Peter Burke

Vin Ryan, Peter Burke and Tara Gilbee occasionally collect found, handwritten notes from their surroundings. Each collection represents a series of communications between people but also a gathering of ephemeral objects. In this project, the artists join forces to reinterpret these collections using paint, photography and photograms. A singular anthology of discarded material is shuffled and rearranged into a ready-made conversation. Not quite a stream of consciousness nor a linear, coherent narrative, the artists open the dialogue back into the streets. They aim to establish broader connections, uncover traces and remnants, and even make contact with the dead.

A psychic reading of the found notes took place during the opening event revealing more about the messages, the writers and the finders.

Five Walls, Footscray, Melbourne
7 June – 1 July 2023

Photography: Vin Ryan

Scrub. Wipe. Rinse. Repeat is an immersive ephemeral experiment that emphasises the vital role of sanitation in our daily lives. It engages visitors in a unique sensory experience that will leave them feeling invigorated. Despite being heavy on process, Scrub. Wipe. Rinse. Repeat. has a light touch that will satisfy (almost) everyone.

Treatment III, Western Treatment Plant, 21-22 April, 2023. Link

Supported by Wyndham City and Deakin University.

Performers: Steffi Gill, Ryan Darwin, Charlie Thompson, Samantha Thompson, Kulvinder.

Notes is a series of large-scale drawings and paintings of small, handwritten notes. They are developed from some of the 200 notes, memos, instructions, requests and demands that I have collected in public spaces in Melbourne. In their original contexts the notes seem mundane but when considered closely they make compelling artefacts. Each message carries a unique sensibility. The handwriting and marks on the paper are visually intriguing. Enlarged onto paper and canvas up to three metres wide, each note takes on a monumental quality. With scant explanation, readers are left to read between the lines. The ordinary messages may produce unexpected conversations. They may become poetic, philosophical, political, even profound. Behind the banality and humour, they may even provoke thought about how we manage social space and relate to one another.

The work was created during a studio residency kindly supported by Strange Engine in Preston, Melbourne in 2020-21.

strangeengine.org

Top photo: Silversalt Photography

Please note is a series of paintings of handwritten notes, notices and signs I have found in urban sites including shop windows, offices and footpaths. I have recorded the individual items in paint, detailing the handwriting as well as the folds, tears and stains in the paper. The series forms an archive of the quotidian that reflects our current social condition.

So far, I have collected approximately 200 notes, notices and signs. In their original contexts they are seemingly banal instructions, reminders, requests and memos: ‘Please Keep Your Distance’. ‘Help Yourself’. ‘Need $ For New Death Star’. With scant explanation, readers are left to read between the lines. Who wrote them? Who are they for? What is going on? While many of the messages I have collected are general in nature, more recent additions relate to social behaviour that has been shaped by the COVID-19 restrictions in Melbourne.

The notes, notices and signs make compelling artefacts when they are detached from their original contexts. Each message has a unique form and presentation. The handwriting, crumped paper and adhesive tape are visually intriguing. They reveal a broader relationship to time, space and people. Whether they are scrawled in haste or penned carefully, the ordinary messages become poetic, philosophical or profound.

Acrylic and oil on wood panels.
Various sizes.
2020

Stamp. Press. Scrape. Pull. Stretch. Drag. Scratch. Tug. Oscillate. Roll. Unwind. Repeat. What Goes Around Comes Around is a never-ending installation in the making. Its continuous surface is both a palette and a canvas with only one side and only one edge. The inside becomes the outside and the front becomes the back.

Visitors were invited contribute to the live artwork as it expanded and unraveled over seven days. Created from 22-28 September at the Mining Exchange, Ballarat, Australia for 2018 The Biennale of Australian Art.

Photography:
Luka Kauzlaric (The Courier, Ballarat)
Peter Burke
Adele Varcoe

Catch Your Breath is a participatory project that examines the significance of the human breath and how it can be made apparent. The project consists of a pop-up stall, a workshop and a museum archive. Participants are invited to engage in a series of breathtaking experiences and donate a breath sample to an ever-expanding archive of breaths. The project generates lively conversations about the individual and the collective breath as forms of encounter and exchange between people and their environments. Catch Your Breath extends Marcel Duchamp’s playful examinations of ‘value’ in his artwork Air de Paris (1919)—a glass vial containing 50 cc of Paris air. 

Catch Your Breath was presented at PSi, Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, South Korea in 2018.

Photographs: 
Peter Burke
PSi

The Booreaucrats (Ben Sheppard and Peter Burke) are an administrative arm of The Bureau for the Organisation of Origins (BOO). The BOO is an ongoing, collaborative visual arts project working to interrogate issues relating to Australian national identity.

Image:
Booreaucrats (2018), digital photograph on paper.
Photograph: Ben Sheppard and Peter Burke, printed with the assistance of Andrew McLaughlin.

Waiting For You (2017) invites reflection upon spaces of waiting where pending moments of arrival and departure are filled with a profound sense of anticipation.

Media: Pigment inkjet print.
Dimensions: 790 mm x 1117 mm.
Photography: Andrew McLaughlin.
Price available on request

Air Cabinet is a ‘community service’ designed to generate discussion around the value of the human breath. It features a pop-up stall manned by a self-professed ‘breath expert’. Visitors to Air Cabinet are invited to donate, sell or swap their breath in small glass test tubes.

Air Cabinet was first presented at Hoffman Square, Bloemfontein, South Africa as part of Public Art Projects at Vrystaat Kunstefees in 2017. Over five days, 500 breath samples were recorded—including heavy breaths, short gasps, smelly puffs and warm morning breaths.

Images courtesy Soñador Studio, Elysium Productions and Stronk Magazine.

Exit (2017), oil and enamel on wooden panel.

Mishap (2013-17) takes the form of a simple gesture—spilling the contents of a briefcase into pedestrian traffic. The action was repeated in multiple locations to gather a range of responses. It proved difficult to assess the different reactions in such a brief encounter. When passersby engaged it appeared to reveal kindness and empathy. When passersby did not assist, it begged the question of whether it was the business suit and it’s associations with power, the way pedestrians are conditioned to engage or disengage in public space, the fear of corruption or apathy that prevented people from helping.

Media: Single channel video.
Duration: 3.50 min.
Photography / Videography: Jasmine Bloom, Michael Rees-Lightfoot, Saeko Ehara, Elysium Productions and Dopeshots.

Mishap (Shanghai) (2013)
Supported by a Student Mobility Grant and Art in Public Space at RMIT University.

Mishap (Tokyo) (2014)
Supported by Australia Council for the Arts and Youkobo Artspace in Toyko.

Mishap (New Delhi) (2015)

Mishap (Bloemfontein) (2017)
Supported by Public Art Projects, Vrystaat Kunstefees, South Africa.

Treaty is a participatory art project created by Peter Burke and Adele Varcoe for The Bureau for the Organisation of Origins (BOO*) at BLINDSIDE in Melbourne in 2017. The piñata was constructed from office stationery including 'post-it-notes', paper clips and cardboard packaging to form the shape of Australia. When blindfolded participants ceremoniously broke the piñata with a wooden ruler, 100s of chocolates in wrappers bearing the word 'Treaty' spilled onto the floor.

The project is deceptively light and playful, but in the context of the BOO exhibition, it drew attention to calls for a treaty and proposals to recognise Indigenous people in Australia that have not been realised.

*The BOO is a collaborative and interdisciplinary art project that explores the national preoccupation with identity by examining Australia’s cultural self-evaluation leading up to, and ‘celebrated’ on, Australia Day.

Photography: Andrew McLaughlin and Peter Burke

Attaché Case is an exhibition of 41 miniature artworks inside a diplomatic bag. In 2015, Peter Burke invited asylum seekers and refugees in Melbourne to create artworks for an exhibition that addressed their refugee experience. The artists, some of whom were living in detention centres, came from countries including Afghanistan, Columbia, Egypt, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Poland, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. In their artworks they explored diverse issues about detainment, political policies, optimism and waiting. Many artists wrote messages on the reverse of their artwork. The project poignantly captures the personal experience of refugees and gives voice to those who are seldom heard or seen.

Attaché Case was conceived for ‘Low Cost Diplomatic Bag’, a traveling exhibition curated by Nilo Casares (ART-EX, Madrid). Nilo commissioned 16 international artists from different countries to present their local Spanish embassy with their own version of a diplomatic bag. ‘Low Cost Diplomatic Bag’ evolved out of the Embassy’s commitment to continue to present exhibitions of cultural importance, albeit amidst Spain’s financial crisis.

To launch Attaché Case, Peter Burke flew from Melbourne to Canberra, handcuffed to the briefcase. On his arrival, Deputy Head of Mission, Cesar Espada, escorted Peter to the Embassy of Spain where the Ambassador, Enrique Viguera freed Peter at a ceremonial event attended by the media. The contents of the briefcase were then revealed for the first time.

Between 2015 and 2016 Attaché Case was exhibited at the Immigration Museum, Melbourne and at four other locations across Spain, Italy, Chile and the USA as part of ‘Low Cost Diplomatic Bag’. In 2019, Attaché Case found a permanent home at Museums Victoria.

Attaché Case artists include: Mitra Ashanti, Neda Daryabar, Alyana Eau, Duane (Noony) Falconer, BHR, Sririhan Ganeshan, Dagmara Gieysztor, Tadros Hanna, Khadija Haydari, Sakhidad Haydari, Zohreh Izadikia, Mehdi Jaghuri, Carmenza Jimenez Osorio, Azizeh Khademi, Mahelyeh Kalhour, Samaneh Malekshahi, Gyorgyi Marek, Margaret Mayhew, Minh Phan, Anthony Rodriguez, Eghbal Saki, Tohid Sahebi Kouchaksaraei (Rayka), M.S., Maryam Sepasi, Honey & Azizeh.

Photography: César Espada Sanchez, Samira Ghasempour, Ian Lumsden, Jamila Toderas and Peter Burke.

Museums Victoria collection:
https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/17538

Museums Victoria article
https://museumsvictoria.com.au/article/attache-case/

The Canberra Times
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/low-cost-diplomatic-bag-arrives-at-spanish-embassy-20150206-137vxg.html

ABC Radio Canberra
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-06/art-project-gives-refugees-an-international-voice/6074834

Whaleburger (2013-14) is a response to the issue of commercial whaling in the southern ocean that was topical in the Australian media in 2013-14. To provoke conversations with the public about the issue, I wore two sandwich boards which addressed commercial whaling in different ways. In Melbourne, the boards promoted a new 'whaleburger', while in Tokyo they took the form of protest signs.

Supported by Youkobo Artspace, Tokyo.

Photography: Saeko Ehara, Adele Varcoe, Peter Burke.

In the collaborative work, Love is in the Fair (2014), Peter Burke and Adele Varcoe offered an 'art speed date' service at the Melbourne Art Fair. Supplied with an itinerary and a rose, Fair goers embarked on a tour of the Fair that encouraged conversations and questions about art and artworld relationships. Love is in the Fair formed part of Social Capital / MAF Edge, curated by Jacqueline Doughty.

Love is in the Fair Vendors included Sarah Edwards, Alice Lewis, Tass Joannides and Louise Lavarack.

Photography: Tom Teutenberg and Yandell Walton.

News: 
Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/a-buzz-of-love-at-the-opening-of-melbourne-art-fair-20140813-103t70.html

Ban the Biennale? (2014) is a one man 'public protest' intended to generate discussion around the value of art. It features a tent, a ‘protester’ and placards posing cheeky questions: Is this art? How can art change the world? Where is the plinth? Does art suck? Visitors to the Lorne Sculpture Biennale were invited to create placards for display in a discursive installation around the tent. The lone ‘protester’, roaming the foreshore on a tricycle, broadcast questions over a megaphone and drew the public into lively and off-the-cuff debate about the art on display and art in general.

Photography: Samira Ghasempour, Peter Burke, Louise Lavarack.
Video: Rebecca Sharp

Over the Barricade (2014) is a tongue-in-cheek picket line installed in the grounds of the Footscray Arts Centre and the Incinerator Gallery in Melbourne, which directly engages in the debate around the evaluation of art.

Over the Barricade employs tactics of pseudo-protest and humour to engage in a discussion with the issues at the Spectres of Evaluation conference. The artwork draws attention to the paradoxes and questions raised by socially engaged art practices: the distinction between art, audiences and art language, and the vast gap between art and real life.

Created in collaboration with Louise Lavarack.

Performers: Bob Bramble, James Bowden, Leanne Sampson-Bowden, Gabrielle Curtain, John Ford, Rod Gaskell, Lance Lessels, Nonqaba Mabulu, Jaime Enrique Gutiérrez Pérez, Kieran Stewart and Adele Varcoe.

Photography: Samira Ghasempour and Peter Burke.
Videography: Yandell Walton.

Tissue-pack marketing is a popular form of guerrilla advertising in Japan. For Free Tissues (2014), I borrowed this method to distribute 300 of my own branded tissue packs to passersby in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Photography: Saeko Ehara.

Supported by Youkobo Artspace.

Pick Up Clips is not only a game of ritual and a task of endurance, it is an administrative nightmare. Pick Up Clips was performed at Blindside ARI, (2017) and RMIT Creative Space (2018) in Melbourne as part of the Bureau for the Organisation of Origins (BOO).

Photographs:
Ben Sheppard, Samira Ghasempour, Peter Burke

Shanghai Pyjamas (2013) was conceived as a performative intervention into the retail hub of Shanghai, but the figures clothed in silk pyjamas seemed at home in Nanjing Road.

Photography: Michael Rees-Lightfoot.

Supported by Art in Public Space at RMIT University.

Triage (2013) pays respect to the demise of an illegally poisoned tree in the City of Melbourne. Artists Louise Lavarack and Peter Burke transformed the plane tree on the corner of Elizabeth and Therry Streets into a road side memorial. Lavarack wrapped the tree in cotton wool and gauze bandages and Burke invited the public to write and pin tribute notes to the tree.

Photography: Peter Burke and Louise Lavarack.

Sparkel (2007-13) is a state of the art mobile cleaning and grooming service that reaches out to the great unwashed with a long mop and some latex gloves. Cleansing the crud and sanitising the soul live on the streets in a unique performative event that elevates the mundane and celebrates the beauty of a blemish. Sparkel sterilises and decontaminates the tarnished and smeared, as well as rescuing plastic shopping bags from trees. Their special service also includes personal grooming—loose nostril hair, broken flip-flops and bad language mouth rinses.

With Jason Maling, Torie Nimmervoll at White Night, Melbourne, 2013.
With Robin Hely at Tramjatra (curated by Mick Douglas), Melbourne, 2007.

Photography: Peter Burke, Jason Maling, Briele Hansen, Irene Crusca and Karen Trist.

The Standard Special Lift-Out is a four-page fictional lift-out inserted into The Standard newspaper in Warrnambool, Australia on Saturday 11 November 2012. The Lift-Out features news, advertisements and photos which playfully critique topical issues.

Commissioned by the Warrnambool Art Gallery in collaboration with The Standard newspaper. Curated by Gareth Colliton.

Print run: 11,000 copies.
Photography: Peter Burke

Findings (Gloves) is a series of drawings of lost and abandoned hand gloves I found on roads and pavements over one year in Melbourne.

Media: Conte pastel, charcoal, graphite and enamel on paper.
Dimensions: Each drawing measures 370 mm x 270 mm.
Date: 2010-11
Prices available on request.

Catalogue Essay by Kirsten Rann, 2011

During a trip to New York in 2011, I found 14 discarded hand gloves on the ground and carefully noted the time, date and location of each glove sighting. These items of urban flotsam, often found in the singular, hint at intimate social narratives—a latex glove in a phone booth, a gardening glove at a bus stop, a workers glove under a bridge. The gloves are like those found anywhere, but the shapes they formed on the pavement were unique. Back in Australia, the gloves became a series of observational drawings and an edition of off-set prints printed on archival rag paper at Big Fag Press in Sydney.

Drawings:
Graphite, enamel and conte on Fabriano paper.
Dimensions: 370 mm x 270 mm.
Date: 2011

Prints:
Off-set prints on Hahnemühle rag paper.
Dimensions: 320 mm x 240 mm.
Supported by Field Theory.

Pursuit: Artstage Singapore (2013)
Pursuit's exclusive list of artists include Janelle Arena, Cath Barcan, Paul Borg, Peter Burke, Carolyn Cardinet, Anna Cheng, Ross Coulter, Sue Dodd, Kim Donaldson, Merrin Eirth, Samira Ghasempour, Michael Graeve, Bridget Hillebrand, Danielle Hobbs, Carol Hummell, Kim Hyun Ju, Kyoko Imazu, Tassia Joannides, Geoff Koons, Damon Kowarsky, Tim Lane, Louise Lavarack, Beat Lippert, Anna Macleod, Jason Maling, John R Neeson, Torie Nimmervoll, Anna Parry, Drew Pettifer, Princess Pea, Kieran Stewart, Meredith Turnbull and Irene Wellm.

Pursuit: Art Wallah at India Art Fair, New Delhi (2013) in collaboration with Gallery Nature Morte. Artists include Ajay Desai, Dileep Sharma, Gauri Gill, Hema Upadhyay, Jagannath Panda, Jayanta Roy, Josh P.S., M. Parvat, Madhvi Parekh, Manil Rohit, Manisha Parekh, Mona Rai, Nidhi Agarwal, Princess Pea, Ramakrishna Behera, Raqs Media Collective, Samit Dass, Tauseef Khan and Thukral & Tagra.

Images courtesy Art Stage Singapore, Alessandro Brasile.

In 2012 Pursuit’s roaming gallerist showcased 90 artworks by 30 artists at the Melbourne Art Fair.

Artists: Colleen Ahern • Janelle Arena • Cath Barcan • Paul Borg • Peter Burke • Carolyn Cardinet • Sue Dodd • Merrin Eirth • David Glenister • Samira Ghasempour • Michael Graeve • Kyoko Imazu • Bridget Hillebrand • Damon Hirst • Kim Hyonju • Kyoko Imazu • Tassia Joannides • Damon Kowarsky • Tim Lane • Louise Lavarack • John R Neeson • Drew Pettifer • Anna Parry • Julie Patey • Princess Pea • Natasha Preenja • Phil Roubin • Shannon Smiley • Kieran Stewart • Irene Wellm

Photography: Phil Roubin, Peter Burke, Peter Lamont

Riding on the coat-tails of its success at the Melbourne Art Fair in 2010, Pursuit Delhi unveiled a brand new exhibition at the India Art Fair in 2012. With one of the world’s fastest growing economies and an expanding collector base, India was a fitting location to showcase Australian artworks and Pursuit took a vested interest in tailoring blue chip investments for well-suited collectors.

Artists: Colleen Ahern • Janelle Arena • Cath Barcan • Paul Borg • Peter Burke • Carolyn Cardinet • Irene Crusca • Sue Dodd • Kim Donaldson • Juan Ford • David Glenister • Michael Graeve • Hari Haritos • Grant Hill • Kyoko Imazu • Bridget Hillebrand • Tassia Joannides • Sue Kneebone • Damon Kowarsky Louise Lavarack • Brendan Lee • David Lowry • Yi-Fang Lu • Jason Maling  John R Neeson • Annabel Nowlan • Louise Paramor • Julie Patey • Nusra Latif Qureshi • Naeem Rana • Phil Roubin • Vin Ryan • Chico Volante • Irene Wellm

Photography: Annabel Nowlan, Natasha Tagra

Pursuit (2010) is a unique viewing experience, takes the hassle out of buying art and offers blue chip investments to discerning art collectors everywhere. Pursuit’s roaming gallerist markets original paintings, drawings, photographs and prints by the nation's most collectable artists at the Melbourne Art Fair:

Artists: Colleen Ahern • Cath Barcan • Paul Borg • Peter Burke & Natasha Preenja • Lane Cormick • Irene Crusca • Kim Donaldson • Sue Dodd • David Glenister • Briele Hansen • Bridget Hillebrand • Gina Kalabishis • Louise Lavarack • Brendan Lee • Jason Maling • John R Neeson • Annabel Nowlan • Julie Patey • Lisa Radford • David Ralph • Naeem Rana • Phil Roubin • Nusra Qureshi • Irene Wellm

Photography: Phil Roubin, Peter Burke

Pursuit at the Melbourne Art Fair, Inside Art, Channel 31

Everyone’s A Winner (1 & 2), (2011-16)

Dimensions: 71 cm x 56 cm.
Media: Giclee print on Somerset Museum Rag
Photography: Peter Burke / Callum Perry

Bin Nite Tonite and Man Tidies Shed (2008) are two large-scale billboards located on Kororoit Creek Road, Altona in Melbourne, Australia. The iconic tabloid headlines broadcast not the big news stories, but mundane events, the profound in the banal, and the poetry of the everyday.

Commissioned by the City of Hobson’s Bay, Altona.

Dimensions: 12 m x 3 m.
Media: Digital print on vinyl.
Photography: Peter Burke

Drawing upon the rich Indian tradition of gift-giving festivals such as Racha and Racha Bandhan, Family Photos (Pariwar) (2006) celebrates the incredible and unconditional welcome afforded to visitors in India where families invite virtual strangers into their lives and homes including them in family-orientated rituals and celebrations.

During their stay in Bodhgaya, in Bihar, India, the artists Carol Hummel (USA), Anna Macleod (Ireland) and Peter Burke (AUS) met people on the streets and took photos of themselves with their new adopted families. Something of the spontaneity of these meetings is captured in each snapshot. Friends photographed were invited to see the 560 photographs produced and were given their photographs as a gift from their newest family members.

The notion of exchange, friendship and memory mementoes is at the core of the project and underpins the artists’ desire to connect and communicate with people in different locations around the world.

Photography: Carol Hummel, Anna MacLeod, Peter Burke.

Supported by Budha Englightened.

Shellywood™ (2006-7) is an extravagant celebration of the large iconic Bollywood hoardings of India. Using the typography, colour and exuberance found in Indian advertising, four billboards feature Shelly Innocence™, a former supermodel, in a true love triangle/melodrama, surrounded by arranged marriage partner, boyfriend, doting grandmother and disapproving father. Shellywood™ is an experiment in adjusting and manipulating public perception. It aims to challenge the borders between art and advertising and entertainment, delivering to a mass audience in commercial/urban context.

Two hand painted billboards (each 6 metres long) travelled around New Delhi on a trailer pulled by an elephant as Shelly stopped to pose for photographs and sign autographs.

A 45-metre digital print took full advantage of the expansive Kelvin Grove site in Brisbane, Australia and a smaller version adorned the Rochester Castle Hotel in Johnston Street, Fitzroy in Melbourne.

Photography: Jesse Stiles, Olivia Robinson, Carol Hummel, Anna MacLeod and Peter Burke.

Supported by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Global Arts Village and Queensland University of Technology.

QUT billboard goes Bollywood

Innocence™ (2004-5) is a strategic marketing campaign promoting a range of intangible products that other companies only dream about — Integrity™, Trust™, Hope™, Honesty™ and Happiness™. Shelly Innocence™, the face of the campaign, is a former supermodel, international athlete and a retail in-store demonstrator. She exists on the border between art and advertising. If consumerism is the religion of our culture then Shelly Innocence™ is the embodiment of Faith™. Using billboards and media events in Melbourne, Innocence™ challenges the fine line between art and advertising by direct marketing of the human spirit. Innocence™’s website (shellyinnocence.com) received 10,000 hits in its first week.

Innocence team™: Shelly Innocence™, Peter Burke, Julie W Hunt, Cath Barcan, Sue Moss, Robin Hely and Amanda Morgan.

Supported by Arts Victoria (Arts and Professional Development Grant).

No delivery is too far or too short for Starlink Express, a dubious, Australian courier company assigned to hand deliver a huge, brown paper parcel (300 cm x 100 cm x 80 cm) with an illegible address in Oporto, Portugal.

In September 2001’s volatile political climate, Starlink Express captured the seemingly insignificant task of asking for directions in a foreign country using the latest parcelcam technology (a video camera inside the parcel ). Parcelcam enabled Starlink Express to document their interactions with pedestrians who wanted to help carry the parcel, asked numerous questions and told the couriers where to go.

In 2002, Starlink Express temporarily took over Conical Inc. as a warehouse/gallery for projecting the parcelcam video within an installation of 300 unwrapped boxes.

Artists Robin Hely and Peter Burke use the guise of couriers to explore the blurred territory between public/private, art/performance and the everyday where the street becomes an engaging performance space for improvised narratives and the contents of the mysterious parcels are the focus of ongoing speculation.

Starlink Express was supported by Brrr Live Performance Art Festival in Oporto, the Australian Embassy in Lisbon and Friends of the VCA, Melbourne.

Photography: Greg Elms.

Pedestrian Times (2002) is a 20-page mock newspaper distributed to unsuspecting commuters during rush hour by a team of paperboys on the streets of Melbourne. The timely public art event commented on tabloid media and its current explosion on Melbourne’s streets via free papers such as MX, as well as the public’s appetite for soft news.

Print run: 800 copies.
Photography: Peter Burke and Darren McCran.

Small news is big news! Commuter News is a hard-hitting tabloid newspaper that broadcasts not the big news events, but the small moments and the poetry of the everyday. Man Loses Button, Dog Fart Fells Family of Four, Lunch Left at Home.

Run of 800 tabloid newspapers, 1998.
With contributions from Melbourne artists.
Copies available on request.

Headlines (1999–) breaks all the big news stories! Man loses button, Fridge shudders, Lunch left at home, Man forgets PIN, Happiness outbreak—Epidemic proportions! Over 500 hard hitting headlines from fictional newspapers including Pedestrian Times, The Echo, The Civilian, The Republican, Fiscal Times, Commuter News and The Phoenix were posted on the facade of the old Herald Weekly Times building in Flinders Street, Melbourne and other sites between 1999 and 2010.

Produced in collaboration with Julie W Hunt.

Media: Printed text on tabloid newsprint.

RIP (2002) is an exploration of true manhood via a pencil moustache.

Single channel video.

Duration: 2:38 minutes.

FutureX™ is a playful exploration of the ambiguous territory between fact and fiction in the mass media. The project employed marketing strategies to generate conversations about the hype surrounding the Y2K bug and end of the world on January 1, 2000.

Leading up to the year 2000, ‘Professor Chan’, a self-professed scientist, procured the FutureX™ Millennium Pill—the ‘antidote’ to the Y2K bug. In the three months before the new millennium, Chan distributed thousands of FutureX™ Millennium Pills to Melburnians from his Millennium Buggy.

Following the success of the Millennium Pill, Professor Chan presented his entire project in a documentary-style exhibition entitled After Effects at TBC Gallery in Melbourne (2000). The exhibition included photographs and video, fictional millennium newspaper headlines, a real newspaper featuring Professor Chan, two large Millennium Pill sculptures, a computer with a flash animation and top-secret documents, hand written testimonials, the FutureX™ Millennium Buggy and a ‘Welcome to 2000’ door mat. A special viewing platform enabled visitors to peer into a cabinet to see the very last Millennium Pill. At the launch, two uniformed ‘policemen’ arrived unannounced and removed Professor Chan from the premises.

Photography: Dale Nason, Julie W Hunt, Dennis Manktelow and Peter Burke.

Although Princess Incandescence (1998) has her own business card she does not exist without a camera. A complete fabrication for the sake of the lens, she moves from pose to pose, declares she is not a parody, she is her own woman. Tottering on the edge of the burlesque in her giant shoes made of glued and layered foamcore innersole, she searches for her 'real' self. She is the star of costume drama.

Materials: 10,000 metres of lunchwrap, 5,000 staples, 3,000 bean bag balls, 50 metres of crepe paper and 4 litres of PVA glue.

Photography: Network Ten, Julie W Hunt.