Civic Heart - Art in Public Space project

This video highlights a collection of site-specific works by RMIT Art In Public Space masters candidates and staff. Produced and Curated by Clare McCracken and assistants.

Uplifting and inspirational music plays throughout.

Duration: 7:54 mins

[Opening title] Civic Heart: A collection of site-specific works by RMIT Art In Public Space masters candidates and staff. Produced and Curated by Clare McCracken and assistants.

Uplifting and inspirational music plays throughout.

 [Visual] Scenes of day time street, showing the front of Broadmeadows building. The camera gets inside the building showing the entrance open space room with a variety of artwork standing on walls as well as people.

[Screen title] Dr Maggie McCormick, Program Manager, Master of Arts (Art in Public Space), School of Art, RMIT University. 

We are here at Broadmeadows Town Hall and this is a fantastic project that students from Art in Public Space at RMIT are undertaken. They are coming to the end of the first semester, and they were given this space as a sight specific space to respond to, and they all chosen really entirely different things and produced some really beautiful works that address all aspects of this building. The people that have occupied it over time, the architecture itself and even the space of Broadmeadows as an urban space and how that’s developed, especially in relation to migration to this space from other places.

[Visual] Camera shows finished installations and general audience interacting with the artwork.

I think people are really quite interested in how each of these students has responded to the works.

[Screen title] Rose Hawker. “For all the people I don’t know anymore”, 2015.

[Visual] Camera shows student Rose Hawker doing her work’s installation.

[Audio Dr Maggie McCormick voiceover] For example I have just been in the kitchen where these beautiful miniature bronze tea cups, which is one of our students who is an international student from the UK produced. Each of them is representing people that she has left behind in her life and I think it’s probably something that resonates really strongly with a lot of people who lives in Broadmeadows, in particular there is a high migration level, so people are leaving things and leaving people behind and I think that work is really resonating well as have many many others here. 

[Visual] Camera shows student Lyndall Watson preparing her own artwork.

[Screen title] Lyndall Watson. Who Wants To Be Broady Mayor?, 2015. 

My background is in sort of textile designs so the way I see spaces has always all sort of patterns and make up space. The hole has a really strong image of what it is about. There is always like architectural justice saying we are here, we have made this. But it is also really dated     

[Visual] Camera shows general audience and some artwork such as old pictures placed on frame on the wall. 

Lyndall Watson: And there is also these portraits on men, just over across of my artwork and they are wearing very serious mary robes.

[Visual] Camera shows the pictures and mary robes Lyndall is describing.

Lyndall Watson: Looking at those two ideas, I wanted to create a robe which droves on the current state of the hole but it is also history and then include a performer as part of it and allow people to try that robe tonight and be the robe mary for the night and take the portrait. 

[Visual] Camera shows general audience wearing the described costume and talking pictures of it. 

[Visual] Camera shows student Simon Mazzei setting up his work on the building.

[Screen title] Simon Mazzei. Proud to be, 2015. 

The work that I did for Civic Heart is six stencils. They are all based around current residents on Broadmeadows. It is inspired by I guess in the initial conception and vision behind the construction of the town hall. It seems to me like it wasn’t just going to be a Town Hall was going to be a place that the community could use as a hub, a centre sort of place to meet or just host events, cultural and social events  and also be a place for generations to do the same thing. 

After getting to know them, kids found on the history and the story and just touching base on a sort of personal and social level I was really touched by how warm and friendly they were and really help me to sort of understand the community better as a whole of people living in it, which basically contributed to the works that you see behind me.

[Visual] Camera shows student Simon Mazzei stencil artworks in detail, including Aslam Akram portrait.

[Screen title] Aslam Akram. Broadmeadows resident & Graphic Designer.

My name is Aslan Akram. I am a graphic designer. Everybody try to do something beauty and me too. I wanted to do something good for my home and for this city. Today, I see the work is fantastic, not only my portrait but others too.

[Screen title] Qiyi Wang. Doughnut Style, 2015.

[Visual] Camera shows student Qiyi Wang artwork, including hand drawing sketches.

[Screen title] Jessica Jia. Emotional Dislocation, 2015.

[Visual] Camera shows student Jessica Jia, painting as part of her artwork installation.

[Screen title] Dr. Geoff Hogg. Spreader, 2015.

[Visual] Camera shows Dr. Geoff Hogg artwork .

Narrator (female voiceover): So this is the projectionist room here, and it is Geoff’s working with images that he collected during daring sixties in Broadmeadows.

[Visual] Camera shows student Paul Candy showcasing his work.

[Screen title] Paul Candy. The Ticket Seller, 2015

In terms of projectional film it does have a lot of these ideas of collective memory because it’s been under unitised building for I am not sure twenty years or so. I am trying to help the audience imagine what this place would be like in his heyday. 

[Visual] Camera shows students Paul Candy, Jessica Jia and Simon Mazzei in preparation of their installation.

[Screen title] Clare Walton. The Forgotten Past, 2015.

[Audio] Cheering and ambient noise from students

[Visual] Camera shows student Clare Walton work and installation.

They be looking at what had existed in Broadmeadows prior, to what civilization came in and how Broadmeadows has brought better over sixties just once full of meadows that how the name was originated. This is just images I have found online and as well as photographs and I take them to create patterns I then we layer them and the new slide to try to create shadows and hung them in different angles and levels. So, is trying to create a shadow for what was once here.

[Screen title] Jie Shu, Peng Lui, Mingren Lu. Shadow, 2015

[Visual] Camera shows students Jie Shu, Peng Lui and Mingren Lu preparing their artwork installation in a progressive way until audience arrives to see the work they have done.

[Screen title] Clare McCracken. Three Strolls Through the Broadmeadows Town Hall, 2015.

[Visual] Camera shows student Clare McCracken’s artwork 

[Screen title] Molly Braddon. Reveal Yourself, 2015.

The idea is that they reflect different parts of the building. They are also big reflection of what the suburb was.

[Visual] Camera shows Molly Braddon and her work.

[Visual] Camera shows Chris Bold preparing his installation.

[Audio] Cheering and ambient noise from students

[Screen title] Chris Bold. White to the right, 2015.

So, I’ve called this white to the right. It is all out of paper, there are eight squares on each side, which is the side of a chess board. Chess is a game of strategy. We all occupy space, we have to share the space we live in. What strategies we chose to use within the space it is up to us. [About the installation] It’s not precious; it’s designed to walk on, it’s also a map that reveals three times and your activity within the space, which way you travel through that space, how you travel to that space and that is pretty much it. It is complex and it is simplicity.

[Visual] Camera shows general audience and student’s work.

[Visual] Camera shows Broadmeadows building from the outside. 

[Closing Credits] Civi Heart was kindly supported by Hume City Council.

[Closing Credits] RMIT University. www.rmit.edu.au

 [Audio] Cheering and ambient noise from students 

Copyright statement

Copyright © 2015 RMIT University. All rights reserved.

Conditions of use

This item is available to RMIT University staff for official RMIT educational or promotional purposes. All uses outside of official educational or promotional purposes must be used with permission. Please contact copyright@rmit.edu.au for permission.