Test Sites 2023

Since 2016, the City of Melbourne’s Test Sites Program has supported artists to explore and experiment with temporary creative ideas in the public realm.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Test Sites program helps local artists test and develop their temporary public art ideas by providing practical advice, funding and support to work creatively in public space. The program increases local artists’ capability and confidence to work in the public realm through creative and professional development, support and mentoring, while engaging with the city, its sites and infrastructures as a place for creative expression.

My application for Thresholds was successful with a one day installation on Wednesday 31st May.

The Concept

Thresholds seeks to arrest and perplex pedestrians semiconsciously transiting through liminal spaces in the City of Melbourne, taking them out of their train of thought to stop, do a double take, and imaginatively engage with the space for a moment.

Transit spaces are designed to move us efficiently, stripping us of identity and cultural context.

We tend to blank them out or split them off from our consciousness, only thinking where we’re coming from or going to. Our experience of the city is glitchy, some colour and light, but with drop outs and missing pieces.

Getting pedestrians to stop and momentarily engage with these spaces integrates them back into our comprehension of the city, allowing us to experience it holistically and subjectively rather than fragmentedly and functionally.

Our relationship with the city, and with ourselves as we go about the moments of our day, is enriched, deepened, and repersonalised.

The Project

The test project will consist of a large-scale photograph of one of these liminal spaces, it will be created and transformed in post-production to create a surreal atmosphere.

The image at 2000 x 1300mm will be reinserted back into the setting and positioned about three meters in front of the actual physical site and behind a cubed structure, open at the front and back, that acts as a portal to the image. Observers will be attracted to stop and contemplate the space in a profoundly new way.

The artwork will be printed on banner material and supported within a frame. The portal will be constructed from cool room wall panels.

Location

Crowne Plaza and the Yarra River on the boardwalk north of the river and immediately west of Clarendon Street.

Wednesday 31st May - Installation Day
Many many thanks to Tony, Sally & Jenny-Anne & the many visitors and people who observed and engaged with the work.

Concept Sketches

The Portal

Artwork and supporting frame

Thresholds seeks to arrest and perplex pedestrians semiconsciously transiting through liminal spaces in the City of Melbourne, taking them out of their train of thought to stop, do a double take, and imaginatively engage with the space for a moment. 

Transit spaces are designed to move us efficiently, stripping us of identity and cultural context.

We tend to blank them out or split them off from our consciousness, only thinking where we’re coming from or going to. Our experience of the city is glitchy, some colour and light, but with drop outs and missing pieces.

Getting pedestrians to stop and momentarily engage with these spaces integrates them back into our comprehension of the city, allowing us to experience it holistically and subjectively rather than fragmentedly and functionally.

Our relationship with the city, and with ourselves as we go about the moments of our day, is enriched, deepened, and repersonalised.

Images used to support the application

The transformed image

The installation on site