Artscape: Artists At Work

Tuesday, 26 August 2008
10:00pm

Located in Melbourne's industrial inner west, Footscray's crumbling MREAM Studios (Maribyrnong River Edge Artists Movement) are currently the cheapest art studios in Melbourne - $25 per week for a space, as opposed to the standard $50-$80.

Unfortunately for the 23 resident community artists, the studios’ days are numbered. Despite being located on Footscray's official 'arts strip', gentrification pressures have meant the building was recently sold.

As news of a savvy developer's plan to build town house 'studios' on the site hits home, the artists look to the local Maribyrnong City Council for help. They also decide to hold what could be their last exhibition MREAM's SCREAM - a combined homage and protest at what looks likely to be the end of an era.

Tuesday, 19 August 2008
10:00pm

Most people wouldn't consider being an artist to be a demanding job. Think again! The 13 artists at the busy Gasworks Arts Park Studios in Albert Park, Melbourne, are committed to making a career out of their art.

To do so they must get commissions, produce work, exhibit work, sell work, keep up with the achievements of their fellow studio mates and keep the art world interested in their work.

Tuesday, 15 July
10.00pm

This week, Artscape: Artists At Work follows the trials and triumphs of The Glass Percussion Project as its creators, Eugene Ughetti and Elaine Miles prepare for an ambitious performance in the Atrium Gallery at Melbourne's Federation Square.

The Glass Percussion Project is a meditative and musical interplay inspired by the themes of air, water and divine melody, where Ughetti is the percussionist/composer/conductor and Miles is the glass/installation artist.

Featuring the most extensive use of glass art in a musical composition ever attempted, this percussive installation consists of no less than 300 gongs, 100 bowls, 160 goblets, 50 maracas, 60 udu drums, plus various wind-chimes, xylophone bars and bells, as well as a collection of suspended glass sheets and shards.

Tuesday, 10 June
10.00pm

Over the next two weeks Artists At Work joins the Black Swan Theatre Company and Bunuba Films as they prepare to bring the epic theatre production Jandamarra to the stage for the first time as part of the 2008 Perth International Arts Festival.

Inspired by true events, this is the story of one of Australia's great Indigenous heroes - Jandamarra. For Jandamarra's people, the Bunuba of the central Kimberley, it is a vibrant legend that they are determined to share with Australians and the wider world.

Jandamarra was a young Indigenous warrior in his mid-twenties when he was hunted down and shot in North Western Australia in 1897. In his short life he was renowned as the leader of the most successful Indigenous resistance campaign against the police and an ever encroaching white settlement.

Tuesday, 27 May
10.00pm

This week, Artists At Work follows the trials and triumphs of The Glass Percussion Project as its creators, Eugene Ughetti and Elaine Miles, prepare for an ambitious performance in the Atrium Gallery at Melbourne's Federation Square.

The Glass Percussion Project is a meditative and musical interplay inspired by the themes of air, water and divine melody, where Ughetti is the percussionist/composer/conductor and Miles is the glass/installation artist.

Featuring the most extensive use of glass art in a musical composition ever attempted, this percussive installation consists of no less than 300 gongs, 100 bowls, 160 goblets, 50 maracas, 60 udu drums, plus various wind-chimes, xylophone bars and bells, as well as a collection of suspended glass sheets and shards.

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
10.00pm

This week, Artists At Work visits the world of Lindy Lee, one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. Lee's defining mark is not made with paint, but with the chaotic splat of hot black wax.

"For me it's no accident", explains Lee. "The splat is the combination of all the forces in the universe. It's the mark of everything that exists at one particular moment in time, never to be repeated."

Born in Brisbane to Chinese immigrant parents, Lee's work over the last 30 years has explored personal issues of diaspora and identity: how she fits into Australia, the art world - and the universe. As an artist who is also a Zen Buddhist, the questions: 'Who am I?' and 'Why am I here?' are all in her day's work.