Tag Archives: melbourne

A Melbourne Engagement

This coming weekend I’ll be in Melbourne for Next Wave Festival. I’m speaking in a forum entitled “Taking it to the Streets” (!).

All the Details are here.

Come along to help me celebrate an early Bob Dylan’s Birthday!

2010 Next Wave Festival Club, 1000 £ Bend, 361
Sunday 23 May, 2pm-3:30pm
Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

This forum will explore the potential for publically-sited art to meaningfully engage with social issues beyond the art world. If one accepts that art can and should be marshalled towards social justice, then what are the specific artistic competencies that are best deployed towards these ends? What have been some of the successes and failures of socially and politically charged art in the public realm? And can art enact social change and still be good art?

speakers:

Deborah Kelly (Chair)
George Egerton-Warburton
Lucas Ihlein
Iain McIntyre

Sustaining Practices in Melbourne

speed dating at the sustaining practices workshop

On Saturday I went to Melbourne to facilitate the running of a participatory workshop organised by Clubs Project Space , called Sustaining Practices.

The first activity was a speed dating session, in which 2 minutes was allowed for blah-blah-ing about what your particular concerns were. I used a dinger to shift them along to the next date. I made a 9 minute mp3 recording of the dating. It’s loud and fun! You can listen to it here [9 min, 4mb, mp3].

The Clubs crew sent out the following info before the event, to encourage participants to bring along ideas which would shape the course of the day: Continue reading

Thomas Street Permaculture

It's a bit late in the day to throw to this project, but there's a fascinating story of an experiment by tenants in Melbourne to turn their backyard into a permaculture environment over here:
http://permaculturesolutions.com.au/thomasstreet/
Even the battle they've been having with their landlord is interesting, a great story.