This field trip takes us to Wadawurrung Country, Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads for a session facilitated by artists Phoebe Thompson and Amber Smith.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:

Mindful practice: walking and collecting. This workshop asks participants to think about how they navigate conscious experience. A grounding exercise and object-based activity will begin the day; getting participants to connect to themselves, the external world, and the things within it. The workshop will involve an hour-long mindfulness walk—a dérive of sorts—from Ocean Grove to the Barwon Heads bridge that gets participants to think about psychogeography and the effect different environments (urban, natural) have on them. The day will end with participants sharing their experiences and showing their collected objects.

ITINERARY:

The workshop will go from 11.00am - 1.00pm (ish). Participants will arrive back at Platform Arts around 2.00pm. Alternatively, you can meet us at the workshop location.

10.00am: If you are catching the bus provided, please arrive at Platform Arts for a 10.00am departure.
10.30am: This workshop will begin at The Dunes cafe in Ocean Grove (https://goo.gl/maps/8V4Wi3uQjB...).
10.30am - 11.10am: Acknowledgement of Country, coffee, introduction and grounding exercise
11.10am - 11.40am: Object-based activity
11.40am - 12.40pm: Walk (dérive)
12.45pm - 1.30pm: Collected object presentation and debrief
1.30pm - 2.00pm: Workshop ends and participants depart from site or catch the return bus to Platform Arts, Geelong

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

This field trip does not accommodate access requirements. If you would like to participate and have access needs, please get in contact with us.
Participants should wear comfortable shoes and clothing and be prepared for weather changes. Participants should bring a backpack or bag with water, some lunch and any required personal possessions for the walk. This workshop requires a lot of walking.

Participants should bring a special small bag or box in which they can carry and present their collected objects.

FACILITATORS:

Phoebe Thompson
@pho_tho

Phoebe Thompson is an emerging curator, visual artist, and poet living and working on unceded Wadawurrung and Boon Wurrung land. Their multi-disciplinary practice is concerned with sustainability, personal identity, and the built and existing environment, whilst placing value on process, intuition, and sentimentality. They are in their final year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT.

Phoebe also volunteers at Connection Arts Space, and co-curates Time To Waste, an online journal with a focus on environmental, ecological, and sustainable creative practices. They programmed events for the 2020/2021 MPavilion season, including an online hand-dyeing workshop, and an environmentally-engaged arts panel. They have recently been selected as a finalist for the upcoming SETAC Art Prize, and are currently making works in collaboration with RMIT Creative and SIGNAL.

Amber Smith
@aufklarung_
www.ambersmithart.com

Amber Smith is an artist, curator, producer and writer working within the sphere of objects, thing theory and collection practices. Amber is a PhD candidate at Deakin University in the School of Communication and Creative Arts. They hold a Bachelor of Design Arts (Visual Arts) from the Australian Academy of Design and a First-Class Honours Degree in Creative Arts at Deakin University. Amber is the Curator at Platform Arts and an academic at LaSalle College International Melbourne (LCIM) and Deakin University.

Amber has worked on projects with the Victorian College of the Arts, Public Art Commission x Geelong Advertiser, Midsumma Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, Deakin University, Somebody’s Daughter Theatre Company, National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Headspace, Art Gusto, Geelong After Dark, Geelong City Council, Geelong Arts Centre and Geelong Gallery, along with being a founding member of The Good Excuse Guild and Studio 112. They’ve been a finalist in the Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Prize (2019) and have exhibited across Melbourne at Montsalvat, Craft Victoria, Deakin Art Gallery, Allpress Studios, Fawn Gallery, Noir Darkroom, Lovers and BSG, and internationally in Bogotá, Colombia. Amber created the female-identifying and non-binary led and devised symposia/exhibition Energetical and the Brackets Art Prize in regional Victoria. In 2020, Amber Smith released their first self-published work ‘Social Envelopes and Umbilical Blemishes’, a book that accompanies their PhD work ‘Constellations’.

"Ocean Grove" image supplied by Phoebe Thompson