Visible City is a large scale collaborative artwork and the keynote project of the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival. 11 artists from Australia and beyond will work in a single space to create, develop and show new artworks for the streets of Melbourne. Head down to The Commons (Jane Bell Lane, QV) to meet the artists and find out more.

VISIBLE CITY TALKS PROGRAM

The Visible City talks program questions our urban home and uncovers the important place creativity plays in its daily life. We have asked the Visible City artists to reflect upon the city and their place within it and then discuss how their artistic practice illuminates this. We also have asked one thinker from the community to address each topic.

Thursday, 23 September

Thursday, 30 September

Thursday, 7 October

6:30pm-8:00pm at the Visible City COMMONS

Jane Bell Lane, QV (enter via Russell St)

// YOU MUST RSVP – SPACE IS LIMITED

To RSVP for any of these forums please email visiblecity@melbournefringe.com.au

/// ABOUT VISIBLE CITY

The keynote project of the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival is VISIBLE CITY: a massive cross-artform venture that sees 11 contemporary artists creating new work every day of the Festival. Their canvas? The city itself.

From across Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, these artists make up some of the region’s most original and engaged thinkers and makers. None of them are bound by artform conventions, and all are intensely curious about their audience. Their mission is to create new live art works for Melbourne’s streets. There are many ideas, and not much time. Visible City artists will put every scrap of experience, passion, critical knowledge and sense of humour to create work around the clock.

VISIBLE CITY ARTISTS Jennifer Jamieson, Kerry Ann Lee, Rachel Main, Jason Maling, Sally Ann McIntyre, Sarah Rodigari, Joned Suryatmoko, Lara Thoms, Ingrid Voorendt, Willoh S Weiland

/// Visible City Forum #1 (Thu 23rd September, 6.30pm-8pm)

Cities and Signs

‘Your gaze scans the streets as if they were written pages: the city says everything you must think…’ Italo Calvino

The form and the experience of today’s cities comes from a heady mixture of ‘top-down’ planning and ‘bottom-up’ emergent bubbling. What does it mean to make art for the hard surfaces of the city streets? How do urban artforms challenge the way we interpret and inhabit our spaces? Cities and Signs is part of the public discussion series of Visible City, presenting a panel of artists from the project and prominent thinkers from the community.

Chair – Esther Anatolitis

Speakers

JONED SURYATMOKO (INDONESIA) Yogyakarta (Indonesia)-based theatre maker and works with Teater Gardanalla where he is the Artistic Manager/Director. His works focus on exploring direct interaction among people in public space in the city that is frequently engaged with everyday life issue. He has presented work in the UK, South Korea, Australia, Philippines and Japan.

JEN JAMIESON (WA) Jen has produced and directed several short films that have screened and won awards in national & international film festivals. Beyond this she has a strong interdisciplinary arts practice, utilising her video/photography and theatre training in performance making. She is one half of something in common (sic) – a performance duo that has presented at BEAP, Nerdstock, Electrofringe and Artrage, and were the recipients of a CultureLAB residency in 2008.

ROCHUS URBAN HINKEL (VIC) Rochus is a practising architect, academic and curator. He has lectured and held workshops in Europe, Northern America and Australia. His practice ranges from furniture and interior design to architecture and urban design schemes, which he examines both as a practitioner as well as a tertiary lecturer. He has won a number of architecture and design awards in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, and reviews about his practice have been published and included in exhibitions in Europe, Asia and Australia. He is a founding member and the current coordinator of the research group Urban Interior (UI). In UI he investigates relationships between interior, architecture and urban environments.

/// Visible City Forum # 2 (Thu 30th September, 6.30-8pm)

Cities and Desire

‘Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears…’ Italo Calvino

The sunburnt country is increasingly foregoing those sweeping plains in favour of city living. By 2050 two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban centres – why does everyone want to be here? How do the intensities of artistic practice generate an urban image that’s attractive enough to motivate these moves? Do the social realities of city life match that image? Cities and Desire is part of the public discussion series of Visible City, focusing on artistic practice that engages people in art of a human scale against the increasing size and density of the city.

Speakers

KERRY ANN LEE (NZ) Kerry Ann Lee is a visual artist, designer and educator from New Zealand. Her practice explores cultural intersections occurring in the space between private moments and public locations. With a background in Graphic Arts, she creates art that is both expressive and socially engaged, playfully investigating issues of identity and hybrid cultural formations through hand-made processes.

RACHEL MAIN (VIC) Rachel is a filmmaker/ photographer/ krumper/ documenter and teacher. Known as Lady Burn aka Zoo Girl in the krump community, she both dances and documents the Melbourne krump scene. In 2009 she directed, produced, filmed and edited Australia’s first feature-length krump documentary titled Burncity: A Journey into Melburn and Australian Krump. The film received the award for best documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival 2009.

/// Visible City Forum # 3 (Thu 7th October, 6.30pm-8pm)

Cities and Memory

‘The city is redundant: it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind. Memory is redundant: it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist.’ Italo Calvino

Artists change cities using soft power. They remind us to look up and see the sky, and to recollect and reinvigorate disused urban space. The most radical ideas on how we change our cities come from creatives. How do you remember your city today? Cities and Memory is a part of the public discussion series of Visible City, using a panel of artists and prominent thinkers from the community

Chair – Emily Sexton

Speakers

SALLY ANN MCINTYRE (NZ) Sally Ann McIntyre is a New Zealand based writer / curator / broadcaster. Radio Cegeste is her transmission based project, a sporadic, nomadic radio show without an umbrella station or regular programming. Radio cegeste manifests as an ongoing series of experiments in site-specific, radiophonic locality. Radio cegeste investigates transmission for both its historic imaginary and its imminent immediacy.

MARCUS WESTBURY (VIC) Marcus Westbury is a broadcaster, writer, media maker and festival director who has been responsible for some of Australia’s more innovative, unconventional and successful cultural projects and events. He has also worked across a range of media as a writer, producer, director and presenter covering fields as diverse as culture, art, media, urban planning, sport and politics.

// YOU MUST RSVP FOR EACH OF THESE TALKS – SPACE IS LIMITED

To RSVP for any of these forums please email visiblecity@melbournefringe.com.au

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