Wyndham Creatives Catch-up - Venice Biennale Mentorship

Wyndham Arts & Culture are hosting the very first Creative Catch-up of 2025!

Join us and hear from the recipient of the Venice Biennale Mentorship Opportunity, The Artist Known as FOOT about their experiences in Venice. The conversation and QnA will be lead by Annette Wagner (Wunder Gym). 

In 2024, Wyndham City partnered with Deakin University to support a local artist to work on the international stage at the Venice Biennale with host organisation, the European Cultural Centre, on the project, Venetian Bind, curated by Cameron Bishop and David Cross.  

The opportunity aimed to foster the creative skills of a local practitioner and build the creative capacity of the Wyndham community by encouraging cross-cultural exchange. It provided a rare platform for a Wyndham artist to develop and profile their practice alongside creative artists and researchers from across the disciplinary spectrum at Deakin University, with the exhibition of a series of resolved collaborative works at Palazzo Mora, Venice, in October and November 2024. 

This Creative Catch Up will give you an opportunity to hear FOOT and Annette Wagner in conversation about their experience at the Venice Biennale, the nature of collaboration in the context of a residency and the benefits of cross-cultural exchange.   

Join us for the conversation and stay for the opportunity to catch up with other local creatives. 

RSVPs essential for catering purposes. 

Entry is free. All welcome including family and friends.  

We hope you can join us! 

Please contact Wyndham Arts and Culture on arts@wyndham.vic.gov.au if you have accessibility requirements or questions. 

If you can't make the event, please subscribe to our Arts and Culture e-news. 

ABOUT ARTIST KNOWN AS FOOT
The Artist Known as FOOT is a non-binary, queer multidisciplinary artist based on Wadawurrung land in Melbourne’s outer west. Working within textiles, photography, and performance, they are known for their unique and absurdist takes on gender identity, sustainability, and beauty standards through the lens of sustainability, place, and reclamation. With a passion for uplifting the image of fat and queer bodies, their colourful and nostalgic works have been featured within festivals nationally, galleries both nationally and overseas, and Australia’s National Association for the Visual Arts. Their works are held in various collections across Australia, including the Blacktown Gallery permanent collection in Sydney.

ANNETTE WAGNER (HOST)

Annette Wagner is an artist who grew up along the Murray–Barka (Darling) rivers, Australia’s largest and most complex river system, and her interdisciplinary practice is situated in contemporary arts exploring concepts of memory and water ecology. Seeking to reveal new understandings of our connection with water her practices coalesce into abstracted sound and light artworks, site installations and absurdist performances that act to provoke the audience’s attention to consider water’s critical currency.

Currently completing her PhD at Deakin University, she was also a participant in the Venetian Bind place-responsive public art project, at the Venice Biennale at Palazzo Mora, in partnership with European Cultural Centre and curated by Melbourne-based researchers Associate Professor Cameron Bishop and Professor David Cross, who are also her PhD supervisors.

Beyond her artistic practice and PhD, she is the founder and director of the Wunder Gym, an arts program that has worked with hundreds of people, multiple institutions and aims to foster curiosity, creativity, collaboration and community.

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians

Wyndham City Council recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first Peoples of Australia. We acknowledge the Bunurong and Wadawurrung Peoples as Traditional Owners of the lands on which Wyndham City operates. The Wadawurrung and Bunurong Peoples have and always will belong to the Werribee Yalook (river), creeks, stars, hills and red clay of this Country. We pay respect to their Ancestors and Elders who always have, and always will, care for Country and community today and for future generations.

Image: The Artist Known as FOOT. Photo by Mauro Trentin.