Artists-in-Residence
The remaking of things
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
NGV commission for Melbourne Now 2023
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
Friday 24th March – Sunday 20th August, 2023
Community Hall Artists-in-Residence, April
This month, when not inhabiting a forest where 24-hours passes every 24-minutes, you’ll have found us in the yellow warmth of Community Hall talking, at every opportunity about Grey-headed flying foxes (thanks to Bat Rescue Bayside) and collage too. As part of our NGV commission, The remaking of Things, we have been Community Hall Artists-in-Residence for April, and we have loved every moment of it for the glorious chance it has afforded us to meet new people, and familiar faces too, and to share the experience with other like-minded souls, from Friends of Bats and Bushcare Inc. to Warriors 4 Wildlife.
This month would not be possible without a splendid, energetic cast.
Thank-you to everyone who came along to our Drop-by and make a zine workshops over three back-to-back afternoons. We enjoyed gathering a wide variety of beloved source material for you to cut into and weave your own paper tales. But above all, we enjoyed seeing what you created upon the page. It was lovely to see you all quietly working on your zines, giving cutout legs to a microbat; adding Swan Lake to a boulevard scene from a 1900s postcard; a postage stamp kangaroo to a cactus; an abstract shape to a horizon; and letters to spell out meaning. We hope you all continue to make many more zines and other drawings. May we see you tabling at the next Sticky Institute Zine Fair.
Thank-you Kate Ryan, Curator of Children’s Programs, NGV, and your busy team, for organising such a brilliant, adaptive and flexible programme, allowing us to be storytellers for change, equipped with Honeybee scissors and a microphone.
If you’d like to make another zine from our workshop templates, please download the below and hop to splicing and folding.
Zine template 1 (single-sided) PDF
Zine template 1 instruction sheet PDF
Zine template 2 (double-sided, print head-to-tail) PDF
Zine template 2 instruction sheet PDF
Thank-you to everyone who came along and joined in our conversation with Tanya Ha, environmental and science communication specialist; Janine Duffy, President of the Koala Clancy Foundation; and Lawrence Pope, President of Friends of Bats and Bushcare Inc.. May you all be pollinators of ideas and seed dispersers of knowledge in your worlds. Thank-you, Tanya, Janine, and Lawrence, for sharing your time and knowledge, and care. For inspiring awe, purpose, meaning, and connection on a Saturday morning, and every other day too.
Art is birdsong. Science will never explain the complex music made by birds.
— Janine Duffy
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it once more, thank-you for this conversation, friends, about how hope is a nimble dance with uncertainty. How doing something, no matter how small, is something that gives us all hope. Through not being passive, for hope is active. For sharing. For making nature central to our decisions. As we did on the day, to paraphrase Rebecca Solnit when speaking of Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, the ending is not written yet, and this is something we all need to remember.
Thank-you for sharing your photos (below) from the panel discussion, High Up in the Trees: Koalas to Grey-headed flying foxes, @pasadenamansions and @thec_4.
Thank-you Tim Pearson, who provided us with original sound recordings you can hear within The remaking of things, with sound production by Angus Kemp and NGV, for your talk in Community Hall about the vocalisations of flying foxes. From the variation of the contact calls a mum makes as she returns to camp and calls to her pup to branch-space squabbles between rival males during mating season, it has been wonderful to be able to have such a superabundant education component grow from The remaking of things. Like a Tamworth White box blossom festival!
Thank-you Warriors 4 Wildlife for extending the flying fox love through your school holiday workshops “making thank-you cards for the wildlife shelters and carers that volunteer their time to care for rescued wildlife”, and encouraging everyone to make and install nest boxes and spherical dreys for ringtails in their gardens.
With Melbourne Now running until mid-August, we look forward to seeing you between a Wenceslaus Hollar’s snail and a John Lewin’s Reed Warbler.
For those curious, you can find the original sound recording details (location, time, year) here.
And you can find the list of 100 pieces from the NGV collection nestled within our collage here.
We’re rounding out April with tomorrow’s Teacher Masterclass. Please, have a look below and see if there’s something that piques your interest.
TEACHER MASTERCLASS WITH GRACIA & LOUISE
Take a deep dive into Melbourne Now and find new ways to incorporate contemporary art into your teaching and learning. Join featured artists Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison in front of their work, The remaking of things 2023, where they will share insights into their creative practice, their roles as wildlife carers and the messages and themes represented in their work. Find further inspiration for the classroom in an exclusive practical workshop with Gracia and Louise, exploring their creative collage techniques and zine-making process.
Community Hall
Saturday 29th April, 9.30am–4pm
MEET THE FANTASTIC GREY-HEADED FLYING FOX: DRAWING ACTIVITY
During April, drop by and take part in the Meet the Fantastic Grey-headed Flying Fox activity in Community Hall. This activity sheet introduces children to this Australian animal that has inspired Melbourne Now artists Gracia and Louise to create a large-scale collage about this creature’s habitat on the banks of the Birrarung (Yarra River). Children with their families can complete a drawing of the flying fox and learn about their importance when they take the quiz.
Community Hall
Until Sunday 30th April (please check the NGV site for dates and times)
UNDER 5S: GRACIA & LOUISE ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
Under 5s, presented online, engages children aged 2–5 years with art and artists’ ideas through lively talks and activities. During April, Under 5s introduces young children to the Grey-headed flying fox, an Australian animal that has inspired Community Hall’s Artists-in-Residence Gracia and Louise to create a large-scale collage about this creature’s habitat at Yarra Bend for the Melbourne Now exhibition. Kindergarten, playgroups, and children at home can learn about the artists and this incredible creature and then watch a demonstration of a collage activity that can be made at home or school using a printable activity sheet.
Online
Wednesday 3rd May, 10am
REMAKING HOME
The remaking of things, 2023, a new work commissioned for Melbourne Now, is Gracia and Louise’s largest installation to date. On level two of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, a large-scale collage drawn from 100 works in the NGV Collection adorns the walls from ceiling to floor. The scene depicts a pocket of restored eucalyptus forest habitat, constructed using a series of images drawn from the NGV Collection. A combination of digital collage on paper and foil stock, The remaking of things builds on the methods explored in the pair’s recent work, Ripples in the open, 2018–19, with cyclic sound and lighting design signalling gradual transitions from morning to night — and back again — in the world represented on the walls. The outcome is a message of the importance of restored habitat, in particular for the Grey-headed flying fox on the banks of the Birrarung. An interactive collage activity created by the artists especially for gallery visitors will be in the centre of the room.
Remaking Home instruction sheet PDF
Remaking Home base card PDF
Remaking Home collage page PDF
The remaking of things, level two
Until Sunday 20th August, 10am–4pm
Image credit: Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, The remaking of things (detail), 2022–2023, especially for Melbourne Now. In the section above you can see John Lewin’s White-breasted honey-sucker and aYellow-breasted Thrush (now known as an Eastern Yellow Robin); and A. Shelden’s ever endearing Possum and banksia 1920s earthenware.
