Closed Studios
Open Studios is an annual event produced by Burrinja Cultural Centre to showcase local artists living and creating in the Dandenong Ranges. I don’t meet the eligible criteria to apply to be a part of this event, so in order to participate anyway as a guerilla outsider I created Closed Studios and performed it on Open Studios Weekend in the Dandenong Ranges. As a local art maker making large scale participatory public art I have no access to an affordable studio space or access to resources or a maker’s space outside of RMIT, or anywhere within 40km of where I live. I don’t make lovely art that is saleable. I don’t make art that can be produced in a small clean studio such as those at Burrinja Cultural Centre. I have to make art in my driveway subject to weather conditions! I live in a typical hills house with a steep rough driveway and little in the way of accessible shedding or storage space. All my projects get stored outside prone to exposure damage or in my trailer which is challenging to pack and unpack and even hitch/unhitch for travel on the rough terrain. It is dangerous and frustrating work and I often sustain injuries loading and unloading heavy equipment on the slippery gravel. I’ve been working this way for years now whilst I search for that magical yet elusive studio space, because I need to make art!
My art doesn’t hang on a gallery wall or in a private house, yet it seen, interacted with and experienced by hundreds of people at local community evebnts and festivals. Not having a studio space is seriously impacting my professional development and creativity. Covid has had a massive negative impact on the arts, yet many artists have been able to share work online in digital gallery spaces. How do you make participatory art when all our public spaces are closed and and you have no access to a live audience?
You don’t! You make protest/ performance art instead! For Closed Studios I painted up my trailer- a literal blank canvas, hitched it up and drove the entire Open Studios Art Trail, stopping off at all 30 studios on the route to take a photo. Sometimes I only had the trees ass my witness and I hauled my trailer across the entire Dandenong Ranges from Upwey through Tecoma, Belgrave, Selby, Menzies Creek, The Patch, Kallista, Sherbrooke, Sassafras, Olinda, The Basin, Mt Dandenong and Kalorama and home again to Cockatoo!
Open Studios is an annual event produced by Burrinja Cultural Centre to showcase local artists living and creating in the Dandenong Ranges. I don’t meet the eligible criteria to apply to be a part of this event, so in order to participate anyway as a guerilla outsider I created Closed Studios and performed it on Open Studios Weekend in the Dandenong Ranges. As a local art maker making large scale participatory public art I have no access to an affordable studio space or access to resources or a maker’s space outside of RMIT, or anywhere within 40km of where I live. I don’t make lovely art that is saleable. I don’t make art that can be produced in a small clean studio such as those at Burrinja Cultural Centre. I have to make art in my driveway subject to weather conditions! I live in a typical hills house with a steep rough driveway and little in the way of accessible shedding or storage space. All my projects get stored outside prone to exposure damage or in my trailer which is challenging to pack and unpack and even hitch/unhitch for travel on the rough terrain. It is dangerous and frustrating work and I often sustain injuries loading and unloading heavy equipment on the slippery gravel. I’ve been working this way for years now whilst I search for that magical yet elusive studio space, because I need to make art!
My art doesn’t hang on a gallery wall or in a private house, yet it seen, interacted with and experienced by hundreds of people at local community evebnts and festivals. Not having a studio space is seriously impacting my professional development and creativity. Covid has had a massive negative impact on the arts, yet many artists have been able to share work online in digital gallery spaces. How do you make participatory art when all our public spaces are closed and and you have no access to a live audience?
You don’t! You make protest/ performance art instead! For Closed Studios I painted up my trailer- a literal blank canvas, hitched it up and drove the entire Open Studios Art Trail, stopping off at all 30 studios on the route to take a photo. Sometimes I only had the trees ass my witness and I hauled my trailer across the entire Dandenong Ranges from Upwey through Tecoma, Belgrave, Selby, Menzies Creek, The Patch, Kallista, Sherbrooke, Sassafras, Olinda, The Basin, Mt Dandenong and Kalorama and home again to Cockatoo!
