this year is a busy one for me - i have projects coming out of my ears, so sorry if the shameless plugs become a little dull. but then again, i happen to be a tiny bit proud of what i do, so you'll all just have to deal with it.

this week is crazy in terms of 'what's on':

the wardrobe



hosted by skylab in fitzroy, the wardrobe is a little theme-based cabinet space on charles st, just behind Somebuddy Loves You on Smith St. the current theme is decay, so of course i put my hand up to include something.

here's the little blurb about the work, Dead Cert.

decay doesn't always mean death.
but you can't have death without decay.

death is one of those omnipresent rites of passage that still confounds humans. we're all incredibly supportive of people grieving, but rarely do we like talking about our own death with a sense of lightness, whimsy or fun. even humour about death is called black humour. but when you think about it, death is quite an absurd idea - one minute you're there, the next you're a small pile of ashes in a box.*

this work makes "public" and "official" absurd acts of death which intersect with magic, turns of phrase, or soppy romanticism. this work also give me, as the artist, the freedom of being dead. in a conceptual sense. i can't tell you how simultaneously liberating and magical it felt to see myself declared deceased. a freedom from decay.


deets:
mon 25th may - sun 31st may
24/7

at The Wardrobe
1/193 smith st
fitzoy, 3065

http://skylabcreative.wordpress.com/


orr st garden



penny algar, an artist who specialises in horticultural vs art projects has created a public garden focusing on cultivating and celebrating weeds and insect, as part of her masters work.
working with amanda coulston whose work on emergent system in entomology is fascination, the garden space on orr st, melbourne (in between lygon and cardigan sts) is being launched tomorrow night (wednesday).

over the weekend, i captured some sound and did some sound-based drawings of the garden, which will be projected as part of the opening festivities.

deets:
wed 27th may
5-6:30pm

at Orr St Garden
Next to Bldg 50
Orr St, Melbourne


abracadaver



regular readers may remember that about this time last year, abracadaver featured at allan's walk, as an exhibition with the lovely linda mcrae.
this year, some of the work comes to melbourne, with a little bit of new stuff too.

for those who don't know, here's a bit about the show:

abracadaver is a show about magic, death and artifice. The exhibition draws on aspects of the macabre and the somber, as well as the fantastic to create architecturally-inspired and objects and spaces of death.

..including jack-in-the-box funerary urns and hurdy-gurdy coffins, the show investigates the social taboo of housing death and its links with the secrets of magic and trickery: sound/light-based work and interactive sculpture actively “put the fun into funeral”.


deets:
opening tuesday 9th june, 6 - 8pm.
exhibition continues until saturday 26th june
wed - sat, 12 - 6pm

at Bus Gallery
Level 1, 117 Little Lonsdale St
Melbourne, 3000
Skinny Gallery

http://www.bus117.com



a candystriper project: bus



following on from our projects at trocadero and as part of the melbourne laneways commission (which we were successful for, but had to sadly pass up), the candystripers have hit the BUS gallery foyer.

a little blurb about the project:

Seeking to create hyper-real spaces that walk the line between exterior and interior experiences, The Candystripers project at Bus transforms the foyer into a cross between Victorian wallpaper, an oversized minimalist painting and a helicopter landing pad.


deets:
opening tuesday 9th june, 6 - 8pm.
exhibition continues until saturday 26th june
wed - sat, 12 - 6pm

at Bus Gallery
Level 1, 117 Little Lonsdale St
Melbourne, 3000
Foyer

http://www.bus117.com



added to all that i have a string of shows for my sound-based masters project (which has divorced its previous title: soundproofing the city). i'll post about that separately methinks, as there's much afoot.

anyways, so that's what i've been up to and if you get a chance to see any of the works, or come to the opening nights, do come and say hello.


*paraphrase: Esther Anatolitis, not the ON, or the OFF, but the ON-OFF, ON-OFF; catalogue essay for abracadaver.

Labels: blatant self-promotion