A fresh new media talent brings parkour online
For new media artist Ali Kadhim, the internet is the natural place to expose his great passion – the French art of urban movement known as parkour.
As Artist-in-Residence at ICE, Ali is working on a fascinating project funded by the Australia Council for the Arts through the Emerging Producers in Community program (EPIC).
It involves mapping the creative spaces in Sydney’s west used for parkour and other urban arts, like skating, break-dancing and drumming. The maps will be published online and linked to footage showing hostile urban spaces as we habitually see them – as empty, abandoned and neglected shells. This view will be contrasted with footage of the same spaces used as arenas for urban art.
Parkour
At just 20, Ali is Australia’s foremost practitioner of parkour, the art of overcoming obstacles through climbing, leaping, rolling and controlled balance. Parkour combines the grace and agility of gymnastics with the discipline of a martial art, and plays out these skills on rails, walls, fences and other obstacles in the urban landscape.
‘The philosophy behind the art is to be as fluid and cat-like as possible,’ says Ali. ‘Parkour is a chance to find freedom in a very troubling and condensed world.’
Supported by ICE
Ali will use the facilities of ICE’s Switch multimedia and digital arts access centre for the project, which will also involve running workshops in film production, parkour and web development aimed at young people in Sydney’s west.
Ali’s relationship with ICE began in 2004, when he was first listed in Artfiles at the age of 16. In 2006, he was offered the chance to participate in Originate: Multicultural + Multimedia + Mentorship, sponsored by the Australia Council for the Arts.
Ali was one of five participants who received funding for his own project, to run Australia’s first parkour training course in 2006. He used his digital media skills to produce a film about the course, The Obstacle is the Path, released in June 2007.
Ali has been studying parkour since 2002, building on skills he developed as a skater and as a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
His parkour crew ‘9 Lives’ have performed for the Loud! Festival, The Sydney Arab Film Festival, Bring It On Youth Festival, Spectrum for Something Fresh, Big Rigg and the launch of Artfiles 2006.
As a filmmaker, Ali is known for his arresting editing skills – particularly graceful montages of his crew in action – influenced by Hong Kong 1960s cinema. He’s been creating digital art since early high school and completed a certificate IV in Digital Media through Western Sydney Institute of TAFE in 2005.
Ali’s short films have been screened at Auburn on Screen 2005, Shortcuts Western Sydney Short Film Fest for Young People (in which he was a finalist in 2005 and 2006).
[Article posted 1 January 2008]
RELATED PROJECTS
RELATED NEWS ARTICLES
Parkroar: the website | 12 August 2008
Krump and Parkour Presentation | 23 January 2008
Parkour and Urban Dance: Workshop Presentation | 5 January 2008
Subscribe