Upcoming Events

Bus Projects is thrilled to announce our very first, super exciting off-site project since the closure of Lt Lonsdale St! Join us at fortyfivedownstairs from July 6-17 to explore The Sound Playground – an exhibition and performance series featuring experimental instruments, sound sculptures and sonic installations that span the borders of craft and sound!

Curated by Amelia Douglas and Nella Themelios, and co-presented by Craft Victoria, Bus Projects and fortyfivedownstairs as part of Liquid Architecture 2010, The Sound Playground features new commissioned works by Ros Bandt & Albert Mishriki, Rod Cooper, Emma Lashmar and Rowan McNaught.

Rod Cooper presents a new series of ‘sonic portraits’ in which items of clothing cast in concrete become the armature for the aural conjuring of well known personalities in the Australian sound scene. Emma Lashmar offers an exquisite hand-blown glass installation designed to be bowed and plucked. Ros Bandt and Albert Mishriki’s original music-boxes place the focus on disguise and gesture in the generation of sound, whilst Rowan McNaught’s interactive ‘Manifon’ (pictured above) offers a new take on an ancient instrument.

The entire exhibition will be played live in the gallery in three special performances by the artists and special guests including Sam Szoke-Burke, Nicholas Jones (artist / sculptor) and Adam Sherry (A Dead Forest Index).  All tix $15.

To book tickets visit http://soundplayground.eventbrite.com Performance times: July 8, July 14 & July 16 5:45-7:15pm. Three performances only! Limited seats! Bookings essential!

or go to http://soundplayground.eventbrite.com

The Sound Playgound is produced by Timothy Webster, and has been generously supported by the City of Melbourne and Liquid Architecture.

For media enquiries, including print ready images and inteview requests, contact Amelia Douglas on ameliadouglas@busprojects.com.au

Sound Playground, fortyfivedownstairs 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, July 6-17

“Where are they now?”: Musings from Bus artists

So you’ve had a show at Bus. It went well. Lots of people came and they seemed to like your art. What happens next? Is it a matter of sitting around and waiting for the exhibition offers to come flooding in? Will you need to fend off gallerists desperate to represent you? Or do you just return to your garret to starve some more? Hear three artists recount their experiences firsthand, starting with the exhibitions they have held at Bus and looking at the different directions they have taken since their shows. What did Bus actually offer them? Was it any different to what other ARIs or other art spaces offer?

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TAI SNAITH
Tai Snaith graduated with Honours from the VCA in 2002 and has since exhibited her site-specific illustration and collage work at various commercial and artist-run spaces, including several shows at Bus such as Faites de Lumiere (with Narinda Reeders) in 2003, Next Wave 21st Birthday Exhibition in 2004 and Broken Windows Theory in 2006. Tai has worked as a Visual Arts Producer for the Next Wave Festival, Melbourne Fringe and Emerging Writers’ Festival. She recently curated the collaborative site-specific program House Proud for the 2008 Next Wave Festival, which was restaged as a project space for the 2008 Melbourne Art Fair. After receiving an Australia Council grant to travel to Berlin and Glasgow in 2005, Tai initiated the New Ruins project which was presented as part of the Commonwealth Cultural Program for the 2006 Next Wave Festival. Tai regularly conducts a critical arts review program on 3RRR FM, and has recently completed the Australian Council Tokyo Residency.

MASATO TAKASAKA
Masato Takasaka is an artist living and working in Melbourne, Australia currently undertaking a Master of Fine Art (by Research) at the Faculty of Art and Design, Monash University. Masato completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1999 and held a studio at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces from 2002 to 2003. Recent exhibitions include Post Structural Jam (Shut up! We know you can play..) at Y3K Gallery, Melbourne and Cubism and Australian Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Masato has exhibited in various artist run, not for profit and commercial spaces across Australia and internationally, including Inverted Topology at Bus in 2002. Masato was a board member of Bus in 2006 and also teaches History and Theory of Interior Design at RMIT University.

CHRIS BOND
Chris Bond completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at RMIT University in 1997 and has since held exhibitions across Australia, including Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne Art Fair, RMIT Gallery, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, GrantPirrie Gallery, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Linden Arts Centre and Nellie Castan Gallery. Chris held a studio at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces in 2001-2002 and has since shown at Bus on three separate occasions. He is currently represented by Nellie Castan Gallery and his work is held in private collections in Australia, the USA and South America. For several years Chris was also Assistant Curator at the Counihan Gallery in Brunswick until he left in early-2009 to focus on his practice as a full-time artist.

Bus Projects, one of Melbourne’s longest running independent art spaces, is on the move and is celebrating with a huge closing party at their home of nine years in Little Lonsdale Street on Saturday 20th March.

Melbourne’s art community are banding together to show their support for this pivotal sound/art/experimental music venue with performances from local outfits including Snawklor (Nathan Gray, Dylan Martorell + Duncan Blachford), Gugg, Super Star and Fatti Frances alongside DJ’s Helen Johnson, and Roda Roda Sound System and a performance piece by V-Dentatas.

Artists including Norkiro Nakamura and Nat McQuade will be kicking off a wall-art installation in the gallery, which will be open to party goers to make their mark on a huge mural inside the soon to be demolished building.

Opening in 2001, Bus Projects is an independent art space with a focus on artists engaged in a spatial art practice. That is, any practice that uses its environment as a context to its staging such as sound art, performance, installation, video and the cross-pollination of these forms. Bus Projects continues to take an active role in the professional development of artists and curators through range of workshops and forums and all is not over for this seminal arts space. The team at Bus Projects are in the process of purchasing and transforming a fully operational passenger bus into an exciting new public arts space – allowing them to reach a larger audience, literally wherever Bus may take them. The “Bus Bus” will operate alongside a yet to be realised new gallery space in the inner city, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, get down to Bus Projects Closing Party from 4pm on Saturday 20th March. Tickets are $10 each and are strictly limited so be quick!

Update
Here’s the lineup for Saturday

Bands
4.30 – 4.50 Fatti Frances
5.45 – 6.45 Bert Alphett
7.00 – 8.00 Super Star
8.15 – 9.15 Gugg
9.15 Final speech from Bus Crew then V-dentatas
9.45 – close Snawklor

DJs
4.30 – 6.00 Helen Johnson
6.00 – 8.00 Roda Roda Sound System
8.00 – 9.15 Andrew McClelland