ABOUT | Open Life Drawing

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OPEN - LIFE - DRAWING is a live drawing and performance exhibition taking place Monday the 17th to Friday the 21st of April 2023 at the University of Melbourne George Paton Student Gallery and across the Parkville campus at the performance artist's discretion.

The exhibition's audience will be invited to watch and draw volunteer performance artists as life drawing models, using provided drawing materials and supports. Audience members may then choose to display their drawings on the walls and ceiling of the gallery space.

The artworks of the show will thus exist in two forms:

Live performances by the volunteer life drawing models/performance artists.
The accumulation of drawings in the gallery space over the exhibition, drawn by the audience members watching the performances.

In order for drawings to be made, there must be models for the audience and attending artists to draw. This is where you come in.

Performance artists will be allocated 1 hour performance slot between 12pm and 5pm, Monday the 17th - Friday the 21st of April. You will have the choice of performing in the gallery space, or anywhere of your liking on Parkville campus. During this 1 hour slot they may do whatever they please, as long as it adheres to the following requirements:

Performers must move slowly, in small short bursts or not at all to allow adequate stillness for audiences to draw them. However, all other details, including in what ways stillness or slowness are incorporated into your performance, are open and up to you.
Performances must be largely PG for family friendly viewing and participation. So no explicit sex acts, violence or hate speech will be tolerated.
Followingly, Performers must be appropriately clothed during performances, although the details of your costume are completely open to you.

Other than these three rules, you will have complete creative freedom. Your slot is yours to do with what you please. You can dance, play an instrument, bring in props or even a troupe of co-performers. We will provide the performance space, supports for you to interact with, a week of rehearsal opportunities, professional documentation and ample advertising of your involvement in the exhibition.

IMPORTANTLY: because this is a student-run exhibition in a student-run gallery, we are unable to provide payment for your time. However, we will do everything else in our power to ensure this is an enriching and memorable experience for all involved, as well as an excellent collaborative learning, meeting, collaborating and portfolio reference-worthy experience for all student, artist and performance volunteers involved.

Drawings Artist - Kierah Falkner Babbel

NOTE: this is not
the gallery space.

The final layout will have a far more
integrated
performance/
drawing layout.

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Ballet Dancer - Maryam Hassan Adly

The actual performance space is the George Paton Gallery Artslab. The Artslab will be populated with a selection of unique physical supports for performers and participants such as chairs, aerobics equipment, blocks and platforms. No two supports will be the same, not unlike a playground. The goal is for the space to foster opportunity and play for performers and audiences. Each performer can enter and choose to engage whichever supports or objects they please.

However, in addition to the Artslab gallery space, we are considering expanding into the following areas according to performer interest:

Performances by artists across the parkville campus, extending out from the gallery space and making the most of the beautiful sunshiney campus - as well as hoping to engage students who might not normally attend galleries.
Poetry Readings/Talks/Muscial Perfomances by life drawing models.
Sessions with booked/volunteer Life Drawing Teachers.

If you are particularly interested / averse to any of the above things, be sure to include it in your application :)

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