Aboveground April Actions

ROARAWAR FEARTATA Schedule for Intervention/performances for April 2011
Aura Project, Collingwood Housing Estate

Tuesday 5th - Using our hand-crafted analogue data collection device, we will conduct a survey entitled "Where does it Hurt Today?" and "What Comforts You?" in and around the grounds of the Collingwood Housing Estate.

Saturday 9th - During the Harvest Festival activities we will conduct a ritual veneration of a destroyed bedding and furniture reliquary, as well as conducting a secondary survey using our hand-crafted analogue data collection device entitled "How many glasses have you broken in your life so far?".

Wednesday 13th - Day long perambulation through the grounds of the estate reciting Jorge-Louis Borges' metaphysical meditations on time with a voluntary avian accompaniment.

Wednesday 20th - Systematic rehabilitation of gravel 'non-place' next to stairwell to underground carpark. This will primarily involve the safe collection and responsible disposal of all broken glass in the area.

Wednesday 27 - Day long ablutions in the grounds of the estate, including breakfast cereal, bell ringing and blood-pressure readings.

harvest festival

saturday afternoon was the yearly harvest festival at the estate.

ben and craig were hoping to do surveys, but unfortunately ben was ill. however, lady muck still flounced about the place and was able to conduct her lucky dip for fortunate children

all the children were between 5 and 11 years' old and a few parents came to chat with the lady too.

there were some enlightening answers to some of the more difficult questions. even by those who found reading a bit tough:

one (girl): an artist can be both a man and a woman

three (girls): a man

art cannot love

draw with a pencil

draw aboriginal drawings (yorta yorta and wurundjeri woman)

i have an idea and then i draw it out and then i colour it in

lollies

clothes (from one of the kids' mums)

things i need: food, clothes and a house

[missing image]: what is black?
a dark colour

this box is white
your gloves

the ocean

a colour. those lollies

boys and girls

you have lollies and i don't

i don't know

none of yours
it's kind of like a job, but when you have your own company. my dad doesn't have one, but my grandma does.



i would get $100 from 10 other people
i would put it in my bank account



in the state library



in the gallery
i saw one over there somewhere




a cat and the ocean
i can't remember


nowhere - i want another question
my arm - i went to pick something up before and i kind of twisted it or something but it's ok now.
















sadly, about 2 hours' after start time, the heavens opened up and it all got washed out, but not before a quick jiggle on the dancefloor.

Hi! Rise!

pics from yesterday's beautiful day

collingwood skipping club

This Tuesday is looking like fun in the c-wood hood:

3pm: Harvest Festival Meeting. I'm attending so i can let them know what we're doing. fun times.

4pm: Reconnaissance mission with Laine. Laine is working with Michal in Winter, but she hasn't had a recent tour of the joint.

5pm: studio meeting with ben and craig and lauren. planning for our fraggle rock musical and the next course of action so that we don't have to deal with mean kids taking away our weathervanes.

6:30pm: Collingwood Skipping Club. this appeals to my nostalgic, daggy and suburban sensibility. i will go. and i will wear long socks and trainers.

listening

a pop-up install. in the dark. as part of the fashion festival on the 19/20th march.
we had girls' art club, a few artists pop down and some of the residents saying hey.

the sky god of desolation

putting up walls

i have never said the word 'wall' so many times in a day as i have today. after a week of working out the best kinds of wall for AURA i feel like i'm officially obsessed with the things now.

so, apparently my main task at the moment is to build some walls for the studio. primarily for the purpose of a clearer demarcation between "what's mine is mine" and "what's mine is not yet yours".

as much as i wish that the looseness of the current studio space could be kept as is, the reality of the project (ie, people moving shit around) and the long-term ideas about having artists in the space for a while, means that it's time to put walls up, people.

i guess this is what 6 months in berlin has come to.


over the last week i have been talking about walls, drawing walls, taking pictures of walls and getting random voicemail messages about walls.

cardboard
last friday i went and met with marika and anna from dear patti smith - a new, performance-friendly artspace on smith st. the show they had up recently featured some beautifully made cardboard walls, complete with inset open spaces as shelves. i thought they would look amazing in the underground space - lit well, and we could still talk to each other through the open spaces.

we talked about the possibility of commissioning some walls from them, maybe running a wall-making workshop and seeing if residents wanted to learn how to make walls out of cardboard (??), or something. anyway, thanks to all the recent rain, and the proof of how much water actually does get into the basement, that idea is now basically a crap one.


concrete
then, on the weekend, i saw these amazing cast concrete mini-walls. i imagined a stack of them on (braked) castors that we could use to keep customising the space and would fit with the aesthetic of the space.

then i realised that i had fuck-all skills for pouring or casting concrete, that they'd be heavy as fuck, and a scary risk nightmare waiting to happen. dammit. one day, they will be mine...


plaster
so, kids, the final solution appears to be you're old 'strut'n'baton clad' version of a studio wall.
build the wooden freestanding structure, clad it in plaster board. tried and true. and able to be built by 4-6 peeps in about a day.

which means that, as soon as i have enough cash to go to provens and to recruit wall-building helpers, we will have ourselves a working bee. huzzah! i think i'll bake a cake.