*CLICK on the IMAGES to Enlarge them 🙂

here’s a link to a pretty well represented interview that I did with the Weekly Times in the lead up to Fun4Kids

http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/country-living/warrnambools-fun4kids-has-a-sticky-situation/story-fnkeragy-1227411149684

Earlier this year I was approached to run an art space at this year’s Fun4Kids Festival. The festival’s zone’s programmer, Rebecca Elmes, had found a rather cool program by Melbourne based artist Briony Barr. Tape It is a collaborative drawing program developed by Briony. Participants use different coloured electrical tape to create “expanded” drawings – as in drawings that extend across walls, floors, windows and other objects within the space. These cooperative drawings conclude with “undrawing” where participants peel the drawings up and layer them to create three dimensional objects. These objects can then be cut open to reveal the coloured layers that resemble a geological form. You can find out more about Briony’s practice by following these links…

http://www.brionybarr.com/Tape-It-Collaborative-Drawings

We decided to approach this project as a collaborative mentorship, we called it Taping Spaces. Briony guided me through Tape It’s concepts and logistics. I spent a day at Art Play Melbourne to witness Tape It in motion and we had many phone calls and emails in the build up for the festival. We successfully applied for a Regional Arts Victoria Grant to help make this all happen.

In my own practice I am interested in how we create the different spaces that we occupy- what are the ways in which we manage to create different environments from day to day or from person to person. This is where the collaboration kicked in. Fun4Kids is a 7 day festival. Taping Spaces was set-up in the large space that is the Warrnambool Art Gallery’s Temporary Exhibition Space. The festival director was keen to make sure each family visiting the festival had a different experience each day. To do this I ran a different drawing theme each day- The Rainforest, In the City, The Milky Way etc. I was also able to tweak physical aspects of the space- movable walls, rearranging display boxes, changing lighting (inc. UV Light & Spotters) and music. It was brilliant to be able to play with the space in these different ways over the course of the week.

Most importantly people had a ball. Families would spend an hour and a half at a time, many came back to keep drawing over the course of the festival. It is this aspect of arts programing that I have really come to love- setting up situations that enable people, especially families, to interact with each other.

Each day we would start with a blank canvas that was transformed into a temporary world. Each afternoon we would “undraw” the space until it appeared as though nothing had happened. It was brilliant fun, and exhausting too. On the final day Dion Barker set-up a time lapse camera to capture this process. You can find it by following this link- it’s pretty cool (thanks Dion!)

Taping Spaces produced so many colourful creations, it was hard to pick favourites. Such a great experience, thanks for letting me hop into your program Briony Barr! & thanks for the great opportunity Rebecca Elmes 🙂