Abbey’s work predominantly looks at gender and environment, with a particular interest in accessible and community co-designed public art making.
Abbey has been commissioned by the Immigration Museum, Monash University, many local councils and festivals as well as residencies with Platform Lab, the Art Vault and Testing Grounds.
(Princes Park) Redefined
Redefined is a relational project that responds to unsafe and unsettling public space. A short creative development program that seeks to empower survivors of sexual assault to reimagine how we can work together to create temporary public artworks.
Acting as a facilitator, Abbey Rich guides the project to centre people with lived experience of sexual assault to collaboratively respond to the Princes Park site. The process asks for us to be heard but without re-traumatisation.
This project began as a way to change public space through participatory methods, but quickly became focussed on relationship building and empowerment.
Redefined, sets out to positively impact the way survivors feel in public space. To create room for discussion and design to make us feel safe and calm, more than as a way to find solutions for what makes us frightened and unsettled.
This project is quiet but mighty, addressing confronting experiences in a way that doesn’t retraumatise, but instead allows participants to feel pride and strength.