BIO

“Embodying classical aesthetic, music and culture, Benjamin Skepper is a musician with an extraordinary sense of the contemporary” (M. Pugliese, Director Museo 900 for Rolling Stone Italy).

A child prodigy, who commenced his classical music education at two years of age, Benjamin began touring at seven years old as a solo pianist, boy soprano, ballet dancer and the youngest self-taught harpsichordist in Australia. He embarked on his first international solo piano tour at 10 years old, performing a Mozart concerto with full orchestra in New Zealand. His passion for music continued with studies in the violoncello, and he toured and performed with symphonic and chamber orchestras nationwide.

Alongside his two decade long professional classical career, Benjamin also completed an Arts/Law degree with Honours at the University of Melbourne, majoring in Public and International Law and Human Rights, specfically focusing on Children’s Rights. He has since been actively involved in human rights and children’s policy, working and travelling extensively in Asia and Europe, volunteering with NGOs in Cambodia and donating his work to organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and The Red Cross Japan. Benjamin moved to Tokyo in 2007 as a litigation and dispute resolution solicitor with an international law firm. All the while, he continued to explore music, contemporary composition, performance and multi media art forms.

Establishing his second base in Tokyo under the umbrella of his creative production think-tank “contrapuntal”, his arts practice encompasses commissions, multi media installations and live performances, composition, recording, and production across multiple genres, juggling independent creative practice with commercial outcomes for corporate clients, record labels, and film makers.

Benjamin has also worked extensively with the fashion industry, presenting at Milan, Paris, Tokyo and Melbourne Fashion Weeks as a performer, creative director and muse.

In 2008, Benjamin launched his independent record label under contrapuntal, releasing five self-produced solo albums, and collaborating with world famous record labels, such as Colombia Music and Ninja Tunes. Notably, he participated in a sound-art exhibition in Tokyo with Yoko Ono on the back of artist features for Rolling Stone Italy and Russia, AMICA Italy, GQ Japan and a recent music video exclusive with VICE I THUMP Australia.

In expanding his practice into the field of contemporary art, he has presented performance art works and sound installations at the Museo del Novecento (Milan), “Culture Warriors”, Australia’s first Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), as artist-in-residence at “No Mans Land” (French Embassy, Tokyo), “Sight & Sound: Music & Abstraction in Australian Art” at the Arts Centre (Melbourne), “Rooms”, Japan’s premier International Fashion and Design Fair (Tokyo), “Art After Dark” for the National Gallery of Victoria’s exhibition Napoleon: Revolution to Empire (Melbourne), and as a headline artist at MONA FOMA 2013, dubbed a festival highlight by curator Brian Ritchie. Most recently by invitation from The Hermitage Foundation, Benjamin performed for the parallel program opening of Manifesta 10, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Complementing his arts practice Benjamin also works in cultural advocacy. As a Cultural Ambassador to Russia, his first posting was with the City of Melbourne, with a mandate to report on the Saint Petersburg arts and cultural scene, and identify possible collaborations and international exchange opportunities. Since published by the Saint Petersburg City Counil, Benjamin is working with the Australian Ambassador to Russia, to co-develop an artist in residency program, as the first artist in residence in Australian history at the Ambassadors residence in Moscow. The State Conservatory of Music in Saint Petersburg has also offered Benjamin a Creative Fellowship for his ambitious contemporary composition projects.

At the core of his practice, Benjamin is committed to self initiating projects and world travel in order to explore interdisciplinary collaborations in sound, architecture, science, fashion and art, and using these projects to promote global diplomacy. 2015 started with a Space Art commission “Forever Now”, where his audio artwork was transmitted into outer space at MONA FOMA, a sequel to the 1977 NASA Voyager Golden Records mission. This is followed by his next sound art exhibition in Chelsea, New York.

Saturday 15 February 2014

GAY PROPAGANDA LAWS IN RUSSIA - CITY OF MELBOURNE POLITICAL SYMBOLISM IS A STEP BACKWARDS - PRESERVE SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG VIA YOUR CULTURAL AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA BENJAMIN SKEPPER



BE ACTIVE IN OUR CULTURAL and CIVIC AFFAIRS BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND RUSSIA
WRITE to MELBOURNE CITY COUNCIL deploring termination of our Sister City Relationship with 
ST PETERSBURG

EMAIL COUNCIL HERE  com.meetings@melbourne.vic.gov.au


PRESERVE OUR SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG VIA YOUR CULTURAL AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA BENJAMIN SKEPPER

DEADLINE 24 FEB Council Meet 25 FEB

As your Cultural Ambassador to St. Petersburg and Russia generally,
I implore all Melbourne residents to write to City Council and express discontent at the present decision to terminate our sister city relationship with St Petersburg due to the operation of the gay propaganda laws.

This all came about through a Change.org petition, seeking signatures demanding council cut all ties with a purportedly "homophobic" sister city. Note that it is lawful to be homosexual in Russia, whereas it is not in India for example. Yet are we ceasing all trade ties with India?

Upon what grounds do Councillors and its affiliates base there assertion other than what they have noted on social media and the internet?  Based on my personal discussions with Melbourne City Council, both the Business Branch and Councillors, NO RESEARCH and NO STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION has been sought (other than a perfunctory letter to the St Petersburg City Council demanding reversal of the laws citing breaches of International Law Conventions). It appears to have been a knee-jerk emotional response to highly confronting and confounding issues, but it was certainly not based not on sound judgement through law, reason or dialogue. And what of the potentially damaging consequences to Australia's national trade interests as well as our international reputation of tolerance, understanding and mutual respect?

I was sent as a Cultural Advocate to St Petersburg in June/July 2013 at the request of The City of Melbourne. As a consultant to Council, I undertook a number of meetings with sister city counterparts and a range of public arts and civic institutions interested in the Melbourne St Petersburg relationship, to identify the level of interest in the sister city relationship and possible future projects. I provided Council with a report, which informs the future direction of cultural exchanges that may be initiated under the auspice of the Melbourne St Petersburg sister city relationship. Valuable work conducted on the ground, at a grass roots level.

To further promote and support the work undertaken, I was invited by the STATE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC in ST PETERSBURG to undertake a fellowship and continue my cultural advocacy, commencing in April this year. Our Russian counterparts want to take part in international relationships, to share ideas and culture, to open a dialogue for cultural exchange and social interchange. Are we to persecute them for this?

By way of background, The Sister City Relationship was ensrhined in 1989 stating

As espoused by Melbourne City Council, this sister city relationship has always been about promoting ART and CULTURAL ties between our sister cities, and considering the richness of Russian cultural life and history, Australia has much to benefit from such a relationship, considering our own very young historical position. This is also about the need to provide opportunities to Australians wanting to benefit from such cultural exchange. What must be understood, this relationship was never about massive trade profits as expected with our present relations with China, India and Japan. This relationship sits within a cultural and artistic portfolio, which should not be frowned upon nor is it preclusive to benefiting our trade prospects and relationships.

Gay rights, human rights, equal rights, the entire Human Rights Debate - terminating the Sister City Relationship through Councils formal procedural system is an incorrect use of this mechanism to seek change about the gay propaganda laws. Whilst it has created debate about what we need to do in order to bring about a lasting and just result for LGBTI in Russia, it will not produce results. Terminating the relationship is going to take us further away from any lasting justice that we might seek with respect to the operation of the gay propaganda laws in Russia and indeed the anti-gay laws that still operate around Australia.

I am a trained International Lawyer with a Masters in Public and International Law focusing on Human Rights Law, specialising in Children's Rights under International Law. The present approach we are adopting will not create a debate, open up dialogue or conversation with our Russian friends. Requesting another country to change its laws (no matter how heinous they may seem) has not, and will never, work, nor is it legally justifiable under international law (and let us not forget the civilian disasters caused by military force and economic sanction regimes applied in past world conflicts and the number of people that have been injured or killed due to one political regime being "better" than the other). It is paradoxical that Australian stakeholders cite International Law Conventions when Australia's present track record is indeed abysmal, and this goes also towards Australia's treatment of homosexual people under State and Federal Criminal Law: the homosexual advances defence remains lawful (and was only repealed in Victoria 10 years ago), and the High Court recently annulled gay marriage in Canberra. So what is the solution?

How does Melbourne City Council, and its affiliated supporters and Councillors, expect that symbolically terminating the relationship is going to benefit LGBTI people in Russia when our counterparts expressly request our support? What research and understanding supports such a hypothesis?

I received a highly persuasive statement from Russia's Peak LGBTI Body Chairman
Российская ЛГБТ-Сеть (Russian LGBT Network)

 "Isolation of Russia and St. Petersburg is now very bad idea. Inclusion of minorities and to discuss the problems of equality in government and civil exchanges between sister cities will be much more effective" ( Кочетков Игорь | Kochetkov Igor , председатель | chairman ) (14 December 2013, transcript email from the author)

This statement single handedly saved the relationship at Councils meeting of 17 December 2013, where our Lord Mayor Robert Doyle was essentially ready to terminate the relationship backed by our elected Councillors - I did mention the federal legal consequences of termination which had not even been considered by Council in what was to be a unilateral decision to terminate ... and so it was "competently" deferred to DFAT for advice.

I was informed that I was the only Melbourne resident to express grave concern about terminating the relationship. What do you think about this? Did you even know we had a sister city relationship with St Petersburg?

WRITE TO MELBOURNE CITY COUNIL BEFORE FEBRUARY 25 AND STATE THAT WE MUST PRESERVE OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG

I AM YOUR CULTURAL AMBASSADOR AND I REPRESENT A FUTURE PARADIGM OF DIALOGUE AND EXCHANGE, NOT POLITICAL SYMBOLISM, VOTE GRABBING AND THE RESULTING IGNORANCE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST THAT UNDERPIN MUCH ABOUT THE WAY BUSINESS OPERATES.

Write in ONLINE and copy the SUBJECT HEADING

PRESERVE SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG VIA CULTURAL AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA BENJAMIN SKEPPER

 EMAIL COUNCIL DIRECT com.meetings@melbourne.vic.gov.au
DEADLINE 24 FEB Council Meet 25 FEB to "deliberate".


THE ONLINE CONTACT LINK IS HERE
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/AboutCouncil/ContactUs/Pages/ContactUs.aspx


Art and Culture can strengthen our relationships internationally, and provide an active, non-aggressive and viable way to talk about political, social and civic issues important to all humanity.

GET ON BOARD!  DEADLINE 24 FEB 2014






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