Samantha ThompsonOpens in new tab – Stop & play: Play like your life depended on it
Samatha’s practice considers play and how to make adults more inclined to be playful. Stop & Play uses dress ups, referred to as ‘playsuits’, to inspire adults to take a moment to play and frolic, to remember what it’s like to give yourself permission to be joyful and try something new.
Sally WalkOpens in new tab – Art treasure hunt
Fostering a sense of curiosity and adventure this project test encouraged participants to explore the city to find hidden keys that unlocked one of ten handmade ceramic sculptures.
HABIT (Hannah Zhu & Bryn Murrell)Opens in new tab – Push/Pull
A series of operable domestic doorways in the Flagstaff Gardens, where the public is invited to open, peek into, travel through or even shy away from.
Melissa HermansOpens in new tab – This is a urinal
A bronze urinal bowl used by the public to create a reaction resulting in oxidising and coloring the bronze surface.
Jade ArmstrongOpens in new tab – Urban serenity
Illuminating moments of calm: this installation bathes viewers in pink light, to create a moment of relaxation amidst the bustling urban landscape of Melbourne’s city.
Jina HeOpens in new tab – Aeolian Echoes
An interactive installation that transforms wind into melody, engaging communities and fostering a vibrant atmosphere for all to enjoy.
Emile ZileOpens in new tab – Two Minute Art (Charity Mugger) [working title]
A street-level multimedia performance that delivers unique art experiences on urban terrain. Using the direct approach mode of a ‘Charity Mugger’ or ‘Chugger’, Art Muggers engage the public in personalised one-on-one art experiences.
Jincheng DengOpens in new tab – Here they are
The top portion of a conventional flagpole has been altered to mimic a flag's form, encouraging a reconsideration of the flag’s essence.
Emily Parsons-LordOpens in new tab – Falling to pieces (working title)
A thought project to erase architectural icons by enveloping them in a cloud of mist and plant distress pheromone.
Stephen Phillips (5AngryMen)Opens in new tab – All Together Now…
A human installation project using In-Ear-Monitoring technology.
Tamara TallentOpens in new tab – The Great Australian Fairytale
Inspired by the nursery rhyme, 'There was an old woman who lived in a shoe', this is an installation made from shoe boxes, houses the stories of many without a home.
Axel GarayOpens in new tab – Nehushtan
A public video projection and performance installation designed for the entrance to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Matthew FungOpens in new tab – Market full of dreams
The artist's production of an advertisement to reclaim and reconstruct the lost past by memory. The fragments of memory form a poignant advertisement on migration and a parallel 'Australian Dream'.
Sonia ZymantasOpens in new tab – Saturday Morning
Participatory signs and sounds art installation based on ABS 2016 & 2021 SEIFA data.
Deborah LaddOpens in new tab – The aEye
An interactive artwork based around AI technology.
Nicholas MillenOpens in new tab – Working Holiday Observed
This work considered boundaries and intersecting thresholds between work, rest and leisure.
Peter BerzanskiOpens in new tabs – Thresholds
This artwork seeks to arrest and perplex pedestrians semiconsciously transiting through liminal spaces, taking them out of their train of thought to stop, do a double take, and imaginatively engage with the space for a moment.
Gloria SulliOpens in new tab – Tell the Wind
Inflatable sculpture powered by the wind channeled on the Seafarers Bridge, Docklands.
Chantelle Mitchell – Hydrophonic Resonance (Babble)
An interactive public art installation facilitating communication, connectivity and empathy through listening to waterways.
Adam CouttsOpens in new tab – MASS
A Queer video art piece celebrating queer identities.
Carla ZimblerOpens in new tab – a glimpse of you
An alternative secular grieving space and responsive sound-sculpture as a conduit for connection, social interchange and collective mourning.
Dr Desiree Hernandez IbinarriagaOpens in new tab – In Lak’ech
A project founded in the meaning, interaction and intervention in public spaces. In Lak’ech involves sharing culture, values and knowledge between First Nations, immigrants and the publics through furniture-sculpture interaction, intervention and painting of the In Lak’ech furniture-sculpture and shape abstraction in paper.
Ella Pininta – To Exist is to Occupy
Giant spikes covered in grassy materials, blocking a laneway. This artwork is about re-contextualising the language of defence and overriding it by turning it into an absurd, even playful experience.
James PriceOpens in new tab – Warning/Wanted/Lost/Help
A series of signs that are funny, absurd, dumb, brilliant and confounding in the best possible way.
Kasey GamblingOpens in new tab – The Hotline
An audio-based work allowing callers to explore narratives on reproductive healthcare via a phone menu with each user creating their own choose-your-own-adventure style narrative. Satirising anti-choice pregnancy helplines, The Hotline explores how patriarchal Western medicine impacts those experiencing reproductive health issues.
Nicole XuOpens in new tab – A/Historical Ground
A propositional user/land relationship in which a new typology of public space is formed – one where people are allowed and encouraged to engage with and alter the matters of the ground freely.
STATHIS//DAVEY//KIMOpens in new tab – A Fleeting Chorus
Set against the stunning backdrop of New Quay Marina at dusk, A Fleeting Chorus is a majestic sound and light performance projected over the water by a flotilla of boats.
Test Sites Phase 2
In 2021, four Test Sites artists received additional support to further develop and test their public art project ideas as part of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) Who’s Afraid of Public Space?Opens in new tab program.
These Phase 2 projects were co-produced by the City of Melbourne and Testing Grounds, and curated by Arie Rain-Glorie. A trace object from each project was also presented at the accompanying exhibition at ACCA’s Project Space: The HoardingOpens in new tab.
Embodiments
EMBODIMENTSOpens in new tab is a multichannel sound work for pathways and wayfinding, designed to reduce the adverse effects of industrial noise creating places to rest and regulate within urban space.
This project employs Indian sound theories (rāga music) and knowledge systems, drawing inspiration from Hindu temples where architecture and frequencies correlate with the human body.
A program of artistic responses to the work – both performative and interactive – and facilitated embodied practices accompanied the installation at No Vacancy Gallery.
With the support of Tina Stefanou, Rohan Rebeiro, Jordan Lacey, Zoltan Fecso and Mykah DeRose.
Aarti Jadu
Multidisciplinary sound artist Aarti Jadu began her sound journey in the context of devotional music originating from India. Being a first generation ‘Australian’ artist, Jadu’s practice naturally bridges diverse ideologies for the survival of her own integrity. She fervently explores voice through electronics to greater understand energy and its relationship to potential. Her recent work in trauma-informed voice workshops, along with years of study in yoga and raga music, forged a path to collaborate to communicate and discuss matters of human experience, sciences and universality.
Channel
Channel, 2021-22Opens in new tab acknowledges the Birrarung (Yarra River) as a living entity and highlights the value of water as central to ecological survival. This public artwork acts as a provocation around water health and asserts the value of the Birrarung as a lifeblood of the city.
For this project 1300 litres of polluted stormwater siphoned from the Yarra River below, filled a two-metre-high clear tank installed on Evan Walker Bridge, Southbank. Over the duration of the project, natural processes utilising organic materials found in the local Bandalong litter traps, including microscopic insects, aquatic snails, endemic plants and macrophytes as well as charcoal created from timber, helped to increase oxygen levels and neutralise impurities in this water sample. The transformed water was then returned to the river at the completion of the process.
Georgia Nowak
Georgia Nowak is an artist and architect who works between the mediums of built form, sculpture and film. Georgia’s practice attempts to navigate the complex ever-changing relationship between ecology, society and place. Her latest essay film Aurum 2020, created in collaboration with filmmaker Eugene Perepletchikov, explores the human fascination with gold as a symbol of power, and was awarded the inaugural Mercedes Benz Design Week award 2020. This film was acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and is on display at NGV Australia.
Georgia is currently a teaching associate within the Art, Design and Architecture department at Monash University. The academic rigour of the faculty is embedded in her practice and forms a critical component of her research driven approach.
Light with Hope – Harmonious 希望之光 – 和谐
Light with Hope – HarmoniousOpens in new tab is a site-specific public art installation comprising 278 symbolic lanterns hung on the branches of 16 trees at Birrarung Marr along the Yarra River, Melbourne.
Using traditional bamboo steamers and modern safety mesh, this artwork creates symbolic miner’s lamps and intends to deliver a message of refuge, for those venturing into the unknown and seeking a better life.
The 278 handmade lanterns represent the number of cultural and ethnic groups in Australia and feature the word ‘Harmonious’ in each language. The lanterns emphasise that although we are individuals, we are all walking forward together and coexisting with the land. Like the light from a miner’s lamp, this artwork implies that we can all share light and hope in any situation.
Jenny Zhe Chang
Melbourne-based artist Jenny Zhe Chang is interested in exploring presentations of site-specific installation, sculptures, paper cuttings and paintings that investigate the interaction between Eastern and Western ways of being.
Jenny has exhibited locally and internationally with 20 site-specific solo shows, including at MOCA Taipei in 2013, and more than 54 group exhibitions including An Exchange with Sol Lewitt, Cabinet Gallery, New York 2011; as well as at the Asian Pacific Contemporary Art exhibition in 2018. Jenny holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the VCA, University of Melbourne, and a Master of Computing from Monash University.
Duty of Care
Duty of Care 2021–22Opens in new tab is an interactive pop-up propagation station – an intimate encounter with local ecologies through a moment of reciprocity.
The public was invited to engage in short acts of conservation through propagation of flora species from the local urban ecosystem. The chosen species require human intervention for successful propagation with participants replicating ecological processes usually performed in nature through symbiotic relationships and environmental factors. Duty of Care created a new relationship of mutualism between the public and their local urban ecology.
Morwenna Schenck
Artist and designer Morwenna Schenck is based in Naarm/Melbourne and creates work for performance and experimental arts.
Morwenna’s practice encompasses illustration, drafting, construction and production management. She has delivered projects across various creative industries in both creative and production roles for theatre, festivals, televised events, galleries and exhibitions. Morwenna has collaborated on several projects exploring perspectives on climate and ecology.
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Top image: HABIT (Hannah Zhu & Bryn Murrell) – Push/Pull
