Testing Grounds
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Testing Grounds
Upcoming Calendar
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Creative Development Program 2021 CALL OUT
Creative Development Program 2021
Studio Program
13.11.20 - 04.12.20
Testing Grounds are now accepting EOIs for our 2021 Creative Development Program. The program will begin in February 2021 and run through to the end of June 2021. Applications are due December 4, 2020.
Testing Grounds is seeking EOIs from creative practitioners who want support developing a creative project. The application process is as simple as submitting an EOI online telling us what you want to develop and we will see if we can help. As we are all working in and around COVID-19 this program is designed to be flexible and malleable to the needs of the individual practitioner.
The program is open to creative practitioners working across any creative discipline. We want to provide a space for you to learn things. Testing Grounds is a place where people at all levels can test, develop, experiment and share their work.
Image: Geoffrey Watson on-site at Midsumma Festival in 2017.
[ development work ]
0405
Culture of Violence
Dan Elborne
Work in development
01.12.20 - 24.12.20
TRIGGER WARNING: This project focuses on the topic of domestic abuse and family violence. Call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737732) for counseling or 000 if in danger within Australia.
Culture of Violence (working title) will provide a handmade ceramic object to each reported instance of domestic abuse in Australia for the year of 2020.
These statistics are ordinarily alarming and considered an emergency of modern society. The project is currently in ‘early development’ with the horrible expectation that reported cases in Australia will exceed 300,000 due to the events of 2020.
The individual objects will resemble small dwellings, where one ceramic ‘dwelling’ represents one reported case of domestic abuse within Australia. The pieces will be made from a composite material of stoneware and finely crushed, recycled bricks from demolished homes: intended to simultaneously reference ideas of domesticity and destruction. In its presentation, the ‘dwellings’ will be exhibited in a way that alludes to the satellite view of a city.
As this is a multi-year project, advocacy on the central topic will be a foundational aspect throughout its production. This means that both the process and final presentation of the work will publicly interrogate this as an urgent frontier of human violence.
Image credit: James Green.
[ research project ][ residency ]
0410
Koala Ltd.
Maddison Kitching
Workshop
01.12.20 - 24.12.20
Koala Ltd. is a new series of paintings and artist-run workshops that expand on previous investigations into the commodification of the Australian landscape, through the use of Australian flora and fauna in branding. Kitching is interested in commodified representations of landscape, and projections of Australian identity.
Koala Ltd. places a painted version of Australian animal logos into gestural landscapes. The sites are imaginary amalgamations of iconic tourist locations, creating an invented (but ecologically appropriate) habitat for the depicted animals with bands of geometric colours referencing the established visual language of branding and advertising. The paintings playfully explore how native fauna and evocative landscapes are employed to sell an idea of the nation that never really existed.
There will be a workshop hosted by Maddison Kitching, open to the public, exploring the potential of un-branding/rebranding consumerist understanding of landscapes.
Image of artist, courtesy the artist.
[ residency ][ visual art ][ workshop ]
0407
Draw Out
Brigit Ryan and Kari Lee McInneny-McRae.
Workshop
01.12.20 - 24.12.20
Draw Out is a mini-festival of workshops which aims to build community participation, confidence, connections and cohesion through creative practice. Draw Out is facilitated by Brigit Ryan and Kari Lee McInneny-McRae. This project stems from our loss of connection due to COVID19.
Bringing together a collection of workshops from a diverse group of artists, each explores the practitioners’ approach to creating personal, conceptual and physical connections. Accessible for people from all backgrounds, this program connects emerging, amateur and established artists with each other.
Through these workshops, the continuation of Draw In, an open access drawing exchange, and the ongoing development of a publication documenting these projects, Brigit and Kari aim to develop skills in facilitating projects that are free of traditional hierarchies.
Draw Out Workshops (Dates TBC).
All workshops are free, ticketed, open call and limited to 8 participants maximum. Bookings to be announced soon.
Image credit: Lucy Foster.
[ residency ][ visual art ][ workshop ]