A situated practice explores one artist’s approach to navigating the shifts and changes inherent in the public space of the post-industrial city and suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Collaborative, ephemeral, site-specific, relational works in three specific sites; Station Pier in Port Melbourne, automated pedestrian crossings throughout the city, and at the Western Treatment Plant, the sewerage facility on the western edge of Melbourne’s urban sprawl, explore everyday public sites to stake a claim for the imagination. Engaging with the work of critical theorists including Rosi Braidotti, Franco Bifo Berardi and Donna Haraway I am interested in how the abstraction of ordinary experiences and spaces allow artists and audience to co-constitute the possibility of something other, triggering fleeting transformative acts of imagination. Through this body of work, I am learning how to leave the marks of care for the future and ‘stay with the trouble.’ (Haraway, 2016, p.10).
A situated practice
Abstract
Author Biography
AustraliaFiona Hillary is a lecturer and Industry Fellow in the Master of Arts - Art in Public Space at the School of Art, RMIT University, Australia. Fiona curates the Urban Laboratory for RMIT University’s Contemporary Art and Social Transformation CAST research group. The Urban Laboratory uses live test sites of practice to explore urban contexts engaging art practices in a research and project delivery model in partnership with local government. She is a practicing public artist, collaborating on a range of temporary and permanent investigative projects. Her most recent work 37°57'02.5"S 144°38'02.0"E marks the beginning of a creative cartography for the future. Fiona's research interests are in collaborative practice, the use of socially-engaged art practice as research methodology in public spaces with a specific focus on temporary installations. Fiona is a PhD Candidate at Deakin University exploring the role of public practice in re-imaging futures. With Shanti Sumartojo she co-authored the paper Empty-Nursery Blue: On atmosphere, meaning and methodology in Melbourne street art published in Public Art Dialogue (2014: 4: 2 :201-220).
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