Public art program provides a city canvas

Current students, staff and alumni registered their interest in showcasing their work as part of the first stage of the 2016 Urban Animators: Living Laboratory public art program.

The two-and-a-half-year program offers RMIT’s globally-renowned creative community the opportunity to transform and enliven the campus during the life of the New Academic Street construction project.

Using various canvases created by the building works such as hoarding, gantries and building facades,  artists responded to this year’s theme: Social Ecology.

Urban Animators’ curator, Grace Leone, also a lecturer in the School of Architecture and Design, said that with more than 400,000 square metres of building space, RMIT’s City campus was very much a part of Melbourne’s streetscape – and the program explored the University’s relationship with its surrounds.

“The Urban Animators: Living Laboratory Program has been designed to weave and harness the talent of RMIT into the life of the New Academic Street construction project,” she said.

“Using the construction site’s footprint as a canvas, we will nurture and present new and established RMIT affiliated creative practitioners.”

Original artworks that respond to high visibility areas of the construction site – such as hoarding pieces along Bowen Street, digital projections against various buildings, and 3-dimensional installations at various sites – will be commissioned as part of the program.

Shortlisted artists will be paid $500 to develop their concept, with commissioned artists awarded $1500 to $5000 for each artwork.

Artworks will be displayed intermittently during the life of the New Academic Street construction program.

Urban Animators: Living Laboratory is sponsored by the New Academic Street Project and presented in collaboration with the Centre for Art Society and Transformation.

Story: Brenton Shaughnessy.