate ourselves from our peers. That became a real time when we were really conservatively going to a lot of shows. And fortunately around that time there was lot, there was an incredible density of ARIs in the city and, I would just. I worked in the city as well, so I would just finish serving coffee and then go explore Aries with Marilyn or Giselle or whoever was around. And we would just voraciously consume room sheets. And go to artist talks. Yeah. Crazy idea.

00:14:00 Nick Breedon
Did the work

00:14:01 JD Reforma
it worked? Yeah. Oh yeah. No, we did the work. Sorry. Yes. I thought he said did it work?

00:14:05 Nick Breedon
It did. Well it did work, obviously it worked.

00:14:08 JD Reforma
And there was even like, Mop was a really great one. Mop projects. ’cause they, would produce catalogs for every exhibition, like really beautiful sort of a 5, 250 GSM Colour catalogs. And I had a really long commute, so, and it was close to the station, so I used to go to Mop and. Just mop all their catalogs up. And then read them on the train home. And that’s how I really learned, I guess a sense of like literacy as an artist. How they communicate the way that artists work with writers and the way that writers can articulate ideas out of an artist’s practice. And I became exposed to different writers and got a sense of how people had a voice. And there were some really great writers around then. Don’t ask me who, but I know there were.

00:14:51 Nick Breedon
Yeah. You just very, very briefly just then just touched on, that barrier for entry was a really interesting thing that has changed since then that you did have to have money to have an exhibition, but it was more, That if you could get the money somehow Yeah. You could get a show. Yeah. Whereas I feel like it’s very different now where you really have to have a very established, you know, credibility as an artist to be getting kind of a lot of these sort of very, you know, shows in small organizations now.

00:15:23 JD Reforma
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Like these, I was living at home as well, so I had a disposable income, so it was, it was no skin off my back, but the people I was exhibiting with, you know, there were people who were living out of home, with absolutely no money. They were going to school doing, spending their money on project at school, and then also applying for exhibitions. But yeah, I agree. It’s, it sometimes does feel completely impenetrable to people who otherwise have, you know, incredible work and are highly skilled. I think it’s just a sheer lack of opportunities now. And, a great, yeah, it sometimes, even with ARI, it’s like having to pay for an ARI if an artist dropped out. I think the first time I actually got my show, a show at Firstdraft, for example, was because someone had dropped out. And, this was like back in the day, but, I knew one of the directors and, I hadn’t been successful in applying for shows before. But someone dropped out and I was available and I had the money and,

00:16:32 Nick Breedon
and you had the work ready, presumably.

00:16:33 JD Reforma
And I had the work ready and it, it got up and then that, as sort of like side door unethical that might have been, was really commonplace, but it also gave me the confidence to start pushing myself a bit more. To push, extend myself outside of that space. Yeah. But it is, yeah, I don’t know if I would want to necessarily go back to that model, but there’s definitely something broken about the current one in many ways.

00:17:06 Nick Breedon
Yeah. Yes. It’s like we haven’t found a good in-between or either or, or something new.

00:17:12 Kiera Brew Kurec
Yeah. Yeah. Or a large enough economy to have different systems playing all at the same time.

00:17:17 Nick Breedon
Yes. Or just, what we spoke about with a different guest, which is just, space. Just space. You know, we need, we need space to live and we need space to exhibit.

00:17:28 Kiera Brew Kurec
So from those early days of showing in artist run spaces and now your work is being collected by major museums and

00:17:36 JD Reforma
just one include just one,

00:17:38 Kiera Brew Kurec
but included in some pretty big shows at the moment. What has that space and time looked like for you?

00:17:44 JD Reforma
It’s been a really long road, I guess, and i, I can never conceive of being a full-time artist, which is probably also why it’s been such a long road because it’s just however much time I’ve been able to squeeze in around full-time work. And, there was a time when I really just threw myself into professional work. So I, you know, in 2012, if you could use Facebook, you had a job that in the art, that’s facts. And so yeah, I, it was a time when like a lot of arts organizations were sort of like transforming digitally and, you know, if I didn’t have opportunities as an artist, I would like fill that time, which is learning how to work inside an arts organization. And I also, you know, I didn’t feel like once I was, you know, you’re the best in art at high school and you come to art school and you’re around like everyone who lives the best in art across the country.

00:18:46 Kiera Brew Kurec
Mm-hmm.

00:18:46 JD Reforma
And I kind of felt like I’m just like, I’m not competitive in this arena, so I better come up with something else. And so I had this idea that I wanted to, you know, like eventually lead an arts organization of some kind. And I wanted to just gain experience in every aspect of running an arts organization from, you know, serving beer and to cleaning the toilets, to updating the Facebook page, and curating or whatever. And I would just do it for free or for paid or whatever, like whoever would have me, I just did it. And then, Through that I got an opportunity, I’m trying to remember how it was at like Gaffa and That’s right. My friend Catherine Stockings had a show there and they had an opening and so I ended up having a show at, in like one of the small galleries at Gaffa and they had like a curatorial residency program so you could program the space for six months at a time. Unpaid, of course. But that was a really great opportunity for me. I just put myself forward for it. And then from there, I. Put together these exhibitions with basically a bunch of my friends, like Giselle and Marilyn and Heath and Jody. And there was a great sculptor in painter called Ben Norris and Tully Arnot and Charlie Dennington. And that was kind of a space where I cut my teeth as in programming. And from there I kept moving up by gallery coordinator position shortly after that. And then Firstdraft came along and I was the director there. And then that shifted things again really radically because it was a time when the organization, relocated from, Surry Hills to Woolloomooloo. So that again, brought a different visibility to me and to my practice, or maybe even away from my practice. But, I guess where I was going was that I was really just kind of like following whatever, working with whatever was like right in front of me at that time. And then I was also studying masters because I just wanted a paycheck, frankly. And again, like not really, not written necessarily, feeling like I had a voice or a vision for my practice. And, I was just like being, trying to be inspired by what was around me, which was like my house, my, the, this house that my Mum had dreamed up for us. And, I guess this sort of economies and I, of the, like the visual, cultural and social economies that these, sorts of spaces entail. And then I guess also I really owe it to like a lot of curators who just sort of went out on limbs for me, and would give me opportunities, really great commissioning opportunities, particularly around then with Western Sydney artists. It was like a great excitement as there is now, but I was really lucky to be part of a wave then where, you know, you could basically count on receiving an opportunity at a certain space or through a certain curator, which was really wonderful. So I got some great opportunities at Campbelltown Art Center through that. And then from Masters I started working at Artspace. I was just really voracious. I kind of just wanted to hit every, every possible base. Worked at Artspace for a bit and then. That felt like another big transition period. ’cause then that was, you know, at the time when Alexie Glass Kantor had just commenced in that space and, that was really transformative, I guess, just for my way of thinking. And, I think what I loved about working at that place was that like I never knew, who the fuck these artists were that she was talking about. Whereas I was so used to in all the spaces that I’d been like, knowing the whole roster, who I expected to come through. So that was really exciting in a very basic way, to be around that space and time. And, I do remember them sort of, because at, at this point I was kind of just like juggling between exhibiting and working in spaces. By that point I was like a marketer. Communications coordinator, we call them,

00:23:14 Kiera Brew Kurec
Put things on the internet,

00:23:15 JD Reforma
put things on.

00:23:16 Nick Breedon
It’s how far we’ve come from the person who knows how Facebook works.

00:23:20 JD Reforma
Good with words. My god. Yeah. I was really, I was fantastic with Facebook and Instagram and that’s all it took for a little while. Then I really learned about like real arts, marketing and communications at Artspace. I had a really fantastic mentor there called Caroline Douglas, who basically taught me how to be a marketer in a two day handover.

00:23:39 Nick Breedon
Amazing.

00:23:40 JD Reforma
She was the best.

00:23:41 Nick Breedon
She’s the best communicator. That’s why you could do it in two days.

00:23:44 JD Reforma
Exactly, yeah. And then, by the time I was in Artspace, the workload was just so huge that I basically abandoned all plans to be an artist, and that was fine. I was really happy to do that. And, you know, the, the impression that I got from leadership there was also, it’s like, it’s this or your practice. You can’t do both. But they were always really supportive of any projects that I had. And the time that I spent there was really transformative. And I then worked, after about three and a half years there, I worked at the Biennale of Sydney, doing web and social media coordination. And that again exposed me to an entirely different community of artists and engagement with contemporary art. The pace, the volume. As you know, Kiera is absolutely monumental. And, I, I think by this point I had sort of decided that I wasn’t really interested in being an artist anymore. I kind of wanted to be like a leading marketer or something that was sort of my goal and vision for myself. But after the Biennale I was just absolutely gutted and my contract ended and I got scooped up by, a friend, Stella McDonald, who, who’s a curator and manager at UTS Gallery and art collection. And she had this part-time contract for me, and then having this part-time work. Meant I had time to think about being an artist again. That was a really long way of getting about to how I filled that void. But yeah, really probably only again, in the last three or four years, I was able to refocus my attention on art. I was always like working a little bit on the side, doing a group show here, group show there. Also, one of the reasons I wanted to leave Artspace was because I really wanted to be in the fellowship.

00:25:35 Nick Breedon
Yes, you’re really, you know, what is it like, tripping yourself up or,

00:25:39 Kiera Brew Kurec
yeah, omitting yourself out of one of the major things about being in a New South Wales based artist.

00:25:44 JD Reforma
Totally. Like as, as the communications coordinator who had put, who had planned those announcements, I was like, I can see the engagement and visibility that these opportunities bring these artists. And I was like, I want that. Yeah. You know, as candid as that is to say, So, yeah, that was definitely a reason. And also like the, it’s a great opportunity, like to work with Alexie and those curators, Michelle Talia. I wanted to be, I wanted to be on the other side. Yeah. And so,

00:26:13 Nick Breedon
yeah. Would you say that, you know, being an arts worker really, influenced your practice or like your, your sense of confidence in working in your own practice? Like coming through that other side

00:26:25 JD Reforma
For sure

00:26:25 Nick Breedon
and seeing it from the backend.

00:26:27 JD Reforma
For sure. For sure. And I think also that was part of my, my motivation because like as an artist, I really didn’t have a lot of confidence and, yeah, knowing, knowing exactly what a curator expects from you or what a marketer or, you know, the installation production coordinator or even the executive director, what they expect from you and being able to meet that expectation really easily. That was a hundred percent part of my motivation of as well wanting to be an arts worker. Just ’cause I guess the, the sort of the making and the conceptualising conceptualisation part is already hard enough as it is. And then when these opportunities do come and they do and they come quickly, I just want ed to be ready and, at the ready for whenever they did. And fortunately, these different experiences prepared me really well and I, once you learn them, they’re not hard either. It’s just about being like a communicative and, decisive worker is the crux of it. So, yeah.

00:27:30 Kiera Brew Kurec
Yeah. It’s, but it’s a funny thing where these things aren’t naturally told or taught to us as artists, and so we have to find it out to learn the hard way.

00:27:38 JD Reforma
Yes. Professional practice module.

00:27:41 Nick Breedon
Mm. Well that’s why we saw this podcast is so we could actually just, teach

00:27:45 Kiera Brew Kurec
ourselves, learn from all of you. Suck

00:27:47 Nick Breedon
Yes. Like vampires.

00:27:49 JD Reforma
Oh, I wouldn’t say I taught myself. I was really like, learning by osmosis through so many incredibly competent people around me. But yeah, a lot of it’s, yeah,

00:27:59 Nick Breedon
I do try to remind students that I work with that, you know, it’s okay for them not to know everything now because it, it’s, you know, so much comes through experience and that takes time. So just to keep going.

00:28:13 JD Reforma
Yes. It’s really, It’s, it’s just this stamina game.

00:28:17 Nick Breedon
Absolutely.

00:28:18 Kiera Brew Kurec
It really is. It really is. And even I’ve, I’ve probably already told this story on the podcast, but I remember, being in undergrad and going to art forums, which were a weekly artist talk, and always being like so blown away that these artists had a practice that was cohesive and all made sense.

00:28:40 Nick Breedon
Coherent even

00:28:41 Kiera Brew Kurec
coherent. Yeah. Yes. And I was like, I just make work, like bits of work. And I remember, one of my teachers saying to me like, yes, Kiera, but they have years and years of practice and just keep going. It will all make sense, but you just gotta build up the time. And that was a really, it was heartening, but also just like very frustrating being like, oh, like that. I wanted the instant satisfaction of being like ta Daaa here’s my beautiful practice.

00:29:11 Nick Breedon
Yes. It’s not a beautiful linear, narrative. It’s all just incoherent blips, and then they make a cloud. Eventually

00:29:17 Kiera Brew Kurec
it’s, I really only feel like it’s now like however many years later that I’m like, oh wow, this is exactly what my practice is. I mean, it’s always morphing and changing, but in terms of like the, the themes in my own methodologies within my practice and, no one, yeah. Yeah.

00:29:35 JD Reforma
No one tells you when you’re hitting the marks.

00:29:37 Kiera Brew Kurec
No, no. You don’t get like a little like, ding , ding .

00:29:40 JD Reforma
You achieve that. Yeah. You can move on to the next stage of your career.

00:29:43 Nick Breedon
Yeah. Yeah. Like when’s the, when’s the mid-career? When’s the mid-career bell?

00:29:49 JD Reforma
It’s the other thing that,

00:29:50 Kiera Brew Kurec
it’s the silence of no offers. That’s mid career.

00:29:54 JD Reforma
Well, that’s the thing. I mean,

00:29:55 Nick Breedon
like, it’s when you can’t get into the Churchie anymore

00:29:59 JD Reforma
or the fellowship. Yeah. Yeah, it’s sort of like, it’s not so much a line that goes back and forth, it’s just a continuum. So I feel like sometimes I’ve circled back into emerging. Yeah. And then back through mid careere and then established,

00:30:10 Kiera Brew Kurec
I mean, there’s parts of your practice that become emerging and it’s, you know, it’s good to not, You know, allow yourself to do that as well and not cancel yourself out of it or censor yourself from being able to experience those things, later on as well.

00:30:26 JD Reforma
For sure.

00:30:27 Nick Breedon
I think that was, our episode with Arie who pointed out it was actually Alexie, in an essay talked about the emerging, and now I just wanna say emerging state of mind, but, essentially that, that being an emerging artist is more like a Yeah. A, a state of mind or, you know, you can, you can always be emerging in part of your practice.

00:30:47 JD Reforma
Totally. I mean, the way that I party and socialize is very emerging. Yeah, for sure.

00:30:55 Kiera Brew Kurec
You have definitely brought up some of these, already, but it would be great to hear what some of your biggest challenges that you have had to overcome in your practice have been.

00:31:05 JD Reforma
You know, I was reflecting on my answer and I just thought about what I just said. But the answer that I had thought about was that I had a really crippling social anxiety when I started because I think I started here when I was like 17 and everyone was like a little bit older than me here, and I. I was just basically mute or like I was terrified, couldn’t speak up, couldn’t talk about my ideas. I was just like a very good student. Like I could fulfill the brief and then like, please God, let me go.And I, COFA was also a very different architecturally back then. It was much more labyrinth than a bit more intimate,

00:31:49 Nick Breedon
more labyrinth that blows my mind.

00:31:52 JD Reforma
Well, labyrinth in, in like a fun and playful way. Now it’s just show like is now hellscape, not this impenetrable maze that it is. Yeah. That lift that were coming down really. Ugh. Anyway. But yeah, so there was just more, I, I remember I would like come to school and I had just thought of every single possible pathway to get to a class without encountering people. And yeah, so the, like, the fear of public speaking, the fear of interacting socially with people was really bad. And that was definitely something I had to overcome, as, as, as boring an answer that as that is, but I’ve just like really learned through imitation. That was also like around the time when artists started making work about anxiety.

00:32:40 Nick Breedon
Mm-hmm. So convenient.

00:32:43 JD Reforma
Yes. So I felt seen. Yeah. And, and yeah, I, I, I remember being at this opening at Gallery nine, and Marilyn, I was with Marilyn. Marilyn was a really formative figure Yeah. In my career and my personhood, but she just knew every single person in that room and was like, so generous and introduced me to everyone. And I remember feeling like so like, loved and so cared for and being in awe of her, at this thing. So, I kind of just decided one day that I needed to step my pussy up and remember people, remember people’s names and, you know, consciously engage, and try not to just completely wilt, at any kind of interaction. And then that just slowly, slowly, slowly built. And then I became a communications coordinator, like the person who was expected to be the least anxious in an arts organization.

00:33:43 Nick Breedon
Mm-hmm. I, I wanted to ask as well, because I think, you know, if people haven’t met you in person before, they might have only interacted with you through your social media presence, which I think is, you know, quite, There’s a certain kind of, kind of confidence I think, which comes through your, your, your social media presence.Whereas I think in person, you are, you, you’re actually quite a, you know, generous and,

00:34:04 Kiera Brew Kurec
are you saying the social media isn’t?

00:34:07 JD Reforma
No, I, I know it, I know it’s,

00:34:08 Nick Breedon
it’s generous in a different way, I would say. Like, I think, I think a lot of people would be surprised to, to know that you maybe, found social interactions, difficult initially based off of that maybe, but

00:34:22 JD Reforma
yeah, maybe.

00:34:23 Nick Breedon
Yeah.

00:34:24 JD Reforma
Yeah. What came first? The social media or the confidence? I think like social media was a really great. Thinking about it now, actually social media is a really great way for me to come outta my shell because you’re essentially like the voice of an institution when you are the marketing coordinator. So you have to find ways of, engaging people with the organisation and you are literally using your voice. And then I kind of became a bit addicted to that possibly, to that interaction, to that attention, and seeing how useful a tool it was as an artist to be able to wield. And yeah, certainly I think I’ve, I’ve belay confidence on social media, which is really fun and it’s really performative. And, social media’s also been really incredibly, like cathartic for me over the years as well. And that’s also like, you know, I had this meme account keeping up with the KPIs, and that came like, I can’t remember. If it was after Artspace or after the Biennale, it was probably after the Biennale. I won’t exactly triangulate its time period, but it was like at a particular point in my career when I had been through so many different vocational experiences, and I was just experimenting with memes and humor. And humor was also always something that, you know, I really relied on interpersonally to get along with people. So, keeping up with KPIs became this like really great tool for me to build up a great deal of confidence, which I had never had access to before and an audience. So that certainly in the last, God, when did I started 2017. Yeah, that kind of, yeah, changed things up a lot for me in terms of like, You know, it felt like for so many years I’d been like waving my arms in front of certain people trying to get their attention. And then this keeping up the thing was the thing that finally cut through. Yeah. And then I think I just became addicted to that and . I used to love, like, I used to love putting, posting a meme and then going to an opening.

00:36:37 Nick Breedon
Yeah. Yeah. And then people would be like, oh my God.

00:36:40 JD Reforma
And they’d be like, oh my God, what’s that about? Just love doing that. God, that was so conceited. But it was really great fun. It was really fun to fuck with people. And I think it also just meant, Kiera is laughing. It also just, I, I think it’d also like seen and endured so much. I just wanted people to know that I, like, I see what’s

00:37:08 Nick Breedon
saw it,

00:37:09 JD Reforma
I can see what’s happening here. Like, and I’m not gonna call you out, but I’m gonna let you know that I’ve seen this and we’ll make a little funny about it and we’ll move on. But if I’ve seen it, that means like a lot of other people,

00:37:21 Nick Breedon
everyone’s seen it. Yeah. I think, I think memes really do have a lot of potential to kind of like, cut through some of that weird, taboo about speaking up about, you know, the, the, the terrible things you see, you know, in the art world. But everybody sees, but nobody really knows what to do with it. Everybody just sort of like puts it, you know, on the shelf in their brain somewhere and goes, I dunno what I’ll do with that. I’ll just keep it there forever. But yeah, it is like, I feel like. So cathartic, seeing some of those memes and being like, I know literally what that is. Yeah, I know what that’s about. But yeah, we can all like, you know, have a little laugh about it

00:38:01 JD Reforma
Yeah, totally. And it, it, I guess it made me, it just gave me a great deal of comfort and it also sort of, had the opposite effect. It made me feel a bit more proactive in those situations where, you know, I was seeing things play out, but it was always like, it’s always a laugh. And like, I’ve talked to a lot of people that I made content about and, I think, when I set out to make that account, I was like, radical transparency everyone’s gonna know this is me from the beginning. Because that meant I was holding myself accountable. Also like the challenge of articulating something and experience in a way which is, you know, both transparent but also, is funny, but also like generous and not so, yeah. You could sort of deal with like very difficult circumstances in, in a, in an oblique way. Where everyone can kind of, you know, the perpetrator, the victim, everyone, they can kind of look on this thing objectively. That was like a nice kind of intellectual challenge in doing those, doing those things

00:39:02 Nick Breedon
like capturing the nuance of a situation.

00:39:04 JD Reforma
Yeah. Nuance.

00:39:07 Nick Breedon
Yes. Keeping up with the KPIs is, it’s all about nuance. Given that your practice has, you know, taken so many circuitous routes, around and around in a spiral, What does success mean to you as an artist?

00:39:22 JD Reforma
I’ve been thinking about all the questions, so I’m gonna try not to start every question like this, but, I guess if you think of success as like work, you know, getting opportunities, that’s one way of looking at success and, it functions as more of a continuum. Like you can have one project a year and be so happy with it and you can be busy and booked and absolutely miserable. And I’ve, I think thankfully I’ve encountered both sides of that, but, I think. The, the latter, the busy booked thing allows me to feel a bit more confident just having the one thing that I’m really happy with. So at the end of the day, what I’m really happy with is, and I think I’ve told you this, it’s like if I can make one work a year that I love, or that I’ve loved making, that, like, I’m absolutely fine with that and happy to go to my job every day.

00:40:11 Nick Breedon
That sounds really nice.

00:40:12 JD Reforma
Yeah. That’s all I wanna do.

00:40:14 Nick Breedon
That’s what I want.

00:40:15 JD Reforma
You know, like, God, I just have so many memories of like, you know, striving our butts off. And then it happens so quickly. You get this show and then the show and then the show and then, suddenly you’re like three grand down the hall just in rent and you’ve got all this work to make and you don’t have a studio. But this is what I wanted. You know, I have it now, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna be happy with it. And. Yeah, that, that, that’s, that’s given me the, the opportunities that I have to just focus on these one things. I think that’s how I define success now. And, I guess like I had this, I had this one project a couple of years ago, which now that I’ve made it, I feel like this is how I always wanna make art, and this is what feels good to me. Because, you know, to an extent, it’s particularly as like a marketer, I, I guess I had developed a skill in like, managing the terms of engagement with my work. I could feel like this work was successful if it looked this way, if the artist statement sounded this way. And if it got, I. This person’s attention. A, B, C, D. Like, it was very like,

00:41:36 Nick Breedon
KPIs.

00:41:37 JD Reforma
Very KPIs. Yeah. Yeah. It was very KPIs, it was very, surgical. And, I made this work, which was a commission for the art gallery, during lockdown. And it was a video and it was, a kind of work that I’d never really made ever before conceived of, and like a very sort of personal exposition of a really difficult experience. And, being able to just see and engage with people who had engaged with the work and, had shared their responses with me to it. They’re very real and felt and experience lived experiences of that, that turned everything upside down in how I wanna be as an artist. And that’s what really, that’s what really sort of triggered this. Like, don’t be booked and busy. It’s not, it’s not fulfilling for me right now. I just wanna make the things that I wanna make. And so yeah, that’s, that’s, if I can do one of those even every second year, I’ll be really happy. And I have, I haven’t made any work since then.

00:42:41 Kiera Brew Kurec
So that leads us perfectly on what does a day, a week, a month, or a year in the life of making one artwork?

00:42:49 Nick Breedon
Oh, no. Every two. Two years. Two years.

00:42:51 Kiera Brew Kurec
Once every two years look like at the moment,

00:42:53 JD Reforma
I’m ready to make my biannual art work was that biannual? Biannual? I don’t know.

00:42:58 Nick Breedon
It’s it that it’s either two times a year or once every two. Yeah. Nobody knows.

00:43:04 JD Reforma
You’re telling me a bi curated, this anal, So you can leave that in, please.

00:43:13 Nick Breedon
I will, I will.

00:43:17 JD Reforma
Well, it’s called practice ’cause you gotta practice. So I do it every day in some way. I’ve talked about this a little bit before, but I just write a lot in my notes app. And just as a way of like recording ideas or conversations or things I’ve heard or, you know, just that little provocations. That’s something that I do probably every single day. I really like that and it’s, it’s changed so much for me. Like when I came to art school, I wanted to be a painter and I was a really great sketcher and great drawer and all that, but I don’t draw at all right now, ever. I think about, and I think also this has maybe come from working in arts organisations, I think of like the end product and I work backwards from there.

00:44:06 Kiera Brew Kurec
I feel like that’s also a painting thing.

00:44:08 JD Reforma
Is it?

00:44:08 yes. Yeah. Oh yeah. ’cause

00:44:10 Nick Breedon
we’ve talked a lot about the image. Yeah. And as a painter, you have your image that you’re trying to create. Yes. And so you kill yourself trying to make the image. Yeah.

00:44:22 JD Reforma
Yeah. Huh, I haven’t thought of it that way.

00:44:24 Nick Breedon
Expanded painting. Who would’ve thought? Yeah, we were all there.

00:44:29 JD Reforma
We’ve all been expanded painters. No one in this podcast knows I’m an expanded painter. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, I I’ve worked backwards from there. I, writing is a really, has become a really important part of my practice because I write and read a lot for my work. My main work has been like marketing communications, so, I’m constantly reading and writing artist statements or artist buyers, and. That is what comes first for me when I’m thinking about a work, I’ll, I’ll literally write what I think the wall label is gonna be ish. But also because as an artist, those are the things they ask for first. Like when you are getting commission for a work, they’re like, artist Bio artist statement. I’m like, I just signed this contract. Like I don’t, I don’t know what I’m gonna make. But, so yeah, you, when you start working as an artist, you have to kinda like reverse engineer the process and start with a statement. And so this has just been a logical evolution of the easiest way of working. So I will write as if, as the artwork is finished and then every step I take from there is about, kind of sticking to the brief that I’ve set for myself in many ways, which can be really limiting, but can also be really freeing in other ways. ’cause I like parameters and I respond really well to them. So writing is really important. Part of my practice and um hmm. That’s a day. A week. And I don’t know, I, it’s become a really project based practice actually. I mean, I think a lot of artists feel very pro project to project, and I think that’s, this is something I’m, I’m trying to unlearn as well.Unlearn. And, particularly this year, I’ve just got a studio recently and I, I want to be able to just do things more with my hands because I miss that instinctual and random, and visceral feeling of playing with manipulating materials. So that’s definitely something I’m trying to desperately to explore more because this project based stuff can feel, really surgical and cold sometimes, and making. Isn’t that fun in that way? Yeah. Or it can be, but it’s, it shouldn’t be the only way.

00:46:51 Nick Breedon
Yeah. Yeah. I noticed for me, I used to be a, a voracious, drawer and, planner and designer, and I would always draw everything, you know, with a mechanical pencil in my moleskin diary, and I still have it in my bag, but I’ve gone, you know, I’ve gone down from like going through one every couple of months to one, every, probably two years now, maybe even more. And I notice the main difference is my, smartphone and, and I, and I do the same thing. I take notes in my smartphone now instead of drawing. Did a similar thing happen with you, do you think?

00:47:25 JD Reforma
Yes, a hundred percent. It changed completely. Like also like living in the city meant that I wasn’t commuting and finding ways to fill my time anymore. And I. Everything just became extremely, about like finding efficiencies and, the smartphones really flattened that experience for me. It’s created texture in other areas, of course, but definitely that kind of, that physical act of pulling something out, scrunching it, moving it away, is gone for me now. Or just to be replaced by, by another to-do list or another. Yes. Artwork ideas list. Yes. I think I have about 25 artwork ideas list.

00:48:06 Nick Breedon
I know artwork, name lists. You have those?

00:48:08 JD Reforma
Oh yeah. You know, I also like star backwards from artwork titles.

00:48:11 Nick Breedon
Yes, me too. Yeah, me too.

00:48:12 JD Reforma
That’s like, I love that. Real one-liners. Yeah. Artwork. It’s ’cause it’s my favorite part of it, I think.

00:48:19 Nick Breedon
Just punny.

00:48:20 JD Reforma
Love a punny illusion. Yes to my, you know, Mind. Yeah.

00:48:25 Nick Breedon
Oh, well I hope you can find your drawing practice while you’re at the residency again too. buy a moleskin.

00:48:30 JD Reforma
Yeah. I used to love like using lined notebooks to sketch because, particularly like to design. ’cause I could just use all the lines to measure out, perfect distances and that’s, yeah.

00:48:42 Nick Breedon
Grids.

00:48:43 Kiera Brew Kurec
Grids,

00:48:44 JD Reforma
hated grids.

00:48:44 Nick Breedon
Did we just both say grids at the same time?

00:48:46 JD Reforma
never got into grid paper,

00:48:47 but what about the, like the one with the dots instead?

00:48:51 Oh, no,

00:48:51 Kiera Brew Kurec
no. I’d always wanna play paddocks.

00:48:57 Nick Breedon
Simple, simple pleasures

00:48:58 JD Reforma
is paddocks one where you, you’re trying to close off squares.

00:49:01 Kiera Brew Kurec
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:02 JD Reforma
Oh I miss that game

00:49:04 Nick Breedon
do young people know? I think its lost to time, I think.

00:49:09 JD Reforma
But I think they ruled notebooks sort of remind me of. High school where you’re sort of like tucking your practice around things mm-hmm.

00:49:16 Kiera Brew Kurec
In the margins.

00:49:17 JD Reforma
Yeah. And like, you know, I was always that person where it’s like, you are not allowed to everybody’s silence. And like, that’s the only time I ever felt like talking. So, yeah, I guess I’m just like trying to find way of, enforcing those same parameters that made me a drawer back in the day.

00:49:38 Kiera Brew Kurec
Would you be able to share with us what some of the biggest resources have been in assisting your practice?

00:49:45 JD Reforma
I really wanted to come here with a list of stuff that was useful to link to your listeners. But. I read and write so much as part of my job that I just take no pleasure in it. Yeah. Outside of it, I have to say that like the biggest resources in my practice have been like my friends and my mentors. And I’ve really, I know this is something that I’ve always concertedly sought out throughout my career from, you know, from being a student up, up to being a professional artist. And these are people that I. You know, no matter how much my networks expand or contract the people I continue to reach out to rely on exchange advice, knowledge, blacklists with, and, they’re, they’re great. Like they, they’re incredibly generous people who have, you know, taken a great risk on me or given me an opportunity or given me a job or, edited my cv. I think that Should I name them

00:50:55 Nick Breedon
You can if you want. Although I would, I would love to ask. I think a lot of people, if they haven’t had those kind of relationships before, if they’re, you know, they’re still in university that they might not know, you know, that, that they’d be like, how, you know, how can I, how can I develop those relationships with people? Like, how can I get someone to care enough to want to edit my CV for me? You know, like, how, how can you, how can you develop those relationships with people or how did you develop those relationships with people?

00:51:24 JD Reforma
I just was really obsessed with, feedback. And two of these people and, you know, their, their work and their, their titles lend themselves really well to this. Were editors like, writers and curators, but had just incredible editing capability. One of them was like a curator at Artspace. Her name’s Talia Linz. And the other one was another curator, Stella McDonald, who I did masters with. And she was an artist and her artwork was about the process of editing. And so I just kind of, these were people who just had no qualms with asking me like, what are you talking about? What do you mean, what are you trying to say? And those are the people I think, that I’m constantly drawn to, because. A lot of people will just like really happily kind of like pacify you or provide like blind encouragement, or praise. But these two in particular have always been very like, I don’t get, it doesn’t make sense to me. So, I guess in seeking out mentorship, I think you have to, I don’t know.

00:52:51 Nick Breedon
So you have to be prepared to sort of withstand ask people their honest critique of you and then withstand their that critique.

00:52:58 JD Reforma
I think so. And, just really be, vigilant, be vigilant for it and uh hmm. How to seek out a mentor,

00:53:13 Kiera Brew Kurec
I think they also find you,

00:53:15 JD Reforma
they do they do.

00:53:16 Kiera Brew Kurec
There’s a, symbiotic search for mentor and mentee.

00:53:20 JD Reforma
That’s true. That’s true. Go where you’re wanted. Yeah. I think, it’s a great, it’s a great place to start. And, I, yeah, I just, I hope that there are people out there that I’ve provided the same level of encouragement that some of the people have to me without, without me asking or requesting it. I hope that I’ve been able to offer that, but I also think like being generous. Can invite that kind of energy into your life. And that’s, I think that’s what I really enjoy about my work. Whenever I’m engaging with artists, young artists, emerging artists, being able to provide them that sort of encouragement at the beginning means nothing to me, but it’s sort of everything to them. And, Yeah, that’s a really basic answer.

00:54:07 Kiera Brew Kurec
No, that’s good.

00:54:07 Nick Breedon
No, I think that’s really good. Yeah. And as I think, you know, being a bit further on in my career now, it is, you know, when I engage with younger artists and they are, yeah. The ones who do come to me or they ask me my opinion and I give it to them and they are happy to receive it, you know, that that is, you know, it is enjoyable to be someone who feels that they can give back in that way. Like so many people have, to me over my career as well, so.

00:54:35 JD Reforma
Totally. And, you know, everyone loves being asked for advice. Yeah. So I think like, One thing that really struck me about Stella as a friend, for example, was that she would just like call me to see what’s up and like after smartphones happened, I’m like, who does that? And like, after a few of these phone calls, I’m like, you really just call me up? She’s like, yeah, I just want to chat.

00:54:58 Nick Breedon
Yeah. There’s, this isn’t an emergency, is it? Yeah.

00:55:00 JD Reforma
Yeah. So just like, here’s a radical idea. Just call someone up for a chat. . And that sort of like gradually builds up this trust between us. And, I call her up out of the blue, she calls me up. And so now I think I just have that confidence to do that with people getting on the phone. Just getting to the point of things, is really great.

00:55:18 Nick Breedon
Please don’t ever do that with me.

00:55:21 JD Reforma
I won’t

00:55:22 Kiera Brew Kurec
much better on the phone these days. You don’t mind phone call.

00:55:24 Nick Breedon
Yeah. I, I, I did really used to hate it, but, no, I think you’re right though. I think like, when, when, when people can call you and, and chat with you now, it’s like a, a pretty good sign that they’re. Yeah, you know, one of the real ones. So if you could give your, your younger self, some advice as an artist, what would that be?

00:55:43 JD Reforma
I would encourage my younger self to seek out and embrace every possible opportunity to learn financial literacy. I think that’s like a really practical and important advice for every artist because it’s probably like the one parameter that we’re not taught super well about in art school. And, it doesn’t have to sort of be a boundary, to, like success or creativity. It shouldn’t be, if anything, like, you know, in more recent years when I’ve learned this, it’s kind of released me from a lot of anxiety and stresses. It’s like I don’t have to make. Oh, one thing I do always say to people, and I struggle to follow my own advice often, but it’s like, don’t spend more than you’re earning. You know, like, if you’re getting a $500 artist fee and a 500 production fee, pay rent and then pay and then make a $500 work. And, fortunately at COFA, it was a very, lateral conceptual, conceptually led curriculum. So I think we learned to sort of be quite resourceful in the way we conceived of artworks. But, I think the. I, I, you know what they should have when you go to an art gallery, just like a, a little,

00:57:10 Nick Breedon
some kind of disclaimer,

00:57:11 JD Reforma
some kind of QR code you can scan to see how much this thing cost.

00:57:14 Kiera Brew Kurec
Oh, yes.

00:57:15 JD Reforma
Something to make, like, because they think, like so many students go, to shows and they’re like, how can I possibly afford to make this? Or they’re trying to imitate something that they saw the art gallery in South Wales or something like, I guess just like an expecta setting your expectations really early about what it costs to be an artist. I, I have spent so many tens of thou and been, been in so many tens of thousands of dollars of debt. I will never do that ever again. And, I see so many friends and peers just, you know, they get. Exhibition A, B, C at Gallery X, Y, z that they’ve been wanting for so long, and they throw all their eggs into that basket. And it’s like, what if you don’t win that prize? Then you have to a, find a way to sell or destroy or store this like gleaming tribute to your debt. Like I just, no artwork is worth, nothing. Nothing is worth that kind of, financial decrepitude. And so I would really advise my younger self to not get a credit card, and to, don’t spend more than I earn and use the, the knowledge that I’ve earned at school to kind of make art on a budge. And also, I learned this on TikTok the other day and I was like, oh, that’s like such simple practicable, actionable advice. Go to the bank and set up a separate business account.

00:58:56 Kiera Brew Kurec
Yes.

00:58:57 JD Reforma
And, update your invoice template to that BSB and account number. . Have all your money paid into that account. Get a separate card for that. Make sure that card is a different color to your personal card, and pay all of your business expenses out of that. Whether it’s like, whether you’re earning $2,000 a year, whether you’re earning 20, even. Just like that simple physical barrier between Oh. Electronic barrier between your personal and your business expenses can be incredibly, unburdening.

00:59:27 Kiera Brew Kurec
It’s also much easier to do your tax at the end of the year. . I, I have that system and it’s like,

00:59:32 JD Reforma
it’s wild.

00:59:32 Nick Breedon
Do not take the card to the opening after party. Do not,

00:59:37 Kiera Brew Kurec
I mean, the card shouldn’t leave the house unless it’s like project time and you’re buying things.

00:59:41 Nick Breedon
What do you not go to Bunnings? Come on.

00:59:43 Kiera Brew Kurec
I mean, my card is with me, but it’s in a separate part of my wallet that it doesn’t get used unless it’s an arts related thing.

00:59:50 Nick Breedon
That’s fantastic advice though. Yeah.

00:59:51 Kiera Brew Kurec
Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up.

00:59:53 JD Reforma
And then like, I guess my, the last element of that advice is, get an accountant and just delegate, outsource, outsource, outsource labor that you don’t know how to do. Simple. And I think like, the sooner as an artist that you can reconcile yourself to your civic responsibility to pay tax the better. And I still get refunds. Yeah. Like it’s not the end of the world. A lot is deductible.

01:00:21 Kiera Brew Kurec
It’s great.

01:00:21 Nick Breedon
Yes. And there are, many, you know, organizations and different, groups involved in the arts do kind of, tax and different workshops and things now. So there are a lot of resources available. I think Nava has a lot of resources in term in terms of, of doing your taxes and, and financial advice. ,

01:00:39 JD Reforma
I even, I think I just, like, what did I do? I think I asked like 10 friends who their accountant was, and then once I got a vote of three, I picked it up one.

01:00:48 Nick Breedon
Can you tell me after?

01:00:49 JD Reforma
I will I will but yeah,

01:00:51 Nick Breedon
Like I moved states, so need a new, need a new accountant.

01:00:54 JD Reforma
Oh yeah, of course. And these guys’s great. I’ll, I’ll give you their contacts, but, I mean that’s, that’s practical advice. I guess like I give, one thing I wanted to say is that there’s like not just one art world. And yeah, I think, and you know, to my earlier point about this being a game of stamina, I think there are infinite more artists who are like talented and intelligent than I was and came, were sort of undone, by this pursuit of one idea of themselves in the artworld. And so I think, the sooner you can sort of understand and pursue what those, what that world is for yourself, because, like my career path is one trajectory. But there’s just so many and I, yeah,

01:01:45 Kiera Brew Kurec
I think that’s a great place to leave it.

01:01:47 Nick Breedon
Yeah. That’s really beautiful.

01:01:48 Kiera Brew Kurec
There’s options out there.

01:01:49 JD Reforma
Yeah.

01:01:50 Kiera Brew Kurec
Thank you so much for spending the afternoon with us and joining us in the studio today. It’s a real pleasure, and I’m sure everyone’s gonna very much enjoy hearing what you’ve had to say.

01:02:02 JD Reforma
I hope so. Thank you so much for having me. Great questions.

01:02:05 Kiera Brew Kurec
Thanks.

01:02:06 Nick Breedon
Thanks.

01:02:08 This episode was recorded on the sovereign lands of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians, the Gadigal and Bidjigal people, and pay respects to elders past, present, and emerging. We extend this acknowledgement to the traditional custodians of the lands and waters that this podcast reaches you on today.

01:02:29 Our intro music is created by Evelyn Ida Morris.

01:02:32 Kiera Brew Kurec
This season Pro Prac was generously supported by the Australia Council for the Arts New Project Grant.

01:02:41 Nick Breedon
Thanks for listening to Pro Prac. You can listen to other episodes and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can stay up to date with what we’re up to on Instagram @propracpodcast or send us an email at propracpod@gmail.com.