Publication2016

PUBLIC

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‘One cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.’

AUTHOR • A RT IC LE T I T LE

Andre Gide

karim jabbari, the core. public in the great southern, albany.

Photograph by chad peacock & bewley shaylor, 2016.

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F OREWORD Ly n d a D o r r i n g t o n , e x e c u t i v e d i r e c t o r , f o r m

‘Art isn’t complete until the viewer comes to see it.’

Bruce Munro (UK), light artist, PUBLIC 2016 speaker and creator of The Field of Light (2016) at Uluru

Bruce Munro’s powerful statement resonated throughout PUBLIC 2016, FORM’s festival of urban art and ideas.

In three locations—Claremont, Curtin University and Albany—his theory was put to the test as place, artists and artwork interacted with people of all ages.

What I believe Munro is talking about is the state of ‘completeness’—as in nothing further need be added— as opposed to ‘completion’, which refers to the act of finishing something.

So what could ‘completeness’ mean when it comes to large-scale urban art projects, which take as their canvas the buildings and landscapes in which we all live? Arguably, a piece of art—whether a sculpture, painting or a poem—is always a work in progress, or more accurately, transition. But perhaps what brings an artwork closer to that state of fullness and integrity— or completeness—is when it’s being experienced and shared in as many ways as there are individuals to do it.

In the hopes of moving nearer to a sense of completeness, we share with you in this PUBLICation what’s happened in this most recent—and final— iteration of PUBLIC. You can read about the

prototyping festival which filled the streets of Claremont, discover how Curtin University campus became a (slightly controversial) canvas, and learn how the people of Albany embraced artists from Tunisia, Portugal, Spain and Italy as warmly as they embraced their own.

This would not have been possible without the support of our partners and sponsors, and especially the Town of Claremont, Curtin University, and the City of Albany. Nor would it have been so memorable without the wonderful and inspiring PUBLIC 2016 artists from Australia and overseas. The whole PUBLIC trilogy wouldn’t have been so much fun without the artists, site crews and all our cheerfully tireless volunteers. And had it not been for the warm welcome and open-hearted curiosity of Western Australian people, PUBLIC wouldn’t have felt anywhere near complete.

In sharing these stories and images, we hope to highlight why programs like PUBLIC are worthwhile, and how, while arts and culture are special ‘they are also simultaneously, inextricably and healthily part of the everyday.’ 1

tellas, PUBLIC CAMPUS, curtin university.

Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016.

John Holden, Democratic Culture: Opening Up the Arts to Everyone. DEMOS 2008

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005—024 Walls: bringing us together, not keeping us apart PUBLIC cumulative statistics over 3 years public 2016 artists, creatives and teams

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The Endless Meeting: PUBLIC & Platform in Claremont Claremont survey responSES Jock Barker, Mayor of Claremont

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Shaping the Future of the City: Deborah Cullinan transcript

hense, PUBLIC in the great southern, albany Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016.

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Street Art Yes or No? Taking the Debate to a University Campus

rediscovering albany: public in the Great Southern

Curtin survey responSES

Albany survey responSES

Q & A with Andy Sharp ‘In truth, you really could just keep on painting’: HENSE transcript

ALBANY EMBRACES PUBLIC IN THE GREAT SOUTHERN—ANDREW SHARPE AND AMBER PERRYMAN

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the goods shed: now arriving at Claremont Station Poet of lightgraff brings Great Southern magic to The Goods Shed’s inaugural EXHIBITION: the core, introducing Karim Jabbari

The magic of landscape and light: Bruce Munro transcript

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PUBLIC 2014—16 REVISITED

Thanks & acknowledgements

public timeline

FORM WOULD LIKE TO THANK

PUBLIC artists & CREATIVES

about form

VOLUNTEERS ENGAGED

INTRODUCTION

Wa l l s : b r i n g i n g u s t o g e t h e r , n o t k e e p i n g u s a pa r t A c e l e b r at i o n o f PUBLIC 2 0 1 4 — 2 0 1 6

‘We are not painting on walls, we are putting pieces of our lives on walls. That people appreciate it and interact with us is vital for every public artist’ k a r i m j a b b a r i ( t u n i s i a ) a r t i s t, p u b l i c 2 0 1 6 s p e a k e r

Lives. People. Sharing. Art. Ideas. Space.

Conversations. Joy. For the past three years, FORM has collaborated with city and country neighborhoods in Western Australia for PUBLIC, a festival of art and urban activation which explores creativity for the public good.

Over 200 artists and trailblazers in social and cultural innovation from 21 countries have shared their visions, experiences, artistic talent and creative energy.

They have also shared countless moments of connection and conversation with people of all ages, people who care passionately about the places where they live, and are eager for exchange and engagement.

Combining street art with speaker events, exhibition openings, workshops, design challenges and residencies, PUBLIC has sought to involve people from all walks of life in a fundamental conversation about how we all play a part in shaping the places where we live.

Strictly speaking, this is not a new or radical approach, but it is nevertheless one enjoying increasing leverage all over the world. Rather than leaving it up to the traditional model whereby policy-makers or planning authorities and arts institutions guide the cultural, social and aesthetic evolution of our environments, citizens are changing the paradigm and insisting their choices and participation inform and influence urban development and community wellbeing. Culture and creativity are at the vanguard of this change. According to Deborah Cullinan, CEO of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and

one of PUBLIC 2016’s key speakers ‘any great forward movement is always spurred by cultural movements … and we want to make sure that it is not just the privileged or the few that are defining culture, that it is the people who are able to say “these are the stories that matter the most, this is where we have been and this is where we want to go”.’

So after three years, it’s a good time to ask: how did PUBLIC work, and what has it achieved?

In 2014, the festival focused mainly on the transformative power of art, with murals on buildings in the Perth CBD, the Pilbara, and at Western Australia’s largest lodging house at Hampton Road in Fremantle.

In 2015, while local and international artists were deployed to Victoria Park, Claremont, Fremantle, Northbridge and Leederville, others took on gigantic grain silos outside Northam, and a high school complex in Port Hedland. Meanwhile, in the city, ideas took centre stage with a PUBLIC Symposium examining how creativity can contribute to community-building, and featuring 26 inspiring speakers from all around the world. Some addressed the issues from an aesthetic and design angle; others brought a systemic, public administration perspective; others gave examples of social outcomes through redemptive architecture and urban transformation. Whether public servants or politicians, designers or educators, academics or artists, all were talking about entrepreneurship, leadership

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and democracy; and all of them acknowledged how uncertainty plays a vital role in any cultural endeavour.

In 2016, three key locations received the PUBLIC treatment: Claremont, Curtin University campus, and Albany in The Great Southern. In addition to all the artworks, FORM staged a street activation prototyping festival in Claremont, and two forums featuring six international speakers from the world of architecture, arts management and public art.

Each year FORM carried out surveys and collected feedback in an attempt to measure the reactions of the public to PUBLIC, and the economic and social spinoffs.

These results are represented graphically throughout this publication. What cannot be captured by statistics and infographics, however, is a sense of openness, the delight and the surprise, the confidence and the candour that passers-by and communities extended towards the artworks and the artists, and the subsequent manifestation of ownership and pride of place. With all these elements factored in, PUBLIC has in many ways been a democratic way of demonstrating the power and effect of creativity in the public realm.

PUBLIC is about culture; yet you don’t have to seek it out in a concert hall, a library or a theatre. It’s about art, but it’s not confined to a gallery.

It’s about meaning, emotional intelligence and opinion; and you won’t be asked to pass exams or belong to the academy. It’s about citizenship, but the

INTRODUCTION

$834,000

I already love and enjoy public art, this event just proved that people do think it’s important and essential to our city.

Survey respondent

Over 200

166

local & international artists

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artworks in public space

exhibitions & opening events

Artist residencies to regional Western Australia

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estimated visitation

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generated in Income for creatives

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Image courtesy of Objektiv Photography

How important it is to feel joy in public space. Just to be able to stop and laugh, and see somebody you don’t know having a good time Deborah Cullinan (USA) CEO, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, PUBLIC 2016 speaker

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INTRODUCTION

Community building rather than audience development Deborah Cullinan, PUBLIC 2016 speaker

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Democratic Culture: Opening Up the Arts to Everyone. DEMOS 2008 Expressive Lives, ed. Samuel Jones. DEMOS 2009 Jane Jacobs: The Last Interview and Other Conversations. Melville Press 2016

type of citizenship that’s more about collaboration, participation, sharing and experience than it is about rates, obligations or rules.

PUBLIC has aimed to remind us that culture is not the privilege of the gifted and the few, nor is it the preserve of institutions. As cultural researcher John Holden comments, culture is ideally ‘something we all own and make, not something that is “given”, “offered” or “delivered” by one section of “us” to another.’

Feedback has highlighted that PUBLIC in its own small way has left legacies. Some are obvious: there are now around 166 murals and installations on buildings from The Great Southern to the Pilbara, and commissions have flowed in as a result of the artists’ exposure to the public. Some legacies are more subtle, but no less powerful. Having conversations and ideas about what it means to live in communities which are confident in their identity—and which welcome and value creativity as part of that lived experience— cannot help but have an effect. That effect is an appetite for more: more art, more interaction and conversation.

More creativity.

Culture is an intrinsic element of how we see ourselves, how we communicate, and how we live our lives. It’s ‘a constant conversation between people and ideas. From the food we eat, to the images that we see, cultural forms and the creative choices we make are expressions of what we value and how we see the world.’

We can all take responsibility for a positive atmosphere in the places we live and work, and the well-being of our communal future. As citizens, we are co-creators of our cities and neighborhoods. Everybody shares in it, and

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when it comes to being part of a community, we are all experts in the aesthetic and social outcomes we’d like to be a part of. And we need to speak up for them. As the great American urbanist Jane Jacobs once observed ‘if it’s a community, if it’s stable, if people stay put, then you have a livable place. People ought to pay more attention to their instincts. There is an intuitive sense of what is right and comfortable and pleasant.’

It starts with the conversations we share.

Even if we just spend some time standing and watching an artist at work on a wall, and then tell our friends and colleagues to go take a look, we’re participating in that conversation. Even if we don’t like the artwork, and are vocal about our preference to another casual observer standing next to us, that’s also being part of the conversation. We don’t have to ‘know’ about art or culture to have an opinion about them, or about the places in which we live. We don’t even have to like the art. All we need to do is allow it to lead us into talking to each other.

So while PUBLIC may seem to be about street art, murals, spray cans and paint, or about ‘brightening up the neighbourhood’, (which arguably it’s achieved in several locations) it’s also about something deeper than the facade of a building.

It’s about creativity contributing to the common good. PUBLIC is ultimately about the art of belonging.

Of having fun while making meaningful connections.

Of being human, and being part of a community, and being part of shaping that community.

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2014—16 CREATIVES

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p u b l i c awa r d s

DIA WA: 2015 Innovation Award FORM, Public 2015

DIA WA: 2015 Award of Merit FORM, Public 2015

Parks and Leisure Australia WA Award Excellence for Events PUBLIC 2015

CODAWORX Video awards Top 100 PUBLIC 2015: Art in the Wheatbelt

Australian Interior Design awards Commendation for Installation Design PUBLIC 2015

Australian web awards (WA) Winner: Non-Profit Website PUBLIC 2015

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UNTITLED, Phlegm & HENSE, cbh AVON SILOS, NORTHAM. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2015.

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PUBLIC 2016 ARTISTS & CREATIVES

public 2016 a r t i s t s & c r e at i v e s

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Photograph by Jean Paul Horre

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PUBLIC 2016 ARTISTS & CREATIVES

Add Fuel Portugal

Agung Gunawan Indonesia

amok island Western Australia

Illustrator and street artist Add Fuel reinterprets the language of traditional Portuguese tile design known as azulejo, creating ‘layers of history’ over and beneath existing structures. The beautiful blue patternings he creates seem straightforward from a distance but up close they reveal a quirky, contemporary twist.

Agung Gunawan is a master of Javanese classical dance in Surya Kencana and at the Kraton (Palace) where he continues to perform. He studied other styles (Sumatranese, Betawian and Kalimantan) with Bagong Kusudiharjo, and contemporary dance with Miroto. He choreographs for Miroto Dance Company and has toured Holland, Belgium, Germany, Indonesia and Australia.

Originally from The Netherlands, Amok Island is now based in Fremantle. His practice spans painting on canvas, screen prints, large-scale murals and sculptural work. He has exhibited his work in The Netherlands, Japan and Australia and painted murals in over 20 countries worldwide. Wide Walls listed him in 2015 as one of the top 10 Dutch urban artists.

Once finished, it’s no longer my painting, it’s for the people

Andrew Frazer Western Australia

ANYA BROCK Western Australia

BEASTMAN New South Wales

Andrew is a full time illustrator, hand letterer, designer and artist. Based in Bunbury, Western Australia, Andrew has travelled extensively providing him with an eclectic and inspiring pool of inf luences that are evident through his art.

Andrew is also the Founder and Creative Director of Six Two Three Zero, which runs Re.Discover, the annual Bunbury street art festival.

Anya’s colourful original paintings and prints feature in the interiors of Australia’s most contemporary homes and her larger-than-life murals can be found splashed across walls throughout Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Fremantle. Her budgie mural that adorned four 10-foot tall windows in Perth was featured in the New York Times. Hailing from a background in fashion design Anya opened her first gallery in her hometown of Fremantle in 2013.

A multidisciplinary artist from Sydney, Beastman is inf luenced by the beauty, symbolism and design aesthetics behind nature’s repetitive geometric growth patterns and organic lines. He was named Best Artist at the 2010 Sydney Music, Arts & Culture (SMAC) Awards and his large solo and collaborative mural works can be found all over Australia and in the UK, USA, Germany, Israel, Hong Kong, Indonesia and New Zealand.

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PUBLIC 2016 ARTISTS & CREATIVES

Borondo Spain

BRUCE MUNRO United Kingdom

CHAD MARWICK Western Australia

Borondo’s style is inf luenced by his exposure to the Christ and the Holy Mary sculptures which his father restored in Segovia during the artist’s youth. His current style is characterised by giant expressionist human figure murals inviting the viewer to survey the work from every angle.

British artist Bruce Munro is best known for immersive large-scale light-based installations, inspired largely by his interest in shared human experience. Recording ideas and images in sketchbooks, Bruce produces both monumental temporary experiential artworks as well as intimate story-pieces.

A local Albany artist, Chad’s trajectory to street art came from skateboarding to art to the walls.

He’s worked with marginalised youth for around 10 years doing art graff projects in Denmark and Albany.

I look for ref lection and harmony and not for reaction

You know, give artists the opportunity and you can make a difference

I represent my home town’s natural beauty with an abstract map and an abundance of vibrancy

CHRIS NIXON Western Australia

Darren HutchEns Western Australia

Deborah Cullinan USA

An illustrator, designer and creative director based in Perth, Chris is inspired by the West Coast and classic surf culture. With an emphasis on the handmade and crafted, his textured work and direction spreads across a wide range of media. From children’s books to animation, commercial illustration and design to large scale public art, Nixon threads a distinct style across all scales and sizes to extend his creativity.

Darren is a mural artist, project facilitator and illustrator specialising in large scale public artworks and community based collaborative projects. Darren has a background in graphic design and illustration and has been inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds through working with them in communities across metropolitan and regional Western Australia for over 15 years.

Creative urban development expert and arts advocate Deborah Cullinan heads the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) San Francisco’s premier arts centre, built for and by the community. YBCA helped spearhead the Market Street Prototyping Festival, the inspiration for Platform.

It’s a truly unique project and something I’m really proud to be a part of and honoured to have it transforming my home state for the better.

It [is] important that the work feels not only part of the building, but also the surrounding landscape

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Joy in public space is not only possible, but essential

PUBLIC 2016 ARTISTS & CREATIVES

Edoardo Tresoldi Italy

hayley welsh Western Australia

HENSE USA

Edoardo Tresoldi creates figurative wire mesh sculptures of humans and animals. The Romebased artist hand weaves detailed, lifelike sculptures which seem to depict moments frozen in time. His life-size and larger metallic meshed figures are installed in particular environments, giving each work a specific sense of time and place and an ephemeral element ref lecting his effort to capture the relation of the human body to space.

British born artist Hayley was nominated by Jetstar Magazine as being one of the ‘Top Ten Street Artists You Should Know by Now.’ Having exhibited internationally in London and New York, she is known for her surreal, wide-eyed characters and whimsical street art.

HENSE’s playful, free-form murals are often epic in scale and use a combination of abstract lines, shapes and organic forms. He has created site-specific murals for Apple Inc. in Miami and Facebook Global Headquarters in a building designed by Frank Gehry at Menlo Park, California.

I’m [always] responding to the architecture and environment of the building

Holly O’Meehan Western Australia

IAN MUTCH Western Australia

JAE CRIDDLE Western Australia

Graduating with her BA in Fine Arts and Art Design in 2014, Holly has since been developing her multi-disciplined art practice. In July 2014 she held her first Solo Exhibition at Kurb Gallery, and has since held another solo exhibition at Peek-ABoo Gallery.

An artist, illustrator and designer from the SouthWest of WA, Ian creates detailed artworks using drawing ink, acrylics, watercolour, aerosol and markers. His work has won awards and given life to public spaces, and he has exhibited widely. His large-scale gallery works are in high demand. Ian designs and co-publishes Kingbrown Magazine and has been an industry speaker at Agideas, the Design Institute of Australia and Semi Permanent.

Jae is an artist, illustrator and graphic designer born and based in Perth. She produce fine art works, mostly contemporary, figurative drawings/ paintings as well as larger scale murals and handcrafted signage. She generally works with line as that is what comes naturally and she is drawn to expressive drawings or paintings that are naïve or spontaneous.

I like to think that the viewer somehow sees a ref lection of themselves in my work, maybe a part they don’t see too often

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I want the artworks to stir some curiosity

PUBLIC 2016 ARTISTS & CREATIVES

Jessee Lee Johns Western Australia

JILL O’MEEHAN Western Australia

KARIM JABBARI Tunisia

Jessee Lee Johns is an artist working in Perth, Western Australia. He is currently co-director of the Contemporary Institute Of Modern Art (CIOMA), and making paintings and structures both large and small.

Jill recently graduated with her BA in Fine Arts, but began exhibiting her multi-disciplinary work long before completing tertiary study, including participating in various group shows, both regionally and in Perth, her first solo exhibition at Kurb Gallery, and other large scale installations.

Karim Jabbari is an abstract calligraphy and lightgraff artist who is inspired by old Arabic scriptures. His calligraphy uses different patterns, shapes, and colours featuring compositions of classic Kufi and Maghrebi script. His lightgraff work articulates his love of Arabic letters, words, and syllables.

It’s nice if people like [my work], but not everyone is going to. I just hope enough people like my paintings to warrant doing more

We are putting pieces of our lives on walls

KYLE HUGHES-ODGERS

LIAM DEE Western Australia

Luke O’Donohoe Western, Australia

Western Australia

Liam is a surrealist whose vision is to create worlds where the line is blurred between what is considered to be natural or synthetic. Taking inf luence from prominent street artists such as Jeff Soto and Damon Soule, his art creates a mix of realism with a blend of psychedelic form, texture and colour to create a sense of organic life constructed from the inorganic. Liam won the people’s choice award at the 2008 Perspectives exhibition at the Art Gallery of WA and has a degree in Graphic Design and Illustration.

Luke is a visual artist based in Perth who has recently completed several large scale murals across Perth and regional Western Australia.

Kyle is a multi-disciplinary artist from Perth. He originally began creating artwork on the street across cities in Australia in the early 2000s.

Progressing his work both on and off the street, Kyle held his first sold out major solo exhibition with Perth’s Turner Galleries in 2010. This launched a path of exhibitions and public art commissions across the world – including solo exhibitions in Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid and Los Angeles.

It matters that people are having open and constructive conversations about creative ideas

Offer people something they might not be familiar with, in the hope it creates a moment of wonder

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PUBLIC 2016 ARTISTS & CREATIVES

Lynley Campbell Western Australia

John Carberry Western Australia

MATTHEW wong Western Australia

A textile artist, Lynley is from New Zealand and now lives and works in Albany. She is passionate about all textiles and loves the transformative process of changing fibres to create three- dimensional sculptural forms. She has exhibited in Perth, Albany and New Zealand, and has studied with acclaimed Australian and International felt makers.

John is a video artist whose work combines live action footage, animation and projections. He studied at the West Australian School of Art Design and Media, and has worked in the film industry for many years. Since relocating to Albany, John’s practice has taken a community focus, as well as continuing with his own small-scale projection projects and freelance film making.

Matthew is a letterer, graphic designer and illustrator based in Perth. He spends most of his time (both professionally and personally) making stuff, with a big focus on bright colours, handlettering and silly nonsense.

MIKE HORNBLOW New Zealand

MILLO Italy

NAT RAD Western Australia

Mike’s work is informed by performance art, dance, video, media art and philosophy. He specialises in spatial relationships between bodies and buildings. He recently completed an Asialink Performing Arts Residency in Indonesia.

Millo began his artistic career as a student of architecture. He has a distinctly simple, monochromatic style, often featuring gigantic child-like figures playing in detailed cityscapes.

Millo has painted all over Europe, from his native Florence, Rome, Milan and Bologna to Lithuania, Portugal, Belarus and the Netherlands. In 2011 he won the prestigious Premio Celeste award and in 2014 the B.Art competition, which enabled him to paint 13 multi-storey murals in the city of Turin.

Nat lives in Albany and maintains a studio space with the Cruelty Free Lodge Collective. As a member of MIX, a contemporary artists group, she contributed to the 2015 PIAF exhibition HomeFRONT which is now travelling as an Art on the Move exhibition. Nat has exhibited in many group shows at Gorepani Gallery, Vancouver Arts Centre and the Western Australian Museum, Albany.

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Being a kid attending school can be tough—so why not inject some optimism and visual high-fives into their day?

PUBLIC 2016 ARTISTS & CREATIVES

RUSTAM QBIC Russia

Serena McLauchlan

STORMIE MILLS Western Australia

This Kazan-based artist works both in illustration, drawing and graphic design and on street art projects, creating large-scale surrealist murals characterised by lush colours and imaginative storybook figures. He forms visual narratives with recurring characters and structures that symbolise important elements of his life; from geese, fish and elephants to forests, houses and windows.

Western Australia

Stormie’s palette is sharply monochromatic. Black represents dirt, white speaks of erasure, grey is drawn from the cityscape and silver the language of dreams. The works draw on a deep sense of isolation and yet each character seems to carry a message of hope.

Serena has a BA Honours degree in Visual Arts, which included a six month study exchange at the Amsterdam School of Arts in The Netherlands, in 1999. The last six years has seen her working from Albany, exhibiting in PIAF Great Southern Visual Arts program including curating Light-house and winning the Great Southern Art Award for painting in 2014.

I feel very strongly about artwork needing to be more of a question than an answer

Takaharu Tezuka Japan

TELLAS Italy

VJZOO Western Australia

Clean lines of metal, wood and glass are the hallmarks of a Takaharu Tezuka building. Since 1994 Tezuka, wife Yui and team have designed schools based around trees, play areas made of interwoven wooded beams and hospitals which (like all of his designs) prioritise the healing properties of light and space. Walls and windows become living—and liveable—art.

Born in Cagliari, Sardinia, and educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Tellas creates murals which serve as personal and intimate interpretations of natural landscapes.

He developed his art in various fields including drawing, painting, installations, printing techniques and audio-video productions, and has participated in several international festivals.

When you do something you’re not allowed to do, you feel good.

Australia’s landscape is one of the strongest things I’ve ever experienced.

VJzoo consists of Jasper Cook and Kat Black, who have worked together since 2003, collaborating through the digital mediums. VJzoo has performed around the world producing work for installation and are well known for their large scale projection works. The media with which they work is highly diverse and includes both digital and physical processes, both of which contribute to the common themes of memory, the night, and a sense of wonder.

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PUBLIC 2016 PLATFORM TEAMS

public 2016 P l at f o r m t e a m s

BLOOM — PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

CARYARD — JUDGE’S CHOICE AWARD

CINECAR

Inspired by the urban expansion sparked by the 1881 Eastern Railway line from Fremantle to Guildford, Bloom is a burst of colour and life. The installation is a re-imagined, scaled version of this significant stretch of railway, incorporating endemic planting and ‘stations’ along the line, inviting exploration and engagement with our local environment and history. Architects and landscape architects Aimee Hall, Josh Casey, and Kyra Lomas are especially interested in heritage and conservation work, and communicating the history of Claremont’s historical significance to the Perth transport network.

Cars could be described as private spaces in the public realm, and backyards as communal spaces in a private realm. Playing on these ideas, Car Yard combines two great Western Australian passions—cars and backyards—to create a new social space which emulates the typical backyard activities of eating, playing and relaxing in, of all locations, a reclaimed parking space. Anna Chauvel, Shlomit Strum, Hans Oerlemans, Mike Rowlands, Tom Griffiths, Rob Grandison, Scott Rossiter and Theo Valentine are landscape architects and colleagues from Perth-based studio Place Laboratory. They specialise in artistic and socially responsive solutions to public realm projects throughout Western Australia.

A 1980s model Honda Accord enjoys a new lease of life as a four-person cinema. Cinecar provides a unique cinematic experience while playing on the themes of public intimacy and proxemics.

Hannah Atcheson specialises in traditional mediums of paints and inks, while Jaxon Waterhouse creates installations. They are multidisciplinary artists based in Fremantle.

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PUBLIC 2016 PLATFORM TEAMS

COLOUR THEORY

DRIFT

[FIHSIHKAHLVRRCHUWAHL <>]

Made from a rainbow of layered translucent walls, Colour Theory invites people to experience kaleidoscopic combinations of rose, yellow, blue and purple. From the outside it looks like a multicoloured house. But step inside, and Colour Theory is a lens, altering the tinge of the world, layer by layer. Ash Pederick is a multi-disciplinary artist and graphic designer and Emma Vickery is a TV and film set production specialist.

Made from plastic drinks bottles, Drift harnesses the power of the sun. By day, natural light streams through the clouds, while at night they shimmer in the gleam of solar-powered LED lights. Kathy Allam’s award-winning installations have appeared in many exhibitions including Sculpture by the Sea. Drift is supported by Mike Jones’ engineering, logistics and management expertise, and by Martin Searle of Seacon Engineering.

In the era of personal devices and digital media, how does the physical relate to the virtual in public space?

Investigating this question is interactive sculpture [FIHSIHKAHLVRRCHUWAHL <>] or ‘physical virtual’.

As people engage with the installation, it responds with light and sound, ‘translating’ data into physical phenomena. //blabLAB comprises designers and PhD candidates Robert Cameron and Andrei Smolik.

IN_LINEA

LIGHT SCULPTURE

MR PALMER’S ORCHESTRA

In_Linea dresses the urban landscape in vivid hues, courtesy of a maze of multi-coloured string. As people negotiate their way through, the surroundings transform into a space for intimate encounters between strangers. Creative team: Gennaro Di Dato, Filipa Matos, Romina Triboli are architects with a shared passion for simplicity and innovation in urban regeneration.

Light Sculpture uses three-dimensional modelling, stereographic projection and 3D printing to throw images of local historical scenery and related themes onto the immediate surroundings, creating an immersive experience.

Nick Lowe, Minh Tran, Lauren Fletcher and James Strauss make up Hungry Sky. Hungry Sky build interactive media for the web and mobile devices, specialising in custom: concept and design, 3D modelling and animation, software development, and Augmented Reality.

During the 1920s, Mr. Palmer performed nightly at the Princess Theatre and Claremont Picture Gardens. Mr. Palmer’s Orchestra evokes this elegant era with an antique pianola, complete with candelabra and red roses. Small-business owners Kate Hulett, Hannah Fick and Gabrielle Scott are based in MANY6160 in Fremantle.

Their collective skills span project management to manufacturing, interior design, millinery and soap-making.

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PUBLIC 2016 PLATFORM TEAMS

NEST NEW NOMADS

POP UP PUTT PUTT

puzzle park

Swinging gently to a soundscape of birds and forest noises, Nest brings nature and tranquillity to Claremont. The creative team comprises designers and artists Marina Lommerse, Hayley Curnow, Thomas Rowe, Debbie Galvin, George Williamson, Sue Williamson, Jack Holmes, Paul Gray, Angela Mitchell, Leah Dent, in association with Monde Design Store, The Lane Bookshop and Modo Gelato.

A five-hole putt putt course, Pop Up Putt Putt combines physical play with the spirit of exploration, encouraging players to experience Claremont’s streets in a whole new way, moving from one pop up putt putt installation to the next.

Landscape architects Nick Rose and Nic Monisse head up PLOT LAB, a design agency that focuses on creative solutions for space activation.

Empowering people to create their own mini park, Puzzlepark encourages strangers to come together, collaborate and play, assembling and trying out different scenarios in a constantly evolving social and physical prototype. A shared interest in architecture and design, and a passion for innovative ideas led to the formation of Lo-line, a collaboration between Galvin Francisco, Emiline Elangovan and Tyson Feleke.

SIGHTS + SOUNDS

SOCiAL NETWORK

SUNFLOWER CARD

Sights + Sounds is an immersive sound installation which re-evaluates the meaning of ‘glocal.’ As listeners stand in the heart of Claremont, original recordings from cities all over the world spirit them to distant places. Posit specialises in brand identity, graphic design, broad theories and strategy, finding loopholes and developing design solutions.

This is street furniture, but not as you know it.

SOCiAL NETWORK is an interactive public artwork, designed to engage people through sight, sound and touch. A metaphor for contemporary public communication, it plays on the ideas of network, privacy and information dispersal.

UWA graduates Sean Adamas and Samuel Butcher recently formed RYOGA Design Studio, which specialises in creative designs for public art, architectural projects, and products.

In keeping with Bayview Terrace’s café culture, this portable barista-inspired cart is equipped with cup, soil, seed, and water dispensers.

Sunf lower Cart brings to the urban setting the simple joy of planting a seed into soil: a tactile connection to nature in a convenient take-away cup. Alumni of UWA’s Landscape Architecture program, Tim Delany and Ruth Cripps formed Bug Life Designs to focus on energising communities through green public space design and activation.

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PUBLIC 2016 PLATFORM TEAMS

TAKE5

THE BIG HORN

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

A cross between urban furniture, a pit stop and art installation, in a bid to get people to ‘take five’ and engage in light-hearted mindful activity the installation uses a combination of motionactivated laughter and sound effects, lighting and optical distortion. Edward Davies, Amna Omerhodzic, Evelyn Froend, Jenna Campbell, and Mark McKenna are the Cox Architects: Emerging Professionals group.

An installation with the look-good, sound-good, and feel-good factor. Not only visually striking, The Big Horn also encourages people to express themselves through play. Taking advantage of Claremont’s spatial qualities, The Big Horn guides pedestrians towards the heart of the town and the Platform installations. Posit specialises in brand identity, graphic design, broad theories and strategy, and developing design solutions.

For centuries, f lowers have been used to transmit coded and symbolic messages. The installation exploits the Victorian art of f loriography, creating an interactive ‘playscape’ enticing people to express emotions. The creative team comprises Marina Lommerse, Hayley Curnow, Jess Richardson, Thomas Rowe, Angela Mitchell, Leah Dent, Jack Holmes, Paul Gray, with Monde Design Store, The Lane Bookshop and Dome Claremont.

THE PALLADIAN SKIRT

TWINKLE

URBANTOPIA CLAREMONT

The Palladian Skirt is a huge, crinoline-style skirt structure, destined to turn from blank ‘canvas’ into a colourful, dressed skirt as people weave fabric through its wire netting frame. Bronwyn Slater, Andrew Howe, Nisar Dar, Jessica Black, Alice Reynolds, Reece Woo, Marisa Santosa, Nick Grindrod work at town planning and urban design consultancy TPG.

Averaging nine hours of sunshine per day, Perth is reputedly Australia’s sunniest capital city.

Twinkle references the life-giving power of the sun and also pays homage to the fresh water source that ‘sparked’ Claremont into being.

Twinkle is a co-creation between architect Madlen Jannaschk, who provided the creative direction and Ian Jones, an aircraft maintenance program engineer who supplied technical input.

What will Claremont be like in 2066? A preconstructed, large-scale cardboard map of the town’s main streets and iconic buildings forms the basis of Urbantopia. This evolving installation of recycled cardboard is built by the citizens, town planners and architects of tomorrow: children. Local creatives Josie McGushin and Daniel Marano work in the sustainability sector. Josie has worked with REmida Perth and is studying Environmental Engineering at University of Melbourne. Daniel works with the City of Fremantle and is an alumnus of Curtin University’s postgraduate CUSP sustainability program.

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PUBLIC 2016 PLATFORM TEAMS

WANDERING SPIRIT Because it is made of interlocking twodimensional components resulting in a threedimensional abstract structure, Wandering Spirit is truly site-specific and endlessly mutable: its permutations can be adapted according to its placement. Addam is a sculptural artist whose work traverses the boundaries between jewellery, sculpture, art and architecture.

bloom Winner: peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Choice Award

caryard Winner: Judgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Choice Award

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AUTHOR â&#x20AC;¢ A RT IC LE T I T LE

SECTION HEADER

CLAREMONT PUBLIC PLATFORM

colour theory. public platform, claremont.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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PUBLIC PLATFORM—CLAREMONT

‘ The Endless Meeting’: PUBLIC a n d P l at f o r m i n C l a r e m o n t

The great urbanist Jane Jacobs once likened society— community—as ‘an endless meeting, where people can be heard and seen and things can happen.’ The liveliest of these meetings, she contended, sparked ‘fertile and ingenious decisions.’ But she also warned that ‘if people are isolated, fragmented, if one income class is set off from other income classes, the meeting simply does not occur. If different kinds of talents don't come together, if different sorts of ideas don’t rub up against one another, if the necessary money never comes in juxtaposition with the necessary vision, the meeting doesn’t occur.’5 At the beginning of April 2016, one of the oldest suburbs in Perth was reminded of what happens when different ideas and talents come together, and people can truly be heard and seen.

PUBLIC 2016 brought some of the world’s finest street artists to paint Claremont’s shop windows, hoardings, laneways and underpasses, launching Town of Claremont’s Art Transforming Claremont month.

International change agents Deborah Cullinan of San Francisco, Japanese architect Takaharu Tezuka, and artist Mike Hornblow gave inspiring lectures on how art and creativity can make places feel as well as function better.

‘My 9 year old said "Today Claremont is fun!"’ survey respondent

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FORM also staged two days of activity in Bayview Terrace, the neighbourhood’s main shopping strip, with a place activation prototyping festival whose name, Platform, recalled the pivotal role Claremont Station once played on the Guildford to Fremantle passenger and freight axis.

‘The weekend was fantastic. The speaker line up on Saturday was inspired and my kids loved the prototypes!’

Survey respondent Platform challenged artists, designers, architects, curators, lighting producers, sound producers, multimedia producers, digital artists, makers, chefs creatives of all kinds—to design and execute innovative ways to enliven the Bayview Terrace area and bring people together. The creatives dreamed up installations—designed them—assembled them—and then over two perfect autumn days, everyone had fun trying them out.

‘I really enjoyed the event and believe it encouraged residents to contribute and shape the kind of community they want’ Survey respondent More than 24 temporary installations turned the heart of Claremont into an interactive playground with

Jane Jacobs: The Last Interview and Other Conversations. Melville Press 2016

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22 competing for the prizes on offer. The ideas behind many of the prototypes recast the familiar with the innovative. A 22metre long walk-through version of the 1880s Guildford to Fremantle railway track. An intimate two-seater cinema in a 1980s Honda Accord.

A ute-turned-backyard, complete with functioning barbecue, sandpit and slide. A huge red horn-shaped tunnel (and crawl-through toddler-magnet). A baristastyle cart dispensing takeaway cups of soil with plantyour-own sunflower seeds. Kinetic sculptures; music of yesteryear (a pianola) alongside movement-activated soundscapes of the future. A five-hole putting course, a transparent multi-coloured house. Suspended glitter balls, floral art, performance.

Importantly, it was the buzz created by these installations as much as the installations themselves which brought crowds of people out onto the streets— and back to the streets for a second go the next day.

‘Old people and young people enjoying creativity together. Great atmosphere!’

Survey respondent From tiny tots to the most stately of seniors, people were eager to look, touch, ask, laugh, try and explore. They were free to like, or dislike. They voted for their favourite prototype. Reacted to the murals. Gave feedback. Spent money on coffee, snacks, treats. They lingered in the neighbourhood, and experienced Claremont in a whole new way: as ‘an endless meeting,’ perhaps.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

89%

91%

97%

After PLATFORM I went on to do other things.

said It held my interest and attention.

97

%

Would come to something like this again.

99%

97%

think It’s important that it’s happening here.

said It was different to things that I’ve experienced before.

It helped me to feel connected to people in the community.

98%

96%

Agreed it was well peoduced and presented

78%

Agree

19%

Neutral

3%

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It was an interesting idea.

Disagree

AUTHOR • A RT IC LE T I T LE

It made me think differently about public spaces

claremont urbantopia. Photograph courtesy of daniel marano, 2016.

SOCiAL NETWORK Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016.

5footway, Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016.

bunny, stormie mills. Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

wandering spirit, Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016.

PUBLIC PLATFORMâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;CLAREMONT

top: sunflower cart. Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016. right: caryard. photograph by carolyn Karnovsky 2016.

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SECTION HEADER

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PUBLIC PLATFORM—claremont

J o c k B a r k e r , Mayo r o f C l a r e m o n t, d e s c r i b e s t h e e ff ec t o f PUBLIC 2 0 1 6 a n d t h e F ORM pa r t n e r s h i p, a n d a n t i c i pat e s e xc i t i n g t i m e s ahe ad for the neighbourhood:

Platform gave people a reason to ask questions, play in a public space, have fun and participate outside of their daily routine.

The partnership with FORM was a perfect fit for us.

PUBLIC 2016 and Platform, combined with our own annual arts festival, was a great catalyst to change the way people see the town centre: a space for art, entertainment and community gathering.

People really enjoyed the open space, free from vehicles, a place in which they could safely interact with their neighbours, friends and family.

Businesses in the town centre were also pleased.

We are working hard with the businesses to achieve additional visitors to the area so events such as PUBLIC and Art Transforming Claremont are ways in which we can attract new people to our retail precinct.

There are so many wonderful things about living in Claremont...the people, the landscape, the services and facilities. In particular the people are what make my neighbourhood and my community special. Many of my neighbours have lived in Claremont all their lives and love where they live.

We are fortunate to be able to get close to nature with the beautiful Swan River and Lake Claremont nearby as well as being just a short distance from the town centre.

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It is the best of both worlds.

Over the next couple of years, we will see some great changes to Town’s facilities including the Claremont Golf Course, which is currently undergoing a redesign, the Claremont Aquatic Centre which will be redeveloped to improve its appeal to younger families and our Freshwater Bay Museum will also undergo a revamp.

In the future, I hope to see Claremont an established destination for local and international tourists and visitors not just for its shopping and dining but for its cultural activities. Our events program continues to expand and as our reputation for good quality cultural events spreads others will join the movement help build on this for the benefit of not only our local community but for greater Perth.

The opening of The Goods Shed as a cultural hub will have many positive effects on Claremont, the surrounding area and even Western Australia.

Its contribution to the development of community and cultural development will be notable, as well as activating a ‘dead’ space.

I believe that exciting times lay ahead for Claremont; I am delighted to have FORM become a member of our community as we journey towards making Claremont an even better place to live, work and visit.

Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016.

palladian skirt. Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016.

mr palmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s orchestra. Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016.

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PUBLIC FORUM

S h a p i n g t h e f u t u r e o f t h e c i t y: Deborah Cullinan

Creative urban development expert and arts advocate Deborah Cullinan heads the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) San Francisco’s premier arts centre, built for and by the community. YBCA helped spearhead the Market Street Prototyping Festival, the inspiration for PUBLIC 2016’s Platform festival in Claremont. Deborah was a guest speaker at the PUBLIC 2016 Forum. This is an edited transcript of her presentation: I hope to talk with all of you about the central role that art and creativity play in cultivating connection across boundaries and difference in a rapidly changing world.

I hope we can talk about compassionate citizenship; and about the deep inquiry and experimentation that leads to cultural movement, vibrant public life, and positive social change.

At my organisation—Yerba Buena Center for the Arts—we believe that the 21st century will and must be defined by radical institutional change. Institutions of governance, of service, of health, of finance. And it is the cultural institutions that must lead the way.

Indeed, the best and lasting arts organisations of the 21st century will give rise to cultural movement. They will be leaders and connectors in their communities.

They will be beacons for equitable and inclusive culture. Big things will happen as a result of them.

No doubt, we are experiencing unprecedented change around the world. My own city of San Francisco, California is changing—some say—more rapidly than any other American city in history. We are home to extraordinary wealth, incredible natural beauty, and unprecedented technological innovation. We are known to be one of the most expensive cities on the planet, with massive development underway marked by a skyline of cranes, and—at the same time—we are the city of radical progressive politics setting the tone for our country.

Our population is increasing, prices are escalating, and cultural, ethnic and income diversity is declining.

Daily headlines evoke an environment of upheaval and uncertainty which creates division, polarity and blame. When the public debate lacks creativity and imagination it defaults to the simple, the accusatory and one-dimensional, excluding and even intimidating everyday citizens.

To be polarised is to be helpless or hopeless. Without creativity and inspiration we fall apart. Yet at YBCA we know that art and creativity are essential drivers of any breakthrough change. As a public benefit organisation, we believe it is our mandate to respond, to contribute to the public and civic life of our community. To this end, our mission is to generate culture that moves people.

By culture, we mean that complex whole that is made up of stories, traditions, and expressed values: that thing that enables us to act with imagination and creativity, that thing that enables us to act politically and with conviction.

We believe that culture precedes change.

Indeed, the great societal strides—those that have resulted in positive and powerful forward movement— have inevitably sparked from cultural shift, a momentous collective motion that cannot be diverted or denied.

Too few people are defining culture, too few have access to it, and so too few people are truly inhabiting and empowered in their communities. Our vision pushes past this. We see inspiration everywhere, inspiration for all.

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To be inspired is to see the future, to see the future is to see your own place and your community beyond where it is today.

To live we need inspiration and connection – a sense of community. We also need to feel included.

Imagine inspired people everywhere working together to make a better future. Like people gathered together to dance, experience is most profound when it connects us mind, body, and soul to ourselves and one another.

Our greatest public spaces and our greatest institutions create these experiences.

To push past division and to breakthrough solutions, we need to put art and creativity at the centre of the conversation. We need more and different kinds of people gathering around the deep breakthrough questions and instigating bold cultural movement.

Think of the culture makers and the innovators who believed that something seemingly impossible could be – think of those moments when someone shifts the inquiry and a new future is opened up.

At YBCA, we also believe in citizenship. We invite you to join us in imagining a future where art centres everywhere are ‘citizen institutions’ and think of themselves as an integral part of the public realm. Each one creating a universe unique to their context made up of a vibrant constellation of active and creative citizens who believe in the power of creativity to make change in the world.

and we impact change. We looked at Market Street in San Francisco—our main thoroughfare—which is undergoing once-in-a-lifetime infrastructural redesign from the transit systems to the sidewalks.

It’s a project about reimagining San Francisco’s Market Street AND reimagining citizen participation in how our streets and cities change.

What if people could shape the future of their city?

In an unprecedented partnership between YBCA and the San Francisco Planning Department, we sought to shift the culture of city making. No more top down planning, rather let’s ask the questions of our creative citizens: how can we design public space to instigate connection and community? How can our streets and sidewalks begin to function like a civic commons?

What will bring you joy, inspiration, and a sense of what is possible in our public spaces?

From asking the question—who gets to design the future of urban life?—we have changed the way that the city of San Francisco will approach any large scale infrastructure project, we have assured that people’s ideas will be infused into the permanent redesign of Market Street.

I believe that the great places of today emphasize not our differences but our shared and future-possible culture. They emphasise our interconnectedness and interdependence which allow us to feel not helpless, accused, or disconnected, but helpful, hopeful, and together.

Joy in public space is not only possible, but essential.

Top (left to right): senator scott ludlam, stormie mills, deborah cullinan and takaharu tezuka.

Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016. bottom: mike hornblow. Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

At YBCA, this constellation—or creative ecosystem—de-emphasises transactional interchange and emphasizes deep and lasting relationships.

This ecosystem thrives on diversity of thought and life experience and fuels emerging culture that can instigate change. We emphasise a culture of invitation: placemaking and experience that is fueled by our invitation to you to participate and, subsequently, your invitation to others. We multiply.

As a tangible example of how we follow those who inspire us, how we pursue collective inquiry, how we invite creative change-makers to join us in fellowship,

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We are experiencing unprecedented change and we believe that there is nothing more powerful than art and creativity to bring people together in pursuit of a more hopeful and equitable future.

Indeed, in my vision of the future, our cultural centres will lead the way. Like a new kind of transit system they will function to cultivate mobility and movement, but they will not simply serve as anonymous pathways, and not only places to pass through and to witness. They will infuse our streets, our sidewalks, and our communities with compassion, connection, and inspiration. They will make it possible for all kinds of people to collide and come to know one another. Empathy will become the norm, collaboration the essential tool. We, the people, will be brazen about the power of art and creativity to change everything.

We will, at last, comprehend and put to action the real potential of our own strength as creative souls.

AUTHOR • A RT IC LE T I T LE

Image needs approval

Always design public space for someone specific. Don’t design for everybody because that’s a space for nobody Takaharu Tezuka (Japan) architect, PUBLIC 2016 speaker

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Ring Around a Tree, Tezuka Architects Katsuhisa Kida/FOTOTECA

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AUTHOR â&#x20AC;¢ A RT IC LE T I T LE

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PUBLIC FORUM, SPEAKER SERIES. Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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PUBLIC FORUM, SPEAKER SERIES. (left to right) Tanya hudson, karim jabbari, alex brewer, bruce munro. Photograph by jean paul horre, 2016.

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SECTION HEADER

AUTHOR â&#x20AC;¢ A RT IC LE T I T LE

millo, curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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CURTIN UNIVERSITY PUBLIC CAMPUS

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S t r e e t A r t: y e s o r n o ?

Ta k i n g t h e d e b at e to a universit y campus

Graffiti, street art, muralism. Stencilling, lightgraff, underground art. For something that originated from a sub-culture with no real rules, there is a surprising amount of categories and definitions at play in urban art. This is not an origin story, however, but a bid to unpack the discourse around the street art—yes or no?—debate that ignited during PUBLIC 2016, and which put Curtin University’s Bentley campus into the spotlight.

The debate is largely driven by a difference of opinion between what constitutes a contribution to public space and who decides what this contribution should be.

Many of us love street art in all its forms, and this is evidenced by the droves that visit, snap, tweet and gram the works created the world over in our neighborhoods.

Some people are less enamoured and view artwork in outdoor spaces, in certain contexts and on certain buildings as unnecessary, degrading and detrimental to the built environment. And that is okay too.

With the rise in popularity and pervasiveness of street art and street art festivals, controversy and division follow closely. In Norway, where the integration of art and architecture is seen as a significant achievement, the current debate over whether to remove murals from significant—but bomb-damaged—public buildings in Oslo is proving divisive. Granted, the artwork in question is by Picasso, but there seems to be a reverse argument in play over there. In the USA there

is significant discourse around the rising number of developers involved in street art projects. Many people accuse them of using art as a catalyst for gentrification, forcing out lower socio-economic communities.

Projects like Wynwood Walls in Miami and Coney Art Walls in Brooklyn NYC have recently been called in to question, but the response from art critics, festival organisers and artists alike has been one of solidarity: Art as part of community—the buildings as much as the people—has an important role to play.

Debate in Perth has apparently arisen from a more conservative, historicist attitude towards architecture, one that canonises built work, as opposed to an appetite more enthusiastic for urban intervention.

Early on, it was recognised by Curtin University that, while broadly appreciated for their architecture, the campus buildings alone were not creating a confident, convivial or inviting environment, and the communal spaces seemed somewhat sanitised and under-used. One strategy to encourage activity, interest and connection in public spaces is to create something in those spaces to engage and stimulate. With an eye towards the future ‘Greater Curtin’ campus— an allhours knowledge cluster in itself—Curtin made the bold decision to participate in PUBLIC 2016, with sixteen Australian and international urban artists adding a new layer or narrative to the campus on a small selection of their buildings.

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AUTHOR â&#x20AC;¢ A RT IC LE T I T LE

hense, curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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SECTION HEADER

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The students and staff welcomed the diversion and entertainment, and took the minor disruptions to some of their usual walkways in good part. While some appreciated watching the very physical nature of the mural production, involving lifts, heights and some challenging access points, others discovered a profound relevance and connection in the content of the artform.

‘It's brave and creative.’ ‘The project makes our uni so fresh, stylish and a creative place to study’ were typical of many reactions. ‘It's been really great seeing the buildings transform,’ was another. Which brings up the topic of controversy.

It was a bold move on Curtin University’s part to explore public art for their buildings. There was passionate protest as well as praise. FORM and Curtin’s response was largely live and let live. Some of us welcome art on walls and buildings. Some of us don’t.

For some of us, what we like (or deplore) depends on the art, for others, it depends on the building. When the Bentley campus is surveyed as a whole, only a minute percentage of walls were painted, but it was enough for a timely and lively debate to arise.

The influence of the external environment is undeniable but there still exists an argument that mural art is largely decorative and does not take into account the surrounding layers and context. This can however be countered that murals are just the next layer being added to this context, the next story. Who knows how they will celebrated or censured in the future, but when properly conceived in partnership with courageous institutions like Curtin, the mural can be something that coexists, that links, transforms and encourages wonder.

Whether it be a plant study in response to the flora commonly found on the campus grounds, or a work of calligraphy that aims to embrace and bridge differences between the many nationalities represented at ‘Western Australia’s largest and most multicultural university,’6

the PUBLIC 2016 work responds to and connects with the site and with a Western Australian perspective.

The word university evolved from the Latin universus. In its original conjunction of unus and versus it literally meant ‘turned into one’ but subsequently took on the broader meaning of ‘all things, relating to all’ and by the 1580s became understood as ‘the whole world.’

If there is one thing a modern-day university campus can symbolise, it is both universality and diversity: of disciplines, people, methodologies, scholarship and viewpoints.

It is exciting then, (even if controversial) when this symbolism is translated into an embodied format, a visual format, via the buildings themselves.

It is a gesture towards the ‘third space’ of a creative campus, a space where academics and creatives (and all permutations in between) can meet and spark unique conversations and debates. This third space can be understood as ‘both real and imagined … neither solely academic … nor solely creative and cultural production spaces but an open, creative and generative combination of the two.’7 Although mainly populated by students, researchers and staff, a university campus is not a closed society but part of a wider community, geographically, intellectually and ethically. For the people who study, work at Curtin, or who live near there or visit, what’s significant is not just that it has murals on some of its buildings, or sculptures in its grounds. It’s that by integrating the artists and their creativity, the campus has declared itself an environment that will take risks and will welcome humour and ideas. Curtin University wants something of its hybridity – its universality and diversity – to be expressed through its appearance.

That’s inspiring.

6 7

stormie mills, curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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Vice-Chancellor Deborah Terry, quoted in http://about.curtin.edu.au/ Comunian, R., & Gilmore, A. Beyond the Creative Campus: Reflections on the evolving relationship between higher education and the creative economy.

London: King’s College London. 2015

curtin university survey responses

PUBLIC is an important showcase of street art

90%

8%

71

Neutral 1%

Disagree

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening here.

It moved & inspired me. %

91%

Agree

It is one of the best street art festivals that I have seen.

66%

31%

Agree

3%

Neutral

Disagree

91%

It was an interesting idea.

84%

I will come back to look at this

90%

I would recommend this to a friend

90%

It was well produced and presented.

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curtin university survey responses

Female

67% Male

33%

95%

I was a student at Curtin today.

66% 34%

yes no

It helped me to feel connected to people in the community.

62%

Agree

34%

Neutrall

4%

It made me stay on campus for a longer duration of time.

said This will positively impact the atmosphere on campus in the future.

Disagree

55%

Agree

31%

Neutral

14%

Disagree

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public campus—curtin university

C u r t i n U n i v e r s i t y ’ s A n dy S h a r p r e f l ec t s o n t h e e ff ec t o f PUBLIC 2 0 1 6 o n t h e c a m p u s , a n d a s k s : i f a u n i v e r s i t y c a n ’ t e x p e r i m e n t, t h e n w h o c a n ?

You know that scene in the 1999 sci-fi movie ‘The Matrix’ when the main character Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, transcends his ‘immediate’ world to visualise and see the ‘whole’ inter-related nature of things? In the movie it was all binary code: well, I want to see the world like that! Not so much in binary code but to have the ability to see the inter-related nature of what we do and the impact we have on the world.

That’s why I studied design and in particular landscape architecture. It’s a profession that looks at and understands systems thinking, which is something we need to understand in more detail if we are to answer complex questions about cities, transport, land economics, public health and wellbeing. Not many professions see these things as inter-related entities and we need more creatives to bring these things into focus and to solve them using systems thinking rather than discipline thinking.

I have just celebrated my fifth year at Curtin. The attraction to the university was the opportunity to leave a legacy that helped transform it for the next generation.

It’s no longer safe to assume that the University sector could and would continue to survive if the world around it was undergoing such massive change. So, armed with a very loose brief to conceive of the ‘next generation’ university, Curtin afforded me the opportunity to think creatively about the physical campus and how that might sit in a world where education, research, and industry are combining to form innovation clusters.

Curtin partnered with FORM to bring vitality to the campus on a massive scale. FORM afforded Curtin the opportunity to work with world-class artists to showcase their work in an environment well versed in trying new things and experimentation.

Partnerships with the arts sector are fundamental in building creativity. Creative problem-solving is gaining so much attention it’s important that we can do whatever it takes to create an environment where arts and creativity can flourish. At Curtin we want to make visible the amazing work our staff and students create, and we have a number of initiatives to bring their activities out into the public domain. Each year a number of architecture and interior design students create a series of reading rooms which are scattered across the campus for everyone to enjoy. The works are truly amazing and the level of ingenuity and construction knowledge is something to behold. Collaboration with arts and technology is likely to be the next fusion of experimentation at Curtin, particularly with the advent of easy computerisation and robotics.

The discourse generated around PUBLIC 2016 at Curtin was wonderful to see. Our community has been vocal about the works and the majority of comments have been extremely positive. It wouldn’t have been successful if there weren’t both positive and negative comments. Massive artworks on buildings will always attract attention from those that believe art and architecture shouldn’t mix.

In this new knowledge-led world the physical campus needs to reflect a different way of educating and building research agglomerations for the benefit of all West Australians.

There are of course very solid arguments from both sides of the debate – but let’s not lose perspective. The Curtin campus is undergoing a transformation that is exciting, engaging and visionary.

It’s being transformed not by its wonderfully varied architectural form but rather from significant place making activities that aim to turn the campus inside out.

Put simply (and harshly) we woke up one morning and realised that our campus was barren, didn’t offer any reason to stay, had underperforming food and beverage offerings and people were just not engaging with each other in public spaces. Even though we have some amazing architectural form with sensitive design outcomes it became apparent that the buildings alone were not creating a vibrant campus. We needed to consider the built form in the context of our teaching, learning and research outcomes, and also the value ‘place’ contributes to enhanced learning by promoting the ‘rub and bump’ found in urban clusters. We need to replicate the idea of an urban centre with many layers; not an isolated suburban campus. Those days are gone for Curtin, and our plans for the next generation are taking shape with our Greater Curtin knowledge cluster, where the rub and bump of creative people coming together will make for an interesting, engaging and exciting place for the next generation of learners, researchers and knowledge workers.

The feedback from staff has focussed on how lively the campus has become and how many places on the campus have been significantly enhanced by the artworks.

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They’ve also resulted in large numbers of people visiting the campus, some for the first time, which is always great to hear. Our aim is to simply make the campus much more attractive to visitors and the general public so they too can engage in the knowledge economy. It’s exciting to see things that are cutting edge and experimental.

The vision for Curtin is to transform into a contemporary, world-class knowledge cluster bringing together researchers, businesses and students. We see the campus being supported by all the urban amenity you would expect in any great urban city: cafes, food, recreation, residential, parks and gardens and of course high-tech research with amazing businesses who are at the top of their game. For any student and researcher this knowledge clustering is akin to a utopia in which we can participate for the benefit of all Australians.

Jokes aside, we see students conducting rehearsals on the grass, contemporary artworks on display, architecture students building temporary reading rooms, and first year design students sculpting famous buildings from sandcastles. This is a sign that the university has matured into a great community that is comfortable with itself and confident to try new things.

Our creatives are now visible and always showcasing their skills.

We used to look abroad – but I think we can now confidently say that our community is what gives us inspiration. Our team receives hundreds of suggestions from our students and staff and we actively look to implement as many new ideas as we can.

Inspiration really does come from within if you encourage it, nurture it and give it the right amount of exposure.

For me the measure of success is seeing people spontaneously performing great musical hits in our pop-up live mic sessions. It’s like living in an episode of Glee!

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Photograph by luke shirlaw, 2016.

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clockwise from left: edoardo tresoldi; TELLAS; ADD FUEL; KARIM JABBARI; CHRIS NIXON; JAE CRIDDLE curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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rustam qbic, curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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left: amok island, curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

Above: kyle hughes-odgers, curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016. right: Detail, kyle hughes-odgers, curtin university.

Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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‘ I n t r u t h , yo u r e a l ly c o u l d j u s t k e e p o n pa i n t i n g ’ : hense, artist

HENSE (Alex Brewer) hails from Atlanta, Georgia. He has created site-specific murals for Apple Inc. in Miami and Facebook Global Headquarters in California. In 2015 he painted grain silos in the Western Australian Wheatbelt. During PUBLIC 2016 he created murals at Curtin University and in Albany, and was a guest speaker at the PUBLIC Forum. This is an edited transcript of his presentation: Throughout my years as a professional artist I’ve not really known very many arts organisations that do the kind of work that FORM does, so it is really thrilling to be involved and not only have the opportunities to come out here for the first time [for PUBLIC 2015 to work on the CBH grain silos outside Northam] but then to be invited back.

Let’s start out with an image of the silos. These were 38 metres tall, well over 100 feet, and the reason [the site] was appealing is essentially the context. This work is not something that you typically see in an urban environment, just based on the nature of the structure. It has an industrial use. It has a lot of curves and it’s also got a really great scale. A lot of what I’m trying to do with my work is not only to paint walls, work in my studio and create abstract works, but sort of re-interpret some of these structures as sculptures so, in this case, because [the silos] are such a three dimensional object, immediately I thought when completed it could essentially be a sculpture and not just a flat surface. A very spontaneous process - not a whole lot of predetermined thought. And that’s the case with a lot of my work. I will get a bunch of general ideas of what I’m going to do but it always changes.

And that’s the case with the ceiling that I’m working on here at the university.

One of the things I think is important for public arts is embracing different forms of architecture and different sites, and perhaps different parts of cities where it’s not known for its art, it’s not really a big art hub.

A lot of the themes that I’m exploring with my work are breaking [things] down to the very most basic forms just shapes, patterns, color, line, scale, architecture.

A project in Lima, Peru in 2013, [is] probably the largest piece that I’ve worked on to date. This is taller than the grain silos. We had a team of ten local painters that were actually helping us create this.

Where it’s located in Mira Floras is essentially a very busy part of Lima. There’s a lot of activity, a lot of traffic, freeways right here, and working in that kind of setting is inspiring. The average person doesn’t go out of their way to go to a museum or gallery, but they would be able to see this work and whether they respond to it in a positive way or not I don’t necessarily [mind].

People may not understand abstraction or what the artist is trying to do. That doesn’t bother me. It’s raising questions, it’s sort of like an educational process.

And certainly the alternative would be not to do it and I don’t think that would be the right thing. I think that it’s always generally a good idea to have more public art than less public art. We used a swing stage in this particular case and I’m not actually [keen] on heights so this was one of those situations where — very similar to the grain silos—I was very glad I had a good crew to help because doing this by yourself, if something happens it’s just you; but again, it is one of the exciting things about these projects. It’s kind of getting yourself involved, trying not to have those fears, and growing as an artist.

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[This is] the ceiling here at the university. It’s slightly daunting working in this scale in this kind of mode because you’re really not programmed. Myself and my assistants are not painting by numbers so we’re not saying ‘this stuff is going to be red, this stuff is going to be blue...,’ it’s a very spontaneous process.

Which, as you could imagine in this kind of scale, could be very exhausting and you’re out there in the weather, in very great heights but these are all things that bring me back to more projects.

Creating paintings I think is very exciting, but the energy and the feedback I get from working in public space far surpasses the studio process.

And this is a photo of day two working on the ceiling. This is probably one of the more challenging projects I have done. I’m almost finished with it—I’ve got about one more day until it’s completed. What I’ve learned about FORM is that they don’t like to just send me a wall. You’re either painting grain silos or you’re painting a ceiling, which is great and I’m very thankful for these opportunities. When I got the email about the possibility of doing this I certainly was a little sceptical...how is my neck going to feel...is it realistic in true amount of time...can I achieve it? The positives kept [outweighing] the negatives. In fifteen years from now I will remember when I did this every day for two weeks. It’s been a lot of fun.

We basically started by adding huge shapes, I had a rough concept, we just started kind of playing with this as a canvas, trying to work all around the surface and not just in one little area. One day I got stuck in

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hense. Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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A lot of my work is about removing and then adding and getting it to that point where I feel confident with it and that I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sort of finished.

hense. Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

HENSE (Alex Brewer)

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one little portion of it and one of the volunteers was suggesting instead of focusing on this little area, ‘what if you thought about going around and working in another part’ and it was a really good suggestion, because with this kind of scale you kind of get hung up on one little portion. You’re thinking what should I do with this little area, and you really need to think about things on a bigger, much broader scale because it’s not about that little area, it’s about the whole piece and how people are going to interact with it and view it. In this case, students and faculty will be looking up at this, so I had to think about that a lot.

[On] day three of four, things started to get loose; some really nice big loose mark-making. Mark-making is really important in my work and I try to explore that as much as I can. Doing any kind of mark-making on this scale and also [overhead] is really not as easy as I thought it would be. I went back and forth from standing on the ground and trying to draw with the

roller and the extension pole, and then realising how painful that was, to getting up on the lift and drawing.

And then every day we were re-evaluating ‘this area looks great, this area looks crappy - I need to paint over this area’ and I’m very comfortable with that process because I know when I need to paint over something, I know when I need to self-edit.

A little bit later on in the process we started to tighten things up...It’s about tidying, cleaning and then making it dirty again. And I go through that with my studio practice as well. It’s a lot of layering, marking and then coming back, painting over huge sections, and then rethinking what I’ve done. In fact, some of the most recent paintings, I basically painted almost the entire thing in one colour and left tiny little windows of these early marks.

With abstraction there really is no end. You could go forever, for four months if you wanted on one piece —both in the studios and outdoors—and with

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these projects there are so many moving parts. There’s budgets, there’s equipment, there’s volunteers... You’ve got to be able to finish in a certain amount of time otherwise it’s not realistic, it’s not going to make sense for anybody, so with the ceiling, with the silos, any public project that I worked on, I tried to come up with some kind of game plan that will allow this thing to be completed within a reasonable time frame and not try to just keep going and going and going because, in truth, you really could just keep on painting. And the same with studio work...Just layer and layer and layer you know, at some point you’re going to overwork it.

In fact sometimes you can take it all away to a point where it is essentially completely overworked and you almost have to start right over.

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ALBANY PUBLIC IN THE GREAT SOUTHERN

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tellas, albany. Photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016.

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public in the great southern

r e d i s c ov e r i n g a l b a n y: PUBLIC i n t h e G r e at S o u t h e r n

Albany as a sleeping giant painted into the architectural form of its City Library. A coastal town awakening as the social and economic centre of The Great Southern.

Albany as its southern lights; its colours and wildness painted high and wide in the disorderly blues and hues of its ocean and sky.

Albany as the beginning. Scripted in gold and ancient letters as the first spark in the State’s sprawling European settlement.

Albany as Sand Patch, Cheynes Beach and Shelter Island. Evocative way finders to surf-spots and beloved beaches mapped on its buildings and walls.

A palimpsest of impressions in laneways and on street corners. Calling people to stop, understand and interpret.

This year, PUBLIC brought artists from across the State and across the world to Albany on Western Australia’s South Coast. For a week during April these artists responded to the people, the location, the waves and cliffs, the complexity and diversity of the place, with artworks painted on walls across the city. The street art they produced captured the city spirit in a story that defined and redefined it, giving everyone a role in its unfolding—as co-creators and collaborators, as influencers and interpreters, as audiences and as meaning makers.

It bestowed that quality which American social artist and PUBLIC 2015 Symposium speaker Theaster Gates believes should be a ‘basic service’ to cities— beauty; and contributed to streets which now look, feel and are navigated differently by its citizens.

‘The wall art has got the town talking and I feel it has moved us now into a city status rather than a town’ survey respondent We know that places for unplanned, accidental encounter are crucial in cities. That we need spaces for the small moments where belonging happens— where people in communities can experience the little miracle of connection: with each other, with strangers, and with their surroundings. PUBLIC in The Great Southern was about creating the physical conditions for people to use Albany a little differently.

It was about the city and the community owning the way it sees itself, and changing the way it sees itself— sharpening its sense of social identity by introducing a new experience; artists who were local and artists who were ‘other’ influencing both its sense of self and its external perception—and connecting across the world to become globally fluent.

‘Do more! Show more of Albany to the world!’ survey respondent Social researcher Hugh Mackay believes what builds communities is engagement and what builds engagement is time; that for most people, life’s richest meanings spring from personal relationships and connections. PUBLIC’s meanings and connections were manifold. When Western Australian street art icon Stormie Mills incorporated paste-up autumn leaves by Albany artist Nad Rad into his whimsical, monochrome figure off York Street, it was an evocative acknowledgement of the ANZACs who left Albany and never came back. When Tunisian artist Karim Jabbari learned from visitors to his wall that Albany was the State’s first European settlement, he painted fire into

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his mural ‘highlighting the fact that Albany was the spark that ignited settlement in WA.’ When a young Albany boy, carefully watching South West muralist Andrew Frazer paint a fantastic, journeying creature across the length of a city side-alley, delightedly proclaimed the creature ‘a zebra-fox’, Andrew decided that yes, indeed it was.

These murals create assets for Albany and The Great Southern which work at a deeper level, generating resonance, a distinctiveness and confidence in the identity of the place. They become talking points, points of connection which lodge in minds and hearts and stir a change in mentality. Sometimes such works help to build pride, to make a place feel more dynamic and compelling, and add to the factors which draw other energetic, creative and skilled people to a city- a foundation from which further change might spring.

A festival of street art is an injection of perspective.

Of exchange. Creative people participating in the life of the community socially and culturally, as neighbours; forging connections, involving citizens and linking people with organisations and networks.

‘I was blown away by the excitement and buzz the project created amongst the community. Never have I seen so many smiles on so many faces in this town’ survey respondent In his book Cities of Ambition urban strategist Charles Landry says the best cities are able to ‘be themselves’, identifying and orchestrating their unique resources. According to a recent audit of The Great Southern’s creative capacity, Albany’s unique resources include an unusually rich cultural

public in the great southern

How lucky Albany is to have been touched by such exciting artists.

Loved the injection of our local artistic talent too!

Survey respondent

production sector; an area of the creative economy which has benefits for community wellbeing and quality of life, while also generating economic value in its own right.

It also has a community of creative workers outpacing growth in other occupations. The report describes the region and its creative sector as ready to engage in positive change; change which has been made possible by the city administration’s readiness to embrace the unusual.

That PUBLIC in The Great Southern became such a success is largely a tribute to The City of Albany’s willingness to partner with FORM, moving from the role of ‘gatekeeper’ to that of collaborator, and celebrating Albany as a hub for creativity and ingenuity.

PUBLIC 2016 was paint on walls. But it was also the City of Albany taking equal care of its civic commons and its disused spaces, taking its culture and communitymaking to the streets for widespread access and recognising its regional location as a significant strength for creative work.

Photograph bewley shaylor, 2016.

‘The artwork was breathtaking and a real treat to have it here in Albany. Full credit to the artists and the organisers... and especially the City for having the courage and the foresight to make it all happen’ survey respondent All communities face challenges that require creative ideas and solutions. PUBLIC’s artists challenge us to connect with and care about our neighborhoods and cities. To see them differently, to take part in small civic actions together as a community. If we can take a particular, shared joy in our built environment then maybe we can influence those around us, because beauty begets beauty, and contentment can be infectious.

karim jabbari, the core Photograph by chad peacock & bewley shaylor, 2016.

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PUBLIC IN THE GREAT SOUTHERN—ALBANY SURVEY RESPONSES

98 % 88 %

would come to something like this again.

It helped me to feel connected to people in the community.

99%

think It’s important that it’s happening here.

97%

Agreed it was well peoduced and presented

97% 86%

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It was an interesting idea.

said It was different to things that I’ve experienced before.

98% It made me think differently about public spaces

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PUBLIC IN THE GREAT SOUTHERN

C i t y o f A l b a n y C h i e f E x ec u t i v e A n d r e w S h a r p e , a n d Va n c o u v e r A r t s C e n t r e C o o r d i n ato r Am b e r P e r rym a n r e v e a l h ow t h e c i t y ’ s p eo p l e e m b r ac e d PUBLIC i n t h e G r e at S o u t h e r n :

Albany and the wider Great Southern region has a strong arts culture. PUBLIC 2016 was a great opportunity to harness some of the artistic talent in our city with international artists in a way that was inspiring and uplifting. The festival brought an intense positive vibrancy to our CBD and has adorned our city with impressive splashes of colour and creativity that demand attention. The festival has turned underutilised spaces and alley-ways into incredible works of art that draw people to them.

It was fantastic to see the public reaction to the festival and the way so many people were interacting with the artists and wanting to learn or know more about them and their paintings.

We identified an appetite from Council and the community for some public murals or street art, coupled with significant infrastructure projects driven by the City over the last few years to re-enliven the CBD and Town Square precinct. A partnership with FORM to deliver a small component of PUBLIC here seemed to make excellent sense. It was designed to be a small taste of the kind of work that FORM deliver to help us gauge local responses to ephemeral artwork in public spaces.

It was excellent to see the vibrancy and activity that PUBLIC 2014 & 2015 created around Northbridge occur in Albany, and to receive such positive feedback from the community.

The city centre came to life and the after-party in the Town Square was a fantastic and fitting community celebration of the project. The level of community support and interaction with the festival was impressive and exceeded our initial expectations.

PUBLIC was a live demonstration of how art can bring people together.

Individually, art is subjective and we all appreciate different artworks in different ways, but it inspires us to explore our feelings and thoughts and enlivens our imagination. To see this play out during PUBLIC In The Great Southern—the smiles it brought to so many faces, especially wide-eyed children— was uplifting.

It brought so many people together: the business community, local government, residents and tourists.

The PUBLIC artworks add to the list of amazing attractions enticing visitors to the region. There are not many regional cities you can visit where there are so many public urban artworks on show. Having those

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points of difference is important. The tourism industry is highly competitive and we believe PUBLIC In The Great Southern will definitely have a positive impact on tourism.

Working in the arts in a regional area offers great diversity, allowing the opportunity to be involved in projects that span multiple art forms and with diverse community members and audiences. It is particularly empowering working within a supportive and proactive local government framework, where community development outcomes are intentionally realised through the vehicle of culture and the arts.

It wasn’t only the energy on the streets during the festival period that was great, but also PUBLIC’s legacy in terms of enhanced visual aesthetic to the CBD. There has been a visible increase in people wandering around and exploring the laneways and a general sense of elevated civic pride about how Albany is developing into a very culturally vibrant regional city that people are more and more proud to be part of.

PUBLIC IN THE GREAT SOUTHERN

Photograph BY bewley shaylor, 2016.

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THE MAGIC OF LANDSCAPE AND LIGHT

The ambience and energy of the Great Southern, its community and coastline, the ocean and the outlying islands made a lasting impression on the PUBLIC 2016 artists who visited Albany. They drew inspiration from the landscape’s weathered colours and wildness, as well as Albany’s history, for their artworks.

One of the guest speakers at the PUBLIC 2016 Forum was UK-based artist Bruce Munro, whose immersive large-scale light-based installations are responses to music, literature, science and the surrounding world.

Having just installed the latest iteration of his signature work The Field of Light (2016) at Uluru, Bruce spoke about the Australian landscape’s ability to evoke powerful artistic and emotional reaction. This is an edited transcript of his presentation:

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It’s a great pleasure to be here. Thank you to FORM, thank you to my fellow artists who are incredibly talented and creative. And also that wonderful ‘Welcome to Country’. It's a wonderful thing and the more I hear it the more I get it, and what really fascinates is the way it connects all of us together.

I'm going to give you a small story about why I do what I do and where I've come from. It’s centred around one piece of work called The Field of Light. This is really about a journey that started where I grew up, in a place called Salcombe, in Devon. And the reason I [say] this is because the day I arrived in Sydney it reminded me of a very large version of where I've grown up, and so I got on the phone in 1984 to my old man and said ‘Dad, I've come home.’ I fell in love with the light, the landscape, and strangely enough (being a Pom) the people.

I was pretty useless as a kid. I wasn't academic but I had very lovely parents, very supportive and I just loved painting. I was no good at it but I just loved it, so they encouraged it. Living by the sea, one of the things that I did was, like all children, try and paint the sea. But I used to want to paint the sea, again, like most children, like the sea looks. So I'm just going to give you a little example. Not because I think it is any good but just to show you that when I was about eight I didn't like it but when I was about twenty, I looked at the painting I thought, ‘God, that’s probably the best painting I have ever done.’ [Laughter]

THE MAGIC OF LANDSCAPE AND LIGHT

t h e m ag i c o f l a n d s c a p e a n d l i g h t: Bruce munro

When you actually become an adult, you forget your emotions, you forget the things inside your heart and spirit and you learn all the bad tricks of the trade.

So you start to paint the sea like it probably does look in a photograph. What I realised about this when I looked at it was that I was a young child struggling to make water look like water. I thought that if I moved paint around the surface in the way that water moved over the rocks, I might get close to creating something like sea—of course that didn't happen—but it was a lesson that I took forward with me.

In 1994 I moved to Sydney and I did many jobs like most Poms who had no qualifications. I was a brickie’s assistant, I was a chef - I closed a restaurant down in Sydney. I did a bit of illustration. Then I read an article on an advertising agency called Saatchi and Saatchi [which] basically said that you can make a living out of your imagination. And I thought well, I'm qualified for that, because I have a big imagination and little else. And they seemed to be having a nice life so I kind of called them up. Fortuitously I met one of their art directors and he said ‘Bruce, are you going to do advertising?’ and I said ‘No, actually I don't think that I've got what it takes to do it, but I will tell you what I would love to do. I found these lights in a window in a shop in Sydney and

I want to make stuff with them. I want to just go and make light sculptures.’

So I worked in light [for eight years] and then it was time [for my wife and I] to spend some time with [our elderly parents] back in the UK. Before we did, we bought an old banger, a Toyota Corona, put a tent in the back of it and off we went. A lot of my Aussie mates had said ‘Oh you've got to go to Uluru’ (most of them have never been themselves) but they said that this was an extraordinary place. So I arrived in Uluru and it completely blew me away. It was an amazing place.

I don't know what happened. I promise you I wasn't drinking any beer or doing anything else.

It just filled me with complete and utter joy.

When I got back to England my lovely wife said have a go at painting [again] because I hadn't touched art for eight years because when I left art school I didn't have any life experience, and I also thought it was a very selfindulgent activity.

I had drawings of The Field of Light concept on the wall. A friend came in the studio and he said ‘What is that?’ and I said ‘This is inspired by this place called Uluru, in the centre of Australia’. So he said ‘Bruce, come on, get real, you've hardly got enough money to feed your children so you're not going to be able to do

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that.’ He taught me a very valuable lesson: if you really want to do something, you will make it happen, some way. I ended up dropping the painting and picking up with light and it got to the point where I just had to do this installation.

So I'm sure you're all aware of what a mortgage is.

Well, the last bit of our mortgage went to The Field of Light which my wife wasn't best pleased with, because she didn't know. She just saw all these lights coming into the field behind our house, and then I had to sort of say to her ‘I’m really sorry but you know, it would have killed me not doing it.’ [Laughter] We put this installation in the field—we didn't tell anybody—we lived in the middle of nowhere. I was a bit like a lighthouse keeper for a year so I used to go out in the evening, turn the lights on, for five hours or whatever and then off. A few nights later I went out and this lady I've never met bursts into tears and grabs my hands and says ‘Thank you!’ I could see she was really moved by this and it moved me equally - when someone responds to what you've done.

What it taught me is that I could connect with somebody.

I realised I had been collecting notes of experiences, not to make art with necessarily, but when I might be

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in a landscape or I might be reading a book or listening to some music where I felt connected with the world.

And I suddenly thought: ‘this is the subject matter, this will become the way I express these sort of thoughts and feelings.’ It all started with The Field of Light.

The Field of Light has been to a number of places. These are different iterations. Landscape informs the way that this is made. This isn't made by me. I'm not out there pushing thousands of lights in the ground. I work often with lots of people—we have lots of volunteers—I have a fantastic studio and this is collectively everybody's work.

Field of light, uluru, bruce munro, Photograph by Mark Picktall, 2016.

Art isn't complete until the viewer comes to see it.

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It's very wrong for somebody like myself to stand up and go, ‘this is me’ because it's definitely not me. It’s a collective form of work. And that, to me, makes it very dynamic and important to share these experiences, to see people working together with a great big smile on their faces. An installation doesn't start when you put it in. It's actually the processes. It's the process of going into the space, the process of meeting people. It's so many people's thoughts and ideas.

You know, give artists the opportunity and you can make a difference.

A couple of things about the Uluru installation have been extraordinary for me. Firstly, we're in a landscape which has no light pollution. Even in beautiful botanical gardens or museums in North America you get some light pollution. So if you're there with no moon, the Milky Way, you can almost put your hand out and touch it. We've got fifty thousand stems of light planted and when you're in the middle of it, you feel that the stars are touching the sides of the installation. You're almost standing inside a circle of light. The other thing that was extraordinary was the morning light as it comes up over the horizon. It skims across the top so every single glass sphere is illuminated. It just [floods] with light. I was

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trying to rationalise why I felt so joyful all these years ago. When I was a school kid, we used to see those films about deserts where after rain you get this incredible growth. So I just thought well maybe I've just got this energy that's coming out of the ground. I mean there's a tangible feeling of energy. And I don't want to sound like some old hippy and I'm a very pragmatic person so I don't want to overplay it but it really was a strong feeling.

What I wanted to do was to say how joyful this place made me feel. And the best compliment I've ever had in my life is that the Anangu people gave it a name in language which means: Looking at many beautiful lights. It's very simple... but it’s what it is. It’s what it says on the tin. I'm just very grateful being allowed to do this.

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where now for public?

Nimbus Dumont, Berndnaut Smilde, 2014 C type print on Aluminium, 125 x 185 cm Photograph by Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk, courtesy of the artist and Ronchini Gallery.

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THE GOODS SHED

The Goods Shed: n ow a r r i v i n g at C l a r e m o n t S tat i o n

to welcoming local neighborhoods while creating global connections; to establish a cultural facility which aims to open up new ways of thinking about place and communities, and give rise to delight and discovery through new forms of artistic practice and ideas.

In the lead-up to Platform, and during the two days of the festival, many people were saying, over and over, Claremont needs this.

Why were they saying that? Why should Claremont— in the words of one local—be the ‘lucky chosen community’ for PUBLIC, a program that explores creativity for the common good? And why has FORM moved its headquarters to The Station Master’s House, and repurposed Claremont’s iconic heritage railway building—The Goods Shed—as a cultural hub and gathering space?

The answer lies in The Goods Shed’s unique position and potential, LandCorp’s vision for the Claremont on the Park neighbourhood and generosity, and FORM’s aims and ambitions for it to become an international calibre hub for creative exchange. It happens to be in the Western Suburbs, and while it will be embedded in its local surrounds and community, its remit is also well beyond these bounds.

If society is like ‘an endless meeting’ as Jane Jacobs once suggested, then all good meetings need a good meeting place. Claremont’s credentials for this are long-established.

Before European settlement, this was an area rich with everything required for a healthy life: freshwater springs teeming with fish, crabs and waterfowl, swamps full of bush food, paperbark for shelters. It was also an important gathering point for social and ceremonial purposes for the Whadjuk Noongar people.

The area’s continuing relevance as a connecting point was reinforced in 1830 when settler John Butler established an inn on the road between the two anchor communities of the Swan River Colony. The Eastern Railway from Fremantle to Guildford opened in 1881, and Claremont’s station, with its complex of buildings, island platform with passenger shelter, signal box, footbridge and workshops was completed in 1882.

If you imagine Perth’s railway network as the original bones of the city we know today, Claremont Station was once one of its most important sockets and joints, with the goods shed as a node for incoming and outgoing goods.

Linking the local with the national, the domestic with overseas. A point of collection, connection, exchange.

The Goods Shed is a rare heritage building in a great location blessed with excellent public transport access.

This is unusual enough in inner city areas anywhere in the world, let alone in Perth where so many heritage buildings have been lost.

The Goods Sheds represents an exceptional—and unmissable—opportunity for Western Australia to retain a building for reuse and conversion into a centre dedicated

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THE GOODS SHED

It was conceived as a practical, functional, hands-on kind of place. Designed for storage, where things could be kept safe and cared for until being sent on to other destinations: a place of trust, as well as a place of transit. A community landmark, hub of local industry.

Somewhere which still resonates with the energy of past generations, the memory of a neighbourhood, the decent, hard-working enterprise of a whole community.

Under FORM and LandCorp’s stewardship, the twenty-first century Goods Shed works with this heritage and DNA, by encouraging the expression of a distinctive local identity and exchanges between locales, with an with an aspiration to international quality. It becomes a hub for citizens to get involved in their community locally, while being connected to communities around the state and beyond.

From its base in the Station Master’s House just over the railway, FORM will curate The Goods Shed programs to include participation from local community groups working at a grass roots level, through to international leaders, offering insights from a global perspective.

Guest creatives will be selected for their relevance to Perth and Claremont’s unique set of conditions, ensuring that the engagement is applicable whilst remaining challenging and inspiring.

With its roster of speaker and artist residencies and cultural events, The Goods Shed will effectively be PUBLIC, but in a different iteration. Still communitybased, citizen-focused and flexible, but with more permanent infrastructure: a building, a year-round program. It’s intended as something that not only involves the local community, but also that the local community will want to share.

© Photograph By Martin Eager

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So it is about Claremont. It’s a living bridge between the neighbourhood’s past and present, and between new development and old.

But it’s also not about Claremont at all.

Not so much a staging post, more a destination.

No longer a junction for freight and logistics, but for people, events, activities, cultures.

It aims to be an asset for all of Perth and the whole of the State.

It’s about anyone who wants to connect, grow, laugh, learn, share, and use creativity to express how it feels to be human. It’s about every one of us.

Some destinations are worth the wait.

P o e t o f l i g h tg r aff b r i n g s G r e at S o u t h e r n m ag i c to The Goods Shed’s i n au g u r a l e x h i b i t i o n : i n t r o d u c i n g Ka r i m Ja b b a r i

He grew up in the poorest city in Tunisia, and was sent to school far from home and family. His beloved father—an opponent to the political regime— was imprisoned. For a lonely youngster, writing— particularly calligraphy—was salvation, and a means to displace his isolation and distress. When later in life Karim Jabbari moved to Canada, calligraphy became a reminder of where he came from and what he left behind. His love for the Arabic language intensified as he began to delve deeper into its beautiful letters, words and syllables.

Calligraphy sparked a unique and celebrated international artistic career. Through the use of classic Kufi and Maghrebi calligraphies in many of his compositions—a reference to his North African background—Karim found a way of staying connected not only to his ancient heritage but also his cherished homeland. And he also found a way of reaching out to youngsters who were feeling disenfranchised and vulnerable, just as he had.

His project ‘Back To Basics’ focuses on enticing the youth away from the distractions of modern technology

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towards reading and painting, aiming through art to introduce them to the beauty of the world. He is the founder of ‘Streets Urban Festival’, the biggest street art festival in Tunisia.

‘I felt at a young age that calligraphy gave sense to my life’ ‘We were oppressed big time in Tunisia,’ says Karim.

Of his art, he says ‘people are usually impressed by the beauty of the letters and their shapes, and their curves.

I think that the message these letters are transmitting is deeper. The message itself is our language, which is a part of us and we need to know more about it. We need to go back to the source, to our language. All of our languages come from the same source.’

In April 2016 this artist, educator, poet and polymath came to Australia for the first time as a guest artist for PUBLIC. He created murals at Curtin University campus and in The Great Southern, and talked about his art—and the work he does with disadvantaged youth in his home city of Kasserine—in front of rapt crowds.

karim jabbari, the core Photograph by chad peacock & bewley shaylor, 2016.

Bringing his signature mix of artistry and ancient Kufi script to a building in the languages precinct of Curtin University campus, Karim created a work which repeats the word al joussour ‘bridges.’ Referencing language’s potential to build bridges between peoples and countries, he translated into Arabic and incorporated into his mural an extract from a Randolph Stow poem, ‘Landscapes.’ For his mixed-media work in an Albany laneway, the key word was al bidaya ‘the beginning.’

In 2015, Karim was nominated by the IAPA (International Award for Public Art) as one of the top 30 public artists in the world. Although a talented muralist, who has worked on many solo and collaborative projects, it is for his distinctive ‘lightgraff’ work Karim is most noted internationally: the kinesis of shapes, colours and calligraphy sculpted from light, and captured in time-lapse photographic stills or video. It gives the illusion that the photos are digitally modified when in fact they’re pure photography and calligraphy instantly combined.

karim jabbari. image courtesy of the artist

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left: karim jabbari, public in the great southern. albany. photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016 below: karim jabbari, public in the great southern. albany. photograph by chad peacock & bewley shaylor, 2016

THE CORE electrifies The Goods Shed The Goods Shed’s inaugural exhibition is a presentation of the lightgraff work inspired by Karim’s visit to the Great Southern in April 2016.

Karim dubbed this body of work The Core, giving a live light performance as part of its showing.

‘My Albany trip was a way for me to explore a remote part of the world I always dreamed of,’ he explains. ‘I tried to go deep and dig hard to unveil the hidden beauty of the region.’

‘I went out, explored, imagined, than used my light to give the surroundings of Albany a new definition’ ‘A definition that will be presented to each one, through my artworks, to interpret and to share. I used my light to help me explore the best way possible the hidden beauty of the region that most of the people don’t have the chance to see.’

Karim scouted locations along the coastline near Albany, and for several nights created unique

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artworks with the eager collaboration of FORM staff.

The resulting images are complex, intriguing and startlingly beautiful. They are an amalgam of light, space and script. This is where choreography meets poetry, landscape meets ‘manmade-scape,’ where the human form, cliff-face, buildings or ruins furnish prop, context and frame for lavish circles, patterns, bands and blades of light, produced by Karim’s rapid-fire gestures with a flashlight. Iridescence appears to float in the air, creating an effect that is ephemeral, sui generis, and mystical.

The Core looks like it comes from an imaginary world, Karim explains. ‘It looks unreal. But one thing is sure, my work is based on light, my light goes deep to the centre, to the innermost, to the most essential and hidden part of the region.’

I want my exhibition to be engraved in [people’s] minds and I want eyes and minds to keep the connection with my work for the longest time possible.

The reason is simple …

‘My work shows you things and places you seem to know in a way that you don’t know.’

pu b lic 2014 â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1 6 Ti m eli n e dear william A pril , 2 0 1 4

PUBLIC Art in the City A pril , 2 0 1 4

radiance A pril , 2 0 1 5

PUBLIC Art in the pilbara A pril , 2 0 1 5

recrafted nandita kumar, nespoon A pril , 2 0 1 5

shadow ian strange A pril , 2 0 1 5

PUBLIC platform A pril , 2 0 1 6

PUBLIC campus A pril , 2 0 1 6

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PUBLIC Art in the pilbara A pril , 2 0 1 4 PUBLIC house A pril , 2 0 1 4 PUBLIC salon A pril , 2 0 1 4

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the goods shed august, 2 0 1 6

PUBLIC Art in the ravensthorpe august, 2 0 1 6

PUBLIC Art in the great southern A pril , 2 0 1 6

PUBLIC forum A pril , 2 0 1 6

PUBLIC Art in the wheatbelt A pril , 2 0 1 5

PUBLIC Art in the City A pril , 2 0 1 5

PUBLIC symposium A pril , 2 0 1 5

PUBLIC salon A pril , 2 0 1 5

creatives engaged 2014—16

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I feel very strongly about artwork needing to be more of a question than an answer

Ayres

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2501 ITALY // blabLAB WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

ITALY

Baby Guerrilla

Clare McFarlane

Eko Nugroho

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

INDONESIA

Colour Theory (Team)

ARGENTINA

AUSTRALIA

Bloom (Team) WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA Stormie Mills

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Beastman

Abdul Abdullah

Borondo

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

SPAIN

Brenton See

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Add Fuel

Brett Chan

Portugal

Cinecar (Team)

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Addam

Brodie McCulloch

AEC

Indonesia

Alexis Diaz Puerto Rico

Alison Page

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Erma Ranieri

MEXICO

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Fecks

UK

Daleast SOUTH AFRICA/ CHINA

Fenella Kernebone

Bug Life Designs WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Darren Hutchens

Fintan Magee

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Dr Geeta Mehta

USA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Casey Ayres WESTERN AUSTRALIA

USA

Chad Marwick WESTERN AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

USA

Anya Brock

UK

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AUSTRALIA

Fudge

INDIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Dr Jesper Christiansen

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DENMARK

Dr Kenson Kwok SINGAPORE

Drift (Team) WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Charles Landry

Fieldey WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Carly Barrett Carol Coletta

AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Amok Island

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WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Deborah Cullinan

Andrew King

Ever ARGENTINA

Daek William

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Andrew Hem

COLOMBIA

AUSTRALIA

Curiot

AUSTRALIA

Andrew Frazer

ELK AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Bruce Munro

Agung Bunawan

Elian

Enrique Penalosa

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Portugal

Edoardo Tresoldi

Cox Architects: Emerging Professionals (Group)

AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

E

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

A

Chris Nixon

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Gaia USA

Geoff Warn WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Ghost Illustrations WESTERN AUSTRALIA

creatives engaged 2014—16

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Jetsonorama

Melski

USA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Hannah Atcheson

Jill O’Meehan

Mike Hornblow

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND

Hawk Winston Hawk

John Bela

Millo

USA

ITALY

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

John Carberry

Moneyless

Hayley Welsh

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

ITALY

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Jordan Seiler

Heavy Projects

USA

Mr Palmer’s Orchestra

K

USA

Hetti Perkins AUSTRALIA

Holly O’Meehan WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Hungry Sky WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Hurben

PLOT LAB WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Kab101 AUSTRALIA

Kalem Bruce Karim Jabbari TUNISIA

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Last Chance

ARGENTINA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

I

Leo van Loon

Ian Mutch

Liam Dee

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Ian Strange WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Idol Motions WESTERN AUSTRALIA

IN_LINEA (Team) WESTERN AUSTRALIA

J

Jae Criddle WESTERN AUSTRALIA

James Cooper WESTERN AUSTRALIA

James Giddy WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Jarrad Martyn WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Jaz ARGENTINA

Jessee Lee Johns WESTERN AUSTRALIA

NETHERLANDS

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Lo-line

AUSTRALIA

Remed FRANCE

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ROA BELGIUM

Nandita Kumar

Robert Jenkins WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Nat Rad

AUSTRALIA

Luke O’Donohoe WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Lynley Campbell WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Marina Lommerse WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Martin E Wills WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Mat Lewis WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Matthew Wong WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Maya Hayuk

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Theaster Gates USA

Thom Asseums NETHERLANDS

Timo Santala FINLAND

Tom Rogers WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Rustam Qbic

Nathan Beard

RYOGA Design Studio

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERNAUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

RUSSIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

NeSpoon

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POLAND

Nest New Nomads (Team)

Sammy Bats WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Sarah McCloskey

Nick Zafir

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Sazar

Nigel Bennet UK/ITALY

P

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Paul Deej

Sheryo SINGAPORE

Shrink

USA

Phibs

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

ITALY

Place Laboratory (Team)

USA

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Vans the Omega AUSTRALIA

VJ zoo WESTERN AUSTRALIA

UKRAINE

Straker

Pixel Pancho

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Steve Browne

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

UK

JAPAN

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Stormie Mills

Phlegm

Twoone

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WESTERN AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

Twinkle (Team) WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Urbantopia (Team)

UK

Peter Corbett

Trevor Richards WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Senator Scott Ludlam

Serena McLauchlan

Paul Collard

TPG (Team)

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Pastel ARGENTINA

Too Much Colour

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

M

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Lucas Grogan

The Language of Flowers (Team) The Yok

Reko Rennie

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Hyuro

Takaharu Tezuka JAPAN

INDIA WESTERN AUSTRALIA

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POSIT (Team)

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

USA

Hense

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Waone

Y

Yandell Walton AUSTRALIA

PUBLIC 2014â&#x20AC;&#x201D;16 REVISITED

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AUTHOR â&#x20AC;¢ A RT IC LE T I T LE roa, public 2014. photograph by bewley shaylor, 2014

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volunteers engaged

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I enjoyed working on Campus and seeing the murals take shape and the pleasure they brought to both students and staff. To think 30 years ago when I commenced studies at this campus there was just grey concrete buildings in a sand pit with no trees!

Rob Andersen

Ben Crappsley

Sufyan Ghazali

Shirley Barroy

Lucinda Crimson

Lucy Glazov

Justin Bold

Katie Cruse

Tayla Greene

Sam Beal

Shannon De Abreu

Katherine Green

René Brink

Ryan D’Olimpio

Ewan Hall

Annabelle Brockman

Amy-Grace Douglas

Kaylah Hall-Gordon

Katherine Browne

Kathryn Doyle

Ailish Burbidge

Florence du Buisson

Sally Buch

Steven Duggan

Julia Caldwell

John Emrich

Sue Campbell

Sonia Fang

Rohit Chaturvedi

Alice Farley

Nichola Cheek

Zena Ferguson

Rachel Ciesla

Ely Fitzgerald

Mary-Ellen Cliff

Ioli Fitzgerald

Sinead Connell

Janet Foreman

Zac Copley

Caroline Forsberg

Julia Correa

Jos Franciscus

Naomi Halliday Liz Halse

PUBLIC Volunteer

Mata Henry Lena Hindenberg Catherine Holbrook Emily Hordern Jessica Hudson Lorraine Hull Su James Stefanie Jones Saul Karnovsky Mei Jie Kam Jessica Garwood

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volunteers engaged

Ashton Kealy

Vu Mai

Emily ten Raa

Raeminn Taylor

Kaila Keen

Ted Mangan

Bethwyn Richards

Elizabeth Thomas

Karoline Koleman

Samantha Martin

Sean Rowe

Mark Trupp

Iris Koornstra

Marisa Mardi Santosa

Joanne Rowell

Caroline Tung

Michael Ryan

Sarah Valentine

Karl Sagrabb

Elvira Vogelius Samuel Wee

Lilla Kovacs Tahmina Maskinyar Christine Kuca-Thompson

Graham Mathwin

Bertie Louise

Bruno Mergener

Kim-vu Salamonsen

Rocky Lu

Angela Mews

Lovisa Sandlund

Declan Luketina

Mikaela Miller

Ajeng Savitri

Maria Luz Noe

Clare Moran

Natasha Seymour

Christopher

Zara Morris

Imogen Shanahan

Jo Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Dea

Scott Shearer

Karen Wellington Mardi West Nicky Yeung

Macfarlane Caden McCarthy Leonie Odfin

Robyn Shepherd

Jeannine McCartney-Johnson

Abigail Oke

Kiwii Shiu

Robyn McCreary

Ling Zhang Ong

Kristina Simich

Kiera McDiarmid

Barry Padman

Ruby Smedley

Sally McKerrow

Nicole Posa

Margot Strasburger

Jason McLeod

Gillian Quirk

Rithika Sumangalan

We met an outstanding volunteer at the site: well informed, helpful, knowledgeable and articulate PUBLIC Attendee

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public house, public 2014. photograph by bewley shaylor, 2014

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twoone, fremantle, public 2015. photograph by luke shirlaw, 2015

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2501, northbridge, public 2014. photograph by luke shirlaw, 2014

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phlegm, cbh AVON GRAIN silos, NORTHAM, public in the wheatbelt 2015. photograph by bewley shaylor, 2015

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curiot. perth. photograph by Luke shirlaw, 2015

public 2014â&#x20AC;&#x201D;16 revisited

Element: Earth, Nandita Kumar; Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2015.

nESPOON, PUBLIC IN THE PILBARA. PHOTOGRAPH BY BEWLEY SHAYLOR 2016

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ALEXIS DIAZ, PUBLIC 2014, PERTH. phOTOGRAPH BY BEWLEY SHAYLOR, 2014

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SECTION Praying Mantis, Amok Island, Fremantle. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2015.

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thank you & acknowledgements

PUBLIC 2 0 1 6 t h a n k yo u & ac k n ow l e d g e m e n t s

FORM would like to thank the all those who have made PUBLIC 2016 possible, most importantly the artists, our sponsors, collaborators, volunteers and the publicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;YOU!

Project initiated & managed by FORM

project Partner:

Major Partners:

speaker series supporter

government support

FORM is supported by the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy, an initiative of the Australian State and Territory Governments.

FORM is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

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Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2015.

about form

FORM is an independent organisation which for over a decade has been working to build ‘a state of creativity’ in Western Australia. We’ve created platforms for debate and action on culture and art and the essential role they play in enhancing everyone’s quality of life. However it is manifested, whether as a huge mural or an inspiring talk, we believe that everyone responds to creativity; it sparks further conversation, learning and connection, and often significant economic return. We know this because we’ve introduced creative people from Australia and all over the world into communities where there has been a hunger not only for self-expression but also for social bonding. We’ve seen the difference creativity can make, how people and places can flourish, how government and business can be influenced by the results it can achieve.

From making a neighbourhood feel welcoming and distinctive to finding our own aptitude and ambitions, creativity allows us to demand more of our relationships with our environments, our communities, ourselves and each other. That’s why FORM devises programs like PUBLIC: simply, creativity for the public good.

In 2016 we opened Western Australia’s newest creative hub at The Goods Shed in Claremont, Perth.

cover: hense, work in progress, detail. photograph by bewley shaylor, 2016

FORM Building a State of Creativity Claremont Station Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s House 39 Gugeri Street Claremont, Western Australia 6010 E mail@form.net.au T +61 8 9226 2799 W www.form.net.au ISBN 978-0-9944727-9-3 Published by FORM Written by Mags Webster, Kim Kirkman and Rhianna Pezzaniti Compiled and edited by Mags Webster Graphic Design by Viet Nguyen Infographics by Ryan Stephenson and Bruno Muniz Printed by Scott Print Š 2016. All rights reserved. Copyright for the written content and this publication are held by FORM unless otherwise noted. Copyright for the artworks are held with the artist. Copyright for the photographic images are held by the photographer. No part of this document may be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in and form without prior permission from the publisher.