SPACEWALK

1.00 -2.30pm
Saturday 17 MAR 2018

FREE EVENT
BOOKINGS by email to info@BLINDSIDE.org.au

Allow 1.5 hours for the tour and please arrive 10mins early to ensure that we can start on time.
Participants will also be provided with a tour map.

SPACE WALK is a BLINDSIDE initiative presented in partnership with NITE ART MELBOURNE as part of MELBOURNE DESIGN WEEK 15-25 Feb 2018, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.  

SPACE WALK : ENCOUNTERING ART IN RE-INHABITED SPACES

Speaking to the 2018 Melbourne Design Week theme, Design Effects, this walking tour takes in contemporary art spaces nestled in laneways and behind facades.

Visiting public, artist-run and commercial art spaces including BLINDSIDE, MAILBOX, Sarah Scout Presents, Testing Grounds and Chapter House Lane – the tour guides visitors through Melbourne’s CBD discovering the myriad ways in which architectural space is re-inhabited by art.

Each initiative possesses it’s own character and style, and takes on a personality and aesthetic informed by the history and significance of the infrastructure it occupies.

In this diverse terrain, gallerists and artists adapt and re-inhabit spaces that sit outside the traditional white cube model. 

Exhibiting artists at BLINDSIDE address the Euclidian architecture of the white cube and consider the influence of western popular culture in the Middle East. At Sarah Scout Presents, we encounter commercial space which speaks directly to a domestically scaled setting, while on Flinders Lane a row of old mailboxes in an unassuming foyer offer a surprising encounter. These re-contextualisations create rewards and challenges for both artists and curators and inform the way we encounter creative work.

The tour ends at Testing Grounds where Program Directors will speak about the ways in which their unique location and infrastructure fosters experimental practice and temporary creative communities. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in on-site Melbourne Design Week programming including Food Democracy and Pyramid Scheme, listen to closing artist talks, relax at the onsite bar and stay for informal conversation. 

SPACE WALK is lead by Rachael Paintin, current BLINDSIDE Gallery Intern and emerging independent curator. Rachael is interested in designing public programming that provokes audiences to engage on a deeper level with work both inside and outside of the traditional gallery space. She is the co-founder of Wi Chi Chi, a quarterly event designed to provide a platform for collaboration and a space for new audiences to discover and engage with art.

IMAGE | MEAGAN STREADER,  U-bend Pillar, 2017, Site-specific fluorescent light sculpture, 120 x 300cm. Courtesy the artist.