A Crystal Jubilee

Life Drawing 15^th Anniversary Group Exhibition

List of exhibiting artists: Ally Bennett, Amy Woodroffe, Angela East, Angelique Matthews, Angus Kennedy, Angus Tonkin, Anita Michalski, Anthony Thanaxay, Ben Stuyfbergen, Bertrand Fava, Brendan Lyall, Cali Calabio, China D Z Paul, Claudia Dean, Dani Kerr, Debra Dunn, Dom Krapski, Emily Veale, Emma McAnelly, Emma Scally, Emma Towers, Ethan Kong, Evan McInnes, Fay Bynion, Georgia Kelly, Hannah Milligan, Huy Toan Huynh, Juliet Valentine, Kat Chadwick, Kenshin Sugihara, Lachlan Easton, Laetitia Shand, Lisa Theiler, Louise Klerks, Mac Hewitt, Maddison Kitching, Masha Saltykova, Mason Coles, Mina Misic, Natasha Frost, Oriette Wood, Oslo Davis, Pas Tian, Paul Camenzuli, Paul Mariotti, Peter Kennedy, Ptolemy Culvenor, Rashi Jain, Rhea Isaacs, Robbie Luu, Ronald Ramos, Rosie Stanton, Shaun De Roza,  Simon James, Steve Clark, Sunny Tandoc, Takako Osawa, Thomas Gooch, Thomas Milne, Tom Daly, Yunlin Bai

We are excited to present the work of our life drawing group in an open-entry exhibition celebrating the class’s 15^th anniversary. The exhibition showcases a wide variety of figure drawings from our weekly sessions, capturing both short and long poses.

Our life drawing class has occupied art galleries and event spaces in Melbourne’s CBD since 2008. In 15 years, the class has brought thousands of creative and curious minds together to draw the human form at No Vacancy Gallery, Thousand Pound Bend, and Missing Persons in the Nicholas Building.

Join us for the opening party on Thursday 28 September from 6pm to 8pm to commemorate a crystal jubilee.

Download the Room Sheet

Dates: 30 September–1 October 2023
Gallery Hours: Saturday 12-6pm and Sunday 12-4pm

Piaera Lauritz ‘Is it Working?’

Piaera Lauritz
Is it Working? 

A dance performance exploring the age-old stereotype of artists needing ‘day’ jobs, with excerpts from Piaera’s dance film of the same name.

The performers in Is it Working? juggle multiple jobs outside of their professional dance careers. They’ve played the roles of: bartender, fitness instructor, barista, life model, shop assistant, dance teacher, massage therapist, waitress, theatre usher, lawyer, and receptionist. Is it Working? draws on the intricate patterns of movement perfected in these non-dance jobs to playfully highlight the pressures faced by practising artists.

Does work lie in productivity, repetition, effort, duty, or outcome? In performance, does a work exist before being presented, or only when consumed by viewers? Who owns the work – artistic or otherwise – and how do we validate, quantify, monetise, and label this work?

Is it Working? will take place in the iconic Nicholas Building. With its symbolic history as an industrial hub for a diverse range of creatives, and with the imminent threat of commercial development – this building serves as the perfect backdrop for Is it Working? to premiere in a live performance context.

Dates: 25–27 August 2023. Attend on Facebook

Purchase tickets here

Is it Working? is supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants.

Ben Joseph Andrews

House Unmoored

House Unmoored is an intimate portrait of artist Ben Joseph Andrews’ experience of vestibular migraine: a chronic condition that unsettles balance, catalyses false movements and transforms the world into a porous exchange between human and more-than-human forces.

Exploring an emergent aesthetics of motion misperception, this multi-channel film materialises the relentless turbulence of vestibular migraine through a series of projections onto draped cloth. The animation of the film is driven by data from the artist’s migraine journal. By documenting the movement and distortion of his migraine activity, Andrews is able to reflect upon these encounters and share them with audiences in a unique multisensory environment.

Dates: 14–16 July 2023
Hours: 11am–6pm

This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and the City of Melbourne Arts Grants

OFF COURSE

An exhibition of things not quite architecture

OFF COURSE is an exhibition created by a group of architecture students and graduates. The intention is anti-institutional. Free of the ‘firm’ or the ‘school’. From first years to the “almost-licensed”, the group works against the rigid hierarchy and rules of the academic and professional landscape.

Using the tools and insights gained through formal architectural practice to investigate much more informal encounters of space and ways of being. Exploring the way we both individually and collectively interact with the world.

The exhibition is a curated look into things made, thought, discovered, constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. A dialogue between the audience and artists, that engages with mediums, subjects and methods that are not often given space within the architecture profession. The work is subjective, relating to personal experience, and none of it quite architecture.

Artists:

Ben Toralba Tan
Harshit Sampat
Kieran Merriman
Kristofer Peralta
Luke Martelli
Prani Patton
Rania Sidanta

Dates: 7–10 July 2023
Hours: Friday to Sunday 10am–2pm, Monday 10am–1pm

MOVING PICTURE WORLD

Matilda Berger, Lucy Davidson, Amy Manson, Kate Isobel Scott

 

MOVING PICTURE WORLD is an exhibition of stop motion animation featuring the work of four women artists. The medium is utilised as a form of visual storytelling, through video, editing, sculpture, illustration, lighting design, as well as character and set construction. Artists Matilda Berger, Lucy Davidson, Amy Manson, and Kate Isobel Scott showcase the “behind the scenes” aspects of stop motion, adapting it for a group and silent cinema setting.

Their exhibition combines screen and sculpture, featuring intricate miniature sets and models to add another dimension to viewing. The process of creating the works themselves is an exercise in patience – a labour of love. Constant building, mounting, shifting, repeating, and manipulating of two and three dimensional elements create the enchanting effect of stop-motion animation.

MOVING PICTURE WORLD is loosely themed around artistic labour, biology and science, children’s television, music, and autobiography. It aims to be accessible and enjoyable for all ages.

Exhibition dates: 10–22 June
Hours: Thursday to Saturday, 12–6pm

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

SATURDAY 17 JUNE, 2–3PM
Artist Talk with Matilda Berger and Kate Isobel Scott

Gain insight into Matilda Berger and Kate Isobel Scott’s creative backgrounds from theatre and illustration to stop motion animation. Learn more about their influences and the importance of collaboration, experimentation, and craftsmanship in visual storytelling.

• • • Free event
    • All ages welcome
    • Auslan interpreted
    • Wheelchair-accessible

 

MOVING PICTURE WORLD is part of an initiative led by Missing Persons to increase the visibility and exhibition opportunities of emerging women artists in the Australian arts, supported by the City of Melbourne.

Collective Effort Press

WAYWORD FORWORD
An exhibition of concrete poetry by Collective Effort Press

Curated by Collective Effort Press and Victoria Perin

The legendary Collective Effort Press was inaugurated about 1978, around a lay-out table, as a group of friends put together a book of poetry. The structure of Collective Effort Press is anarcho-collectivist, politically and artistically. They are committed to bringing poetry out of the academies, and over the years they have performed poetry readings in schools, shop floors, factories, prisons, offices, outdoor festivals, as well as art galleries, zoos, cafes, pubs, and clubs.

This group grew out of Melbourne’s Poets’ Union and the magazine Fitzrot (1973–1974), a magazine that had begun to pioneer a form of concrete poetry that is, to this day, neglected by local art and literary historians alike.

In the words of Jas H. Duke, a founding member of Collective Effort Press, a concrete poem is “a picture made of words and nothing else”.

This exhibition presents new and selected visual poems by Collective Effort Press members: Arjun von Cammerer, Jas H. Duke, Peter Murphy, π.o., Sandy Caldow and thalia, as well as performances by exhibiting poets.

We welcome you to join us from 6–8pm on Friday, 5 May for drinks and performances at the exhibition opening.

Download a copy of Victoria Perin’s exhibition essay

Listen back to Alice Allen’s interview with π.o. and Collective Effort on the Poetry Says Podcast, available online and Spotify.

Dates: 5 to 21 May 2023
Hours: Thursday to Saturday 12–6pm and Sunday 12–4pm

This exhibition is proudly supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants.

Fast Casual

A pop-up dining event by Gruel

Fast Casual is an invitation to play with your food. Put your palette to the test with a menu of walking tacos, mcsalad shakers, and muddy buddies.

Drizzle, season, and shake your own custom creations featuring Mat’s hot shop’s signature sauce range with drinks available by donation.

Gruel is a Melbourne/Naarm-based experimental supper club. Gruel’s goal isn’t to be an alternative to conventional dining, but something that exists outside it and evolves with it. Rather than eschew the mundane, grotesque, or confronting sides of food, Gruel embraces it. For the sake of the earth and the animals, Gruel prioritises food that is vegetarian and often vegan.

Purchase Tickets

Date: Friday 31 March, 6–9pm

TRASHIE: Clothing Exchange

The TRASHIE clothing exchange is a recurring event that allows consumers to swap their loved pieces and gain new and exciting items.

So what do you do when your favourite shirt isn’t your favourite anymore? Throw it out? Resell it?  Do you put it under your bed and forget about it? Most likely…

TRASHIE is here to make more room for the Boogieman in your closet and give you a home to exchange with other like-minded hoarders.

TRASHIE is created and produced by Katie and Angela Di Fabrizio, two sisters who have spent a large portion of their life fighting over clothing.

This event is presented as part of the PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Fashion and Culture program.

Tickets here

Date: Saturday 4 March, 2–5pm

William Schmitt ‘???’ Book Launch

‘I tend to walk with my hands in my pockets
I like the feeling of the inside of my pockets
The comfortability of the inside of my pockets’

‘???’ by William Schmitt is a 356 page book consisting of a collection of screen grabs from selected videos William has filmed from the years 2016 to 2022.

Please join the artist and friends for the book launch on Friday, 10 February. 

Date: Friday 10 February, 5:30–8:30pm

All That You Hear Is All That Is Heard

Audio Experience by All That You Hear
Composed by Biddy Connor and soundtracked by The Letter String Quartet

All That You Hear is a collaboration between composer Biddy Connor (The Letter String Quartet) and independent curator, Rachael Paintin. The first work in the series, All That You Hear Is All That Is Heard is a site-specific audio experience set within the Nicholas Building.

Playing with sound and music, The Letter String Quartet presents interwoven stories and recordings collected from tenants of the building, past and present.

​The audio experience is available to listen to online via your smartphone, from anywhere inside the Nicholas building. To begin your journey, you can find the first QR code outside the lift on level 1 of the Nicholas Building. On select floors, additional QR codes link to new soundtracks, while other floors leave the experience up to individual exploration.

All That You Hear recording sessions, rehearsals, and live performances were held at Missing Persons from 2019 to 2022. For more information about the project visit: All That You Hear

Dates: 30 October 2022 until 31 January 2023
Hours: 8:00am–5:00pm daily

Accessible on your smartphone via QR codes located outside the internal lifts in The Nicholas Building.

Eleven O’Clock Theatre ‘The Breaths in Between’

The Breaths in Between is a new Australian Concept Musical that tells stories of love, joy, and the everyday challenges of existing as an intersectional human. From romance and diagnoses to proclamations of culture and queerness, ten diverse writers present a new work that explores individual experiences and connections to partners, friends, and family.

The Breaths in Between was developed in response to critical conversations occurring across the musical theatre industry about the lack of diverse storytelling on professional theatre stages. In centering stories about LGBTQIA+, PoC, neurodiverse and body-diverse individuals, the production aims to share new, much-needed stories through a variety of musical styles and approaches, instilling a sense of familiarity and visibility in people who do not often see their experiences represented on stage.

Eleven O’Clock Theatre is delighted to be presenting this ambitious collection of stories, proudly supported by the Australian Cultural Fund.

Purchase tickets

Thursday 8 December at 7.00pm and 9:30pm
Friday 9 December at 6.30pm and 9:00pm

Ben Gray ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’

Who Knows Where The Time Goes is a solo exhibition by Ben Gray from 2 to 4 December. In this series, Gray presents painting and ceramics, often blending the two. Each component of the work is in conversation with moments in time and the layered legacy of time passed. In Gertrude Stein’s influential text, ‘Composition as Explanation’, published by Hogarth Press in London in 1926, Stein reduces the characteristics of a time to its physical and metaphysical elements. Gray explores the notion that we are the recipients of the layered accumulation of compositions we call history. Bricks layered upon bricks. In his ornamental sculptural clocks, Gray uses high and low cultural references to represent a time and place of ornate ceramics, mass-produced digital electronics, and billboard advertisements.

Join us for drinks at the exhibition opening on Thursday, 1 December from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

Dates: 2 to 4 December 2022
Hours: Friday to Saturday 12–6pm and Sunday 10am–2pm

Matilda Davis ‘Hold On To An Ice Cube’

Hold On To An Ice Cube is a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Matilda Davis from 10 September to 1 October 2022. In the spirit of Surrealism, the small compositions are steeped in mystery and strangeness that lead the viewer to the edge of the unknown.

Carefully studied subjects surface in the painted dream scenes and symbols. Feeding on memory and emotion, Davis’ artworks are both playfully alluring and foreboding. Across five works, we see a bandaged lion’s paw, and a butterfly of flesh taking flight after splintering from a horse’s back. What appears as a maze, upon closer inspection, is a pinwheel of ribbons, and a set of pan scales, creating equilibrium between a single oyster and a stick of butter, floating between is a gold signet ring and a necklace of pearls. In the final work, a veiled mirror emerges from the swampy mangroves of a wetland reflecting light back up in to a luminescent sky and basking under an eerie full moon. Davis’ fantastic hallucinatory scenes encourage exploration of one’s own psyche. They welcome reflection on our own internal worlds as she opens the door to something remote and revered.

Matilda Davis’ Hold On To An Ice Cube is a courageous body of work described by the artist as a process of “dipping a toe” into the visceral. The pieces are an expression of loss, grief, and anguish, where reality is experienced through a fantastical lens. As Davis continues dissecting, purging, and cleansing, she allows the viewer the possibility to imagine that there could be more to come – and feared – just outside of the frame.

Dates: 10 September– 1 October 2022
Hours: Thursday to Saturday, 12:00–6:00pm

View the exhibition catalogue

Hear Matilda Davis in conversation with Louise Klerks

Find out more about Matilda Davis

Listen to Tai Snaith’s exhibition review on 102.7FM

This exhibition is part of a new initiative led by Missing Persons to increase the visibility and exhibition opportunities of emerging women artists in the Australian arts, supported by the City of Melbourne through their Annual Arts Grants

NCAT Photography

PENUMBRA

PENUMBRA is a group exhibition and silent auction presented by NCAT Photography students enrolled in the Certificate IV and Diploma of Photography and Digital Imaging courses.

The group of emerging artists: Angus Armstrong, Callum Bardon, Abhinav Biju, Monique Dudley, Cody Fusca, Amity Poskitt-McDonald, Hanako Muller, Dylan Negri, Bingham Thurgate, Rhiannon Winter, and Morgan Wyley will present their analogue photography (unique gelatin silver prints) for sale, with all proceeds of the exhibition donated to the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service.

The exhibition is for one night only with a silent auction to commence at 6:00pm and conclude at 8:00pm.

Date: Friday 19 August, 5:30–8:30pm

MELBOURNE FRINGE FESTIVAL 2022

The Interlude
Written and Directed by Holly Brindley

A group of young friends meet for an unnerving getaway in this experimental screen installation. Step into a quiet space and immerse yourself in the hypnotic world of The Interlude.

Time passes slowly as friends Chi, Adam, Conor, Bec and Elias dance, discuss creative endeavours and play listless games during a lacklustre staycation. The work explores the unease of entering one’s early twenties amidst intense uncertainty, examining fear and futility with dark humour. The premiere screen work from artist Holly Brindley is a blend of narrative film and video art that spotlights everyday interaction until it becomes hyperreal.

This is a free, unticketed, drop-in event as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival 

Dates: 14–16 October 2022
Hours: Friday to Saturday, 1:00pm–10.30pm, Sunday, 10:00am–5:30pm

MELBOURNE FRINGE FESTIVAL 2022

Tremor
Choreographed by Kayla Douglas

Tremor is an experimental contemporary dance work by emerging artist Kayla Douglas. In this 50-minute work, dancers Kristen Cafari and Misch Kurzeme reconcile with their stored experiences through the navigation and examination of the emotional body. By making the subconscious conscious again, the dancers work together to untangle memories from their musculature and viscera to return to a place of inner calm and stability.

Visit Melbourne Fringe Festival for tickets and performance times.

Dates: Thursday 20 – Saturday 22 October 2022

Mystery Friend by Haein Kim and Paul Rhodes

Join us for the Melbourne book launch of Mystery Friend a dual-sided comic/art book from Haein Kim and Paul Rhodes.

Published in 2022 by Glom Press, the book features comics, stickers and full-page prints from collaborating Sydney artists Haein Kim and Paul Rhodes.

Mystery Friend is printed by risograph in 2, 4, and 5 colour combinations using red, yellow, fluoro pink, mint, and black on velvety pink 135 gsm colour plan paper. The publication is 66 pages and is available as a limited edition of 250 copies.

Pre-order a copy or purchase from Missing Persons on Friday, 8 July from 5–8pm.

At the launch, there will be original art on display and additional risograph prints from the book for sale.

Date: Friday, 8 July, 5:00–8:00pm. Attend on Facebook

SOBO // MAGO: A Collaborative Exhibition

SOBO // MAGO is a collaborative exhibition featuring Elizabeth Angell’s ikebana arrangements, with music created in response by Sam Pannifex.

The exhibition is a unique collaboration between a grandparent and her grandson. Elizabeth Angell has been an instructor of Sogetsu Ikebana for over 30 years; she was up until recently the Victorian director of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana. Sam Pannifex has been an active part of the Melbourne band Arbes for the past 8 years.

Purchase a ticket to the opening on Friday 24 June from 6:00-8:00pm. Light refreshments provided.

Please BYO phone to scan Q.R codes and headphones to listen to the musical arrangements.

Opening event: Friday 24 June, 6:00–8:00pm ($5 entry)
Dates: 25–26 June, 10:00am to 4:00pm (free entry)

SOBO // MAGO is supported by the Blackbird Foundation through their Protostars Grant Program.

MELBOURNE DESIGN WEEK 2022

Redesigning Waste: Pocket Politics Edition

Future Archive is the research-based project of RMIT BA Fashion Design graduate Melanie Read. Through the act of archiving discarded fashion items, Future Archive strives to understand contemporary consumer culture and explore possible outcomes that reassign value to materials otherwise deemed as waste.

Presented as part of Melbourne Design Week 2022, ‘Redesigning Waste: Pocket Politics Edition’ invites us as a group to come together to explore our pockets and the idea of pocket satisfaction. Participants are invited to bring along an example of a problematic pocket from their wardrobe for discussion and design an ‘intervention’.

Together we will question whether there is a universal ideal pocket to offer 100% pocket satisfaction, or if pocket satisfaction is in fact subjective.

Materials, refreshments and light food provided. Book a ticket now 

Date: Sunday, 27 March 2022, 1:00pm–4:00pm

MELBOURNE DESIGN WEEK 2022

TRACING AFTERLIVES: Challenging the ‘disposability’ of plastic waste offers a glimpse into the fascinating lives of plastic after its disposal.

Presented by Megan Wong, in collaboration with Ilya Fridman, view an exhibition of warped, melted, and marine-growth-covered plastic waste collected from the oceans of Queensland—and see the ways plastic continues to live after being thrown out.

This exhibition includes a free two-hour participatory workshop which provides an opportunity to meet Megan Wong and interact with the warped plastic objects first-hand.

Please register for the workshop on Friday, 25 March from 12:00pm until 2:00pm.

Dates: Friday 25 March, 2:30pm–5:00pm and Saturday 26 March, 10:00am–3:00pm

MELBOURNE DESIGN WEEK 2022

Transparent – Melbourne Design Week 2022

Curated by Misc Objet, Transparent explores how sustainable an object can really be. Thirteen emerging designers come together to produce an exhibition that reveals the sustainable and not-so-sustainable methods within their own practices. Documenting their processes they explore new materials, production methods and ways in which better their overall impact on the planet.

Contributors:
Aidan Renata, Billie Rivers, Bolaji Teniola, Casey Chong, Dalton Stewart, Jill Stevenson, Julian Leigh May, Lana Erneste, Lauren Lea Haynes, Mietta Greig-Hurting, Ryan Mueller, Sam Blomley, Tess Pirrie

Secure a ticket to attend the official opening of Transparent on Thursday, 17 March from 5:00pm until 9:00pm.

Opening event: 17 March 2022, 5:00pm–9:00pm (ticketed)
Dates: 18 March to 20 March 2022 (free entry)
Hours: Friday, 11:00–7:00pm, Saturday and Sunday, 10:00am–5:00pm

Jude Walton ‘Fugitive Bodies: Marking the Horizon’

Jude Walton presents Marking the Horizon at Missing Persons from 12 to 13 March 2022. The performances explore the resilience and resistance of the natural world, ways to process sensory information, and how we might interact in new and shared environments through movement and dance.

Marking the Horizon will be performed by Hillary Goldsmith and Siobhan McKenna
Sound: Jude Walton, Zapsplat, and Metro Tunnel construction
Zoom and Technical Assistance: Douglas Hassack
Collaborative Choreography: Jude Walton, Gesa Piper, Hillary Goldsmith and Siobhan McKenna

Find info and tickets here

Dates: 12–13 March 2022, 2:00pm and 4:00pm

GABRIELLA IMRICHOVA

Internal Architecture is a new performance piece by artist Gabriella Imrichova

Imrichova’s practice is first and foremost concerned with formal experimentation, process-focused making and the destabilisation of the viewer through “failing” devices for live performance.

In this new work, Imrichova is joined by performers Caitlin Dear, Hayley Does, Lucy Rossen, Mara Galagher, Romaine Mcsweeney, and Tiffany Fiorucci for two short-duration performances at Missing Persons. The public is welcome to attend. Internal Architecture requires a $5 payment at the door.

For international and interstate audiences, please note that this work will be live-streamed via the artist’s Instagram.

Date: Saturday, 19 February 2022
Hours: 3:30pm-4:00pm and 8:30-9:00pm AEDT

ARTWEAR FESTIVAL

Moss Tunstall, Alexandra Nemarič, Matt Finish, Troppo Print Studio, Henry Holder, Love Manifesto

Melbourne artists reimagine their art to wear in ARTWEAR FESTIVAL, featuring one-off and collectible garments that are upcycled, patched, painted, printed, stained, hand-coloured, stitched, dyed and bleached using printmaking techniques and cellulose experiments that summon a punk aesthetic and sensibility.

Local, independent and a collective effort, ARTWEAR FESTIVAL blends art and fashion in this free, week-long celebration of the DIY spirit.

Dates: 1 to 7 December 2021. Attend on Facebook
Download a copy of the Press Release and Festival Program 

Papier-mâché

The translation of the French term papier-mâché is chewed paper: the satisfying transition of yesterday’s newspaper broken down and digested into a new sculptural form. It is a pulped and mashed material associated with ceremony, arts and crafts, masks and piñatas – a form that possesses an inherent potential of destruction, blind abandon, and the hollow promise of reward. Layers of the past, reimagined for a fragile future. 

Curated by Maddison Kitching and Louise Klerks, Papier-mâché brings together artists Rachel Ang, Fergus Binns, Matilda Davis, Jason Hamilton, Brendan Huntley, Maddison Kitching, Alasdair McLuckie, Nabilah Nordin, The Ryan Sisters and Isadora Vaughan. The artists, through a new medium or extension of their material expertise, engaged in refined child’s play. The tactile and organic process of cut and paste: there is no Command C, Command V shortcut in these claggy explorations. 

View the Exhibition Catalogue

Dates: 11 until 26 June 2021. Attend on Facebook
Hours: Thursday to Saturday from 12:00–6:00pm

Download a copy of the Press Release

 

Please Do Not Eat The Sculptures

Nabilah Nordin

By Chance the Future

Amy Rudder 

LONDON. 2001. It’s the new millennium, with a minute more of pre-mobile phone, pre-terrorism hysteria, pre-social media life to live. Jackie escapes Sydney suburbia. She’s an outsider with a bad haircut. Wild mood swings. She knows everything. She knows nothing.

Why was Sef kicked out of the hostel?

Immigration detention, drum and bass, Berlusconi’s boys’ club. Spearmint Rhinos, capital cash flows, Stephen Lawrence’s murder … By Chance the Future is a story that shows how reflecting on where we were 20 years ago can tell us where we are today—at a distance, with hindsight—if only we look.

Amy Rudder’s debut book blends travel writing, philosophical treatise, self-deprecating comedy and political criticism; the author highlighting both our very human hypocrisy and genuine attempts to connect, and the singularity and the sameness of our youthful adventures as we attempt to individuate from our families and countries of origin.

Join us for the Melbourne book launch. Register here.

Date: Friday, 23 April from 6:00pm–8:00pm

Download a copy of the Media Release.

PHOTO 2021

Hoda Afshar

In her PHOTO 2021 commission, Agonistes, Tehran-born, Melbourne-based visual artist Hoda Afshar explores the experiences of people who have spoken out. Combining new and old photographic techniques, Afshar creates images that reflect the experiences of whistleblowers who have voiced harms and misconducts being perpetrated in Australian institutions today.

Acts of whistleblowing aimed at calling attention to alleged wrongdoing or misconduct continue to make headlines around the world. But despite the introduction of policies meant to protect them, the efforts of whistleblowers in Australia are increasingly being undermined by gag orders, policing, and other forms of control – by efforts to silence those who have spoken out, and to discourage anyone who might think to.

Whether whistleblowing on matters to do with immigration detention, youth detention, or aged and disability care, Afshar’s subjects have spoken out for those whose voices were never meant to be heard.

Hoda Ashfar’s Agonistes will be shown at two locations. Her film work will be premiered at Missing Persons. The accompanying photographic work can be viewed outside St Paul’s Cathedral, Swanston Street, Melbourne. See event details.

Listen to Hoda Afshar on Radio National. Find more at ABC News

Dates: 19 February to 7 March 2021.
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday 12:00–5:00pm

Image: Hoda Afshar, Agonistes (still) 2020, 1-channel digital video, colour, sound. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.

The Little Theatre Presents

God’s Own Pawn Shop
A Reading in Two Parts

Missing Persons invites you to God’s Own Pawn Shop, a new performance by The Little Theatre that tells an imaginary and fragmented tale of possession, capitalism, domestic violence and the redemptive power of love. God’s Own Pawn Shop holds as many stories of hope and despair as it does redeemable goods.

The Little Theatre is the creation of Daylesford artist Jeff Stewart. With a varied career exhibiting drawings and paintings – as well as working as an artist in youth and adult detention and various community groups – for the past seven years Jeff’s interests in art, writing and performance have taken shape in the intimate shows of The Little Theatre. Scripted and performed by Jeff in front of audiences of less than 20 people, each show takes place inside a handcrafted portable booth known in the world of puppetry as a castelet. In this intimate setting, audiences closely encounter the vivid stories and the hand-painted set designs that house them.

God’s Own Pawn Shop features live narration by Jeff’s longtime collaborator Stuart Grant. Formerly a senior lecturer at the Centre For Theatre and Performance at Monash University, Stuart is also founding co-director of ecological site-specific performance group Environmental Performance Authority. He’s also a founding member of legendary Australian post-punk group Primitive Calculators, who formed in Melbourne in 1978 and are still active today.

As with The Little Theatre’s previous performance at Missing Persons (The Red Geranium and Its Almost Taste of Pepper, 2019), God’s Own Pawn Shop is a free public event. Seats are strictly limited – please make a reservation to attend one of the two evening performances through Eventbrite.

Date: Saturday 30 January, 5:45pm and 7:15pm. Attend on Facebook

Musée du Strip

materialiZm

In this exhibition Musée du Strip invites us to contemplate the philosophical theory of Materialism, a Western concept that describes the world as fundamentally relying on interconnecting matter. That is to say: anything from energy forces to dark matter, the cups we drink from to the seats we sit on, as well as our human consciousness, is perceived to be intrinsically linked by physical and invisible material qualities.

Laying the groundwork for this exhibition are seven emerging artists Hugo Blomley, Natalie Fenelon, Caeylen Fenelon-Norris, Ella Howells, Anna Jalanski, Gabrielle Skye Nehrybecki and Augusta Vinall Richardson. Their artworks can be defined by the very matter of which they come from, whether metal, plastic or paper (and the neurons required to create it).

Like previous exhibitions held inside Musée du Strip, this show materialiZm revolves around a ready-to-assemble walk-in greenhouse designed to provide your plants, fruit and vegetables with the optimum biological conditions in which to flourish all year round. Stripped of its heat and humidity-retaining features, the result is an unexpected platform to synthesise the experience of viewing art, people and the surrounds.

Musée du Strip has previously appeared in diverse locations including a public beachfront, a median strip, and inside contemporary art galleries and private homes. For this exhibition Musée du Strip is set within Missing Persons, a multi-arts space in the Nicholas Building, and on Wednesday 20 January shares the gallery space with Missing Persons’ life drawing class – a recurring mid-week feature of its public program.

With the participation of the life drawing group, art meets utility and new life is given to works created by the materialiZm artists, including furniture, art objects and sculptural assemblages. Drawings captured by the class participants will be contributed to the exhibition, creating a full material circle between art, matter and the people who experience them.

We would like to invite you to celebrate over drinks at the launch of the exhibition on Friday 22 January from 6:00–8:00pm.

The opening event will also be broadcast on Instagram Live. Join the party via Musée du Strip.

Dates:  21 to 24 January 2021. Attend on Facebook
Hours: Thursday to Saturday 12:00–6:00pm and Sunday 12:00–3:00pm

Download the media release

Matt Arbuckle, Chris Bowes, Brigid Hanrahan, Henry Holder, Chris Mason, Esther Olsson, Daniel Pace

My Funny Valentine

My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet you’re my favourite work of art

At 528 Hz, love is said to reach us through music.

Like the jazz standard interpreted, recorded and enriched (mainly) by numerous musicians (Fitzgerald, Sinatra, Baker), love too endures through art, contributing myth, nuance, and an evolution of form to the frequency (hopefully) of our spiritual connections.

‘A love’ can keep you making, generating. Expression manifested in clay, paint, and screen-based work, where the material and abstract meet.

Join us for My Funny Valentine, a group show curated by Louise Klerks in collaboration with Arts Project Australia, showcasing an eclectic group of Australian and New Zealand artists engaged with love in all its forms: adoration, obsession, its pull – the maddening of it all.

See Matt Arbuckle, Chris Bowes, Brigid Hanrahan, Henry Holder, Chris Mason, Esther Olsson and Daniel Pace in a spontaneous, heartfelt cuddle puddle.

Celebrate with us this 14^th of February at Missing Persons’ first short-duration show of 2020.

Dates: 15 until 16 February 2020. Attend on Facebook
Hours: Saturday 12:00–6:00pm and Sunday 12:00–4:00pm

Download the media release

Sarah Pannell

New Harvest

Missing Persons presents a solo exhibition of photographs by Melbourne artist Sarah Pannell. New Harvest is a selection of works dating from 2018 and 2019.

Sarah Pannell’s images draw together evidence of human trails, traced by the artist as she travels between Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Estonia and Egypt. From the imprint of a beach resort in the coastal city of Odessa, to a barbed fence line from a communist-era prison in Tallinn, Estonia, Pannell captures scenes that are rich with colour, texture, and cultural and political history.

This body of work engages with the possibilities of surrealism and abstraction in image-making, invoking a subjective experience of place and time.

Join us as we celebrate the opening on Wednesday, 4 December from 6:00–8:00pm.

Dates: 5 until 8 December 2019. Attend on Facebook
Hours: Thursday to Saturday 12:00–6:00pm Sunday 12:00–4:00pm

Download the exhibition pricelist

The Little Theatre Presents

The Red Geranium And Its Almost Taste Of Pepper

‘The Red Geranium and Its Almost Taste of Pepper’ is a theatre performance presented on a stage measuring 50cm x 40cm. In this performance, Jeff Stewart will manoeuvre his hand-painted theatre sets while also placing models of an overpass, a house, and a reliquary in front of the stage. ‘The Red Geranium and Its Almost Taste of Pepper’ is about the loss of a loved one, written by Jeff Stewart and narrated by Stuart Grant. This is a free event but seats are strictly limited in keeping with the small scale of the theatre. RSVP is essential.

Date: Sunday 27 October 2019, 6:00pm and 7:30pm

Michael Lindsey Davison

Some Cell Sites

Missing Persons invites you to Michael Lindsey Davison’s exhibition and book launch, Some Cell Sites on Friday, 4 October from 6:00–8:00pm.

Melbourne is in the throes of a real estate and infrastructure boom. However, another type of boom is flourishing largely unnoticed. Atop of rooftops, defunct silos, churches and government offices, telecommunication companies have installed mobile phone base stations—everywhere. Otherwise known as ‘cell sites’, over the last decade they have become central to government and corporate surveillance strategies; but they are also essential to how we come to acquire knowledge, how we navigate through the city, and how we communicate with each other. Ultimately, Some Cell Sites makes visible how this indispensable infrastructure has altered the urban and rural landscape. Employing humour as a point of departure, some of the images from the series often elude to the dystopian motifs of urban decay and alien invasions: many photographs in the series document how some base stations blend in with their surroundings to such a degree the effect is either humorous or deeply unsettling. The artist book Davison has produced, and which will be launched on the opening night of the exhibition, features 35 cell sites from the hundreds that he photographed across Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. The book includes an essay which examines contemporary digital culture and its effect on society. Also included are several entries from Davison’s notebooks that reflect on his experience photographing cell sites across the country.

Dates: 5 until 6 October, 2019. Attend on Facebook
Hours: Saturday 12:00–6:00pm and Sunday 12:00–4:00pm

Download a copy of the Press Release

Melbourne Fringe: Safe Word

Created by Cindy Jiang & Francis Cao

Asian diasporic bodies are constantly deprived of autonomy. We navigate the jarring contrast between the embracing of sexuality in our white environment, and its stigmatisation in our Asian cultures. Why aren’t our parents talking about sex? Why does it seem like everyone is objectifying us? And what does it mean to be queer on top of all this?

Safe Word is a reclamation of freedom over our Asian bodies from the dual oppression of being fetishised and shamed. This new work of physical theatre is a fiercely proud exploration and expression of our sexuality, on our own terms, in our own words.

Warning: Contains moderate coarse language, both sudden and sustained loud noises, some infrequent/low-pressure audience interaction, potentially triggering content or themes, including Sexual Assault or Abuse, Sexual Harassment, Violence Against Women, Misogyny, Sexual References, references and mentions of racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Buy Tickets

Dates: 20–22 September 2019. Attend on Facebook

失眠夏夜 Sleepless Summer—A Solidarity Project for Hong Kong

Curated by Nikki Lam

In Hong Kong’s most heated summer, up in smoke, we have become insomniacs. The city crumbles on a multitude of screens with passion, violence and dividing opinions, reflecting a newfound awareness of democratic actions. From a decentralised organising strategy to wide-spread guerrilla tactics, each and every one of us plays a vital role in affecting public opinion, even from afar.

Sleepless Summer is a solidarity project bringing together artists from Hong Kong and Australia, we make space for each other and rally for support in Australia. Curated by Nikki Lam, presenting works by artists Cyrus Tang, Jonathan Homsey, Badiucao, Matthew Pit, Natalie Tso (Sydney), Kingson Chan (Hong Kong), Tracy Cheng (Hong Kong) as well as a selection of independent publications on Hong Kong’s civil rights struggles, collected by Zine Coop (Hong Kong).

This is a responsive project and we invite our allies to join us. We welcome those who respect freedom of speech.

Dates: 24 – 25 August 2019,12:00pm–6:00pm. Attend on Facebook

A Chamber Made ‘Little Operations’ performance  

The Letter String Quartet

Curated by Rachael Paintin and composed and presented by the Letter String Quartet: ‘All that you hear is all that is heard’ is an experiment in sound and storytelling, set within the Nicholas Building. Since the 1920s, the Nicholas Building has been a vibrant hub for creative practitioners, makers and designers. The Letter String Quartet will present interwoven stories and recordings collected from past and present tenants of the building in an intimate storytelling circle. The Letter String Quartet is Steph O’Hara and Lizzy Welsh (violin), Biddy Connor (viola, Artistic Director) and Zoë Barry (cello). Click here to RSVP.

Date: Thursday 29 August 2019, 6:00 – 8:00pm. Attend on Facebook

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Juicy Comedy

‘Friends’ Lucy and JG are two dysfunctional idiots. Well, one functional idiot and one dysfunctional genius. Together they bring the worst out of each other, and they’re trying to write a play. Things quickly descend into madness due to some… personal conflicts. Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Play, Right?

James JG Gordon and Lucy ‘Luseale’ Seale have been performing stand-up and sketch comedy for two years, and they’ve finally combined their mental efforts to fill out a Melbourne International Comedy Festival application form. Both coming from a theatre background, this is their fifth (and possibly final) show together (we’ll see how it goes). Click here for more information.

Dates: 13 – 14 April 2019, 7:00–8:00pm. Attend on Facebook

Consuelo Cavaniglia, Danica Chappell, Guy Grabowsky, Ben Sexton

Illusions and Allusions

Join us as we celebrate the official opening of Missing Persons with Illusions and Allusions, an exhibition curated by Louise Klerks, featuring Consuelo Cavaniglia, Danica Chappell, Guy Grabowsky and Ben Sexton.

Friday, 29 June from 6:00–8:00pm.

Missing Persons is excited to announce its inaugural exhibition which brings together works that respond to the visual noise of urban spaces.

The exhibiting artists explore the possibilities of image-making through experimental and analogue photography, and acrylic and glass sculptural forms. By inserting themselves and/or the viewer into the works, they invite the viewer to engage with a variety of surfaces.

Representations of space, architecture and the artists own mark-making become apparent through darkroom processes, transference and tricks of the eye.

Consuelo Cavaniglia is a Sydney based artist well known for her large-scale, wall-based and freestanding works. Using materials such as tinted mirror and coloured acrylic, she creates deeply reflective pieces that combine fragmented geometric planes to distort the viewer’s perception of space. In these works the viewer is an active participant; the work is awakened through observation.

Chappell, Grabowsky and Sexton work in the darkroom with analogue and experimental photography.

Danica Chappell has a haptic approach to making. She uses her body as a measuring stick, feeling her way through lengthy and timed photographic processes in the darkroom. Eschewing the camera, Chappell instead manipulates found objects and light to create laborious, complex photographic images that can be scaled to meet the full potential of specific sites. Objects discarded but reclaimed by the artist undertake a transformative process in the darkroom finding new shape as abstract compositions.

Guy Grabowsky is concerned with how he can leave a trace of himself in his images. He manipulates works in the darkroom and scratches the physical surface of his photographs. His consideration of visual texture and its consumption plays an important role. As a photographer dissecting the image as conceptual ground, and interrogating the physical manifestation of photography and its rich history, Grabowsky explores the way that space is represented and re-represented in a predominantly digital era.

Ben Sexton’s (né Lichtenstein) work is as much a comment about artistic expression as it is about capturing what it is we see in photographic form. In the darkroom, Sexton uses exposures of light to overlay images with experimental drawing and painting techniques. Sexton’s acute observations of his surroundings is present in his pictures. His interest lies in everyday experiences, his works featuring the energy of Melbourne streets and containing sweet memories that could be your own – adoration for your wife or a love of football.

Dates: 30 June until 22 July 2018. Attend on Facebook
Hours: Thursday to Sunday 12:00–6:00pm