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CONFERENCE DAY

BREAKOUT WORKSHOPS

WORKSHOP: Stepping into webXR and augmented reality

Facilitator: Alison Bennett (Artist working in expanded photography)

In this workshop we will take some beginner steps into the realm of webXR (extended reality) and augmented reality. WebXR gives us access to the 3D and spatialised potential of the internet, extending into online VR and AR. Please bring a laptop computer and a mobile device such as a mobile phone or ipad. We will be using a webXR called Styly. Before the workshop, we ask you to create an account and download the App to your mobile phone or iPad.

Alison Bennett’s broader practice is situated in ‘expanded photography’ where the boundaries have shiftedn the transition to digital media and become diffused into ubiquitous computing. Creative projects have tested the creative and discursive potentials of augmented reality, photogrammetry, 3D scanning, point clouds, virtual reality and webXR as encompassed by the medium and practice of photography. Alison’s work has been shown at international venues such as Musée du Louvre, Kunstmuseum Bonn, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and featured on ABC TV Australian Story, the New York Times, Mashable, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Motherboard, The Creators Project, ABC TV News, Artlink and The Guardian. Alison works as a senior lecturer in photography at RMIT School of Art where she is the Associate Dean (Photography).

WORKSHOP: Low-Tech Print Lab

Facilitator: Heather Hesterman (Multi-disciplinary Artist)

This workshop examines low-tech print processes without using an Etching press. Material consideration through reuse and recycling demonstrates how art can attend to our current climate urgency, living in the epoch of the Anthropocene. A short PowerPoint presentation will introduce several artists and techniques that can be expanded in the classroom. Participants will make and take home a simple collagraphy plate and explore the potential of frottage.

Heather Hesterman is an artist/educator/researcher based in Naarm/Melbourne, investigating intersections of place, people and plants. She explores a site’s spatial, political, and historic perspectives incorporating installation, print, walking, and public art practices. Combined expertise in Fine Art and Landscape Design provides complementary perspectives from which she investigates the tacit and explicit effects of human interactions in the environment. Heather has taught printmaking since 1994, winning the Fremantle Print Award, the Incinerator Award for Social Change and works in the School of Art and RMIT CAST on several public art projects. Heather is a current PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, addressing human ‘plant blindness’ by creating art encounters. Her recent commission BIG SOIL is on at the Melton Botanic Gardens.

WORKSHOP: Precious or Not? Gold and Silversmithing

Facilitator: Mark Edgoose (Jewellery and Object making Artist)

In this Gold and Silversmithing workshop with Mark Edgoose, you will explore variations in pattern and colour using simple everyday accessible tools in order to make a pair of earrings for you to take/wear home. All you need to bring is your creativity and energy, we supply the materials with a touch of alchemy. A selection of students’ work will also be on display. Mark Edgoose is studio Lead of Gold and Silversmithing and a practicing artist/craftsperson working at the intersections of craft, design and architecture fuelled with an interest in both traditional and hi-tech materials. 

Mark Edgoose, a practicing artist/craftsperson, holds the position of Studio Lead for Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT University School of Art. With a passion for the convergence of craft, design, and architecture, Edgoose works with a blend of traditional and cutting-edge materials. Since 1989, he has played a prominent role in the Australian object-making scene, leaving a lasting impact. As a recognized authority in titanium, Edgoose’s research revolves around materials, resulting in exhibitions that delve into the essence of craft objects and their relationship to space and time. His work explores the intricate interplay between form and metaphor, showcasing a deep understanding of the potential for meaning and expression within the realm of craft.

WORKSHOP: Sculpture Casting

Facilitator: Fleur Summers and Vittoria Di Stefano

In this workshop, we will be exploring simple techniques to make plaster reliefs. Plaster is one of the most versatile materials we have in sculpture and we can easily use it to capture impressions from a huge range of materials. You will make a small relief to take back to the classroom and show your students. We will also show you some images of student work and professionals who use similar techniques. The workshop will be held in the Sculpture studios and we will give you a tour of our facilities.

Dr Fleur Summers is a Melbourne based artist with a focus on sculptural and spatial practices.  She is a Senior Lecturer in the RMIT School of Art and is the Studio Leader in the Sculpture Studios. She has 20 years experience in developing and teaching conceptual and technical courses in sculpture. She is also interested in working with community groups and most recently worked with art students, nurses and midwives as part of The Big Anxiety Festival in 2022. She is particularly interested in socially engaged works and how humans can connect and communicate through an engagement with traditional sculptural materials. Fleur’s most recent major public project is a steel and bronze multi-part sculpture Called Making Sense at Jewell Station in Brunswick which was commissioned by VicTrack and produced in conjunction with Neometro and Glass landscape architects.

Vittoria Di Stefano sculpture practice employs a methodology of generative material experimentation to explore themes around liminality, transformation and desire, with a particular emphasis on domestic space and intimate materiality. She explores the psychological and affective impacts of the material encounter through a range of experiments in a variety of display contexts, offering new ways of contemplating and experiencing material realities. Through the employment of a diverse material palette, and often using modernist art, design and film as points of departure, she employs a feminist critique to investigate and challenge historical power structures and notions of value. Vittoria examines how experiences generated through art practice can produce new knowledge about everyday materiality, disrupt received cultural meanings, and critically engage with the political and cultural inferences of materiality.

WORKSHOP: AI, it’s all about the PROMPTS

Facilitator: Ian Haig (Media Artist)

A workshop on AI and how artists and art teachers can produce work working with AI, the exploration of AI images will be explored and also AI generated video. In addition to a discussion of many of the issues around AI such as AI datasets, creativity and AI, sample culture, appropriation, AI and originality and AI content regulations

Ian Haig, a senior lecturer at RMIT’s School of Art, explores various mediums including video, sculpture, drawing, technology-based media, and installation. His practice challenges the notion that the low and base levels lack cultural significance. Over the past two decades, Haig has delved into themes centered around the human body, examining its relationship with contemporary media, the degenerative effects of new technologies, cultural fanaticism, attraction and repulsion, body horror, and the unfamiliarity and confrontation of the human form. His work has been showcased in galleries and video/media festivals worldwide, including prominent venues such as The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and Centre Georges Pompidou. Haig received a fellowship from the New Media Arts Board of the Australia Council in 2003 and curated video art shows at The Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles in 2013 and 2017.

WORKSHOP: Animation – Do the locomotion

Facilitator: Isobel Knowles (Artist, Animator and Director)

By learning the basics of animation and using tools available to anyone with a smart device, we’re going to make a collaborative animated installation. Isobel will also talk you through several different workshop formats that she has used successfully with school aged children. 

Isobel Knowles is a Melbourne-based multi-disciplinary artist known for her vibrant and textural style. She seamlessly combines digital and analogue techniques to create captivating animations, children’s books, and immersive installations. Her acclaimed films and artworks have been showcased both nationally and internationally, garnering recognition and awards. In addition to her animation career, Isobel has also made a name for herself as a published author, having released several children’s books with esteemed publishers such as Thames & Hudson, Harper Collins, and Hachette. At the heart of Isobel’s art practice lies a focus on creating immersive installations and screen works. She has cultivated long-term collaborative partnerships and frequently collaborates with fellow artists on unique animation projects, further expanding her creative repertoire.

WORKSHOP: Drawing as Discovery

Facilitator: Greg Creek (Visual Artist – Painting/Drawing)

The ‘Drawing as Discovery’ Workshop will present attendees with a hands-on experience of creative thinking through making. A cycle of drawing activities will demonstrate iterative approaches to creativity that demonstrate how to generate visual ideas and then synthesise them into new developmental and resolved artworks. These drawing workshop ideas can be used in various settings by teachers working with a range of students.

Greg Creek, an Australian artist, explores the intersections of naturalism, metaphor, reality, and fiction in his politically charged artworks. With global exhibitions, numerous residencies, commissions, and art prizes under his belt, Creek crafts allegories of contemporary experiences using re-imagined spectral figures, fractured architectural forms, and elements inspired by speculative fiction. He holds a PhD from RMIT University and currently serves as a senior lecturer and Studio Leader in Drawing. Throughout his career, Creek has received prestigious awards such as the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 1996 and the Castlemaine Art Museum Len Fox Painting Prize in 2022 and is represented by Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne.

WORKSHOP: Soft Collage

Facilitator: Emma Lynas (Designer)

The Soft Collage workshop offers participants the opportunity to engage in simple textile collage techniques, utilising fabrics and yarn obtained from the RMIT fashion and textiles waste stream. With a focus on reusability, the workshop encourages creativity and collaboration within a relaxed setting. By emphasising the transformation of discarded materials, the workshop aims to raise awareness about
the issue of excessive textile consumption and empower individuals to make informed choices aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 12 – responsible production and consumption.

Emma Lynas has been teaching digital textile design and studio-based courses since 2006 with a focus on combining traditional media techniques with digital technologies. She is a graduate of the BA Textile Design program (RMIT), hold a Bachelor of Teaching (UTAS) and a PhD (RMIT) and has worked in the commercial textile design sector. Emma’s PhD explored repositioning textile design from a material practice for the marketplace towards being a ‘post-material making’ practice geared towards connection. The research revealed an expanded notion of textile intelligence focused on forming connections between people, materials and place. The findings provide insights for sustainable textile design practice.

WORKSHOP: Textured Tapestry – Abstracted Land

Facilitator: Dani from Eckersley’s Art & Craft 

This workshop will be led by Dani Scaramuzzino from Eckersley’s with a nod to Belynda Henry’s response to land, experimenting with Byron mediums and techniques to celebrate textural and reflective elements in rock, cliff, trees and water. 

Belynda Henry’s practice focuses on the essence of place, with an abstraction of the land to a simplification of layered shapes, textures and intersecting lines.  Her work is painterly and reductive, a layered response to land executed beautifully by harnessing a limited palette.  Participants will have the opportunity to experiment with a variety of textured effect mediums and sgraffito techniques utilising Jasart’s range of palette knife effect tools. 

Cross pollinating compositional considerations, we also look at Kate Shaw’s collaged response to land through juxtaposition of textural/marbled sections and Alan Jones’s practice of textural overlay or jig sawed elements placed together. With these art practitioners referenced, participants will respond to create their own textured tapestry of place.  Bring both an apron and your creative enthusiasm to experimentally play.

Fiday 7 July (9:30 – 4;30pm)
RMIT University City Campus
Bldg 80 and School of Art Studio

PRE CONFERENCE EVENT (optional)

THUR 6 July 

Melbourne Now Tour at NGV and Artist Talk – Jenna Lee

Educator Tour of Melbourne Now Exhibition
2:00pm – 3:30pm
Artist Talk – Jenna Lee
3:45pm – 4:45pm

Get ready for ‘Reassemble 2023’ with a free pre-conference program at the National Gallery of Victoria presented in conjunction with the exhibition Melbourne Now (24 Mar – 20 Aug 2023).

Melbourne Now offers a rich opportunity to explore the conference theme of ‘Cross-cultural connections – think globally – create locally’. Join NGV educators in Melbourne Now to discuss diverse approaches to creative practice and cross-cultural connections in the work of local contemporary artists. The program will conclude with a presentation and Q&A with artist Jenna Lee who will discuss her art practice including the installation she created for Melbourne Now in collaboration with Kojima Shōten, Balarr (To become light) 2023.

Guest speaker Jenna Lee is a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and Karajarri Saltwater woman with Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Anglo-Australian ancestry. Working across sculpture, installation and body adornment, Lee uses her art practice to explore these overlapping identities.

Lee’s practice builds on the foundation of her father’s teachings of culture and her mother’s teachings of papercraft. Represented by MARS Gallery in Melbourne, she has exhibited in Australia and internationally, including at the Pitt Rivers Museum in the United Kingdom, the Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory, and Institute of Modern Art, QUT Art Gallery and Griffith University Art Gallery in Brisbane. Lee has been the recipient of the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and the Australia Council’s Dreaming Award.

Location
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square, Melbourne
Plan your visit: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/plan-your-visit/
Meet in main foyer

Exhibition image: Installation view of Jenna Lee and Kojima Shouten’s Balarr (To become light) 2023 Image: Sean Fennessy.
Portrait Image: Jenna Lee

POST CONFERENCE EVENT (optional)

SAT 8 July

Between Waves at ACCA: Curator’s Talk 

Choose either the morning or afternoon session

Morning session
11:00 – 11.40am Curator, Jessica Clark talk and Q&A
11:45 – 12:30pm Networking & independent exhibition viewing

Afternoon session
1:00 – 1:40pm Curator, Jessica Clark talk and Q&A
1:45 – 2:30pm Networking & independent exhibition viewing

Between Waves is the third edition of the Yalingwa exhibition series that supports the development of outstanding contemporary First Peoples art and curatorial practice in Southeast Australia. Between Waves explores and experiments with the visible and invisible energy fields and flows of light, time, and vision. The exhibition presents ten ambitious new commissions by emerging and established artists working at the intersection of material and immaterial realms of knowledge and knowing. Collectively, the artists will centre the notion of material memory to illuminate an interconnected web of shapeshifting ecologies within, beyond, and between what can be seen.

Artists: Maree Clarke, Dean Cross, Brad Darkson, Matthew Harris, James Howard, Hayley, Millar Baker, Jazz Money, Cassie Sullivan, this mob, and Mandy Quadrio

Curator: Jessica Clark is a proud palawa/pallawah woman and a curator of contemporary art living and working on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm (Melbourne). She currently holds the position of Yalingwa Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2022-24). Jessica has a background in art history and art education and has been working in a range of independent and collaborative curatorial roles since 2017. She is also a former high school teacher of art and history (2012-2016). Jessica is currently undertaking a curatorial practice-led PhD at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne that is focussed on investigating intercultural curatorial models for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australian art.

Location
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)
111 Sturt St, Southbank VIC 3006
Plan your visit: https://acca.melbourne/visit/location/
Meet in foyer

Exhibition image (detail): Cassie Sullivan, Mayana Trawna | Body Country 2021. Video installation. Courtesy of the artist. 
Portrait Image: Jessica Clark