The Annex

25 MARCH - 3 APRIL 2023

Artists used smell as a sculptural medium to extend on the concept of mortality and impermanence. As a highly nuanced sense, with an enormous capacity to trigger human emotions, they worked to evoke memories and arouse individual and shared histories.

Featuring:

• Jenny Rütsch 
• Elizabeth Anne van Herwaarden
• Xiang Li

4 APRIL - 19 APRIL 2023

The allusive question, rarely answered honestly and asked to all artists - What inspired this work? What was the starting point? An artist has the rare power to ascribe meaning and value to absolutely anything they choose; the art is in how convincing and captivating they are in the act of communicating and celebrating it.

Featuring:

• Will Francis
• Moreen Wellington Lyons
• Melanie Cochrane

22 APRIL - 4 MAY 2023

Delicious and sweet. Provocative. Disgusting subject matter. Courting controversy. Feminism in sugar. Craft used in contemporary discourse. Abject and absurd.

Featuring:

• Connor Ovenden-Shaw
• Christine Lining Bulandus
• Larissa Taylor

6 MAY - 17 MAY 2023

Humans are not alone in our collective social behaviour. From swarms of social insects, murmuration of birds, to molecular movements, swarming behaviour underlies nearly everything. We are also seeing swarm algorithms driving our future lives, in which we will see swarms of drones and nanorobots helping (or hindering) the very essence of what it means to be human.

Featuring:

• Carol Rowlands
• Maria Nardo
• Simpson Myers

20 MAY - 31 MAY 2023

‘A lump of volcanic rock in the middle of nowhere. It is worth wondering why we are so eager to construct hierarchies of place, where certain suburbs are reduced to their worst features at the expense of the people who live there. Communities are, after all, inherently multidimensional.’Fatima Measham, No Shit

Featuring:

• Cathy Mackay 
• Nandita Nadkarni
• Rukz One

3 JUNE - 14 JUNE 2023

‘The hands may almost be said to speak. Do we not use them to demand, promise, summon, dismiss, threaten, supplicate, express aversion or fear, question or deny? Do we not use them to indicate joy, sorrow, hesitation, confession, penitence, measure, quantity, number, and time? Have they not the power to excite and prohibit, to express approval, wonder, shame?’  Quintilia

Featuring:

• Meredith Ann Jones
• Eva Klusacek
• Melissa Lazaridis

20 JUNE - 2 JULY 2023

In April 2023, Wyndham emerging artist James Lazaridis showed his work at Plume Gallery as part of his first solo exhibition. Elements from that exhibition have been turned into projections for your viewing pleasure.  Author of A Parallel Universe includes works that come from personal themes that speak to his perspectives of ‘self and other’ in differing realities.  This show featured James' distinctive character drawings and celebrated his expansion of artistic processes in projection form.

5 JULY - 22 JULY 2023 

Wyndham City Arts & Culture and the indirect Object presented Chromatica: Colour Play, an interactive exhibition and workshop series that takes you on adventures into the world of colour and light.

The Annex became a playground of immersive experiences that explored the colour spectrum. Visitors were encouraged to play in the activity-filled exhibition, and/or stay for the workshops. Both the exhibition and the workshops were free to attend and designed for children of all ages.  

THURSDAY NIGHTS, ONCE A MONTH JULY 2023 – FEB 2024

Like an Open Mic Night, but for spoken word.  Words in The West was a night of live spoken word, visual performance and poetry, highlighting creators and writers in Melbourne's West. The nights are aimed at creative sharing, peer appreciation and public performance skill-building.

Host, Connor Ovenden-Shaw, also Known As Foot, is a non-binary queer artist based on Wadawurrung land in Melbourne's outer west. Working within textile, photography and performance, they are known for their unique and absurdist take of gender identity, sustainability and beauty standards.

Listen, speak, share, laugh, think.

SATURDAY AFTERNOONS, ONCE A MONTH JULY 2023 – FEB 2024

Each of Rod’s lunch hour music sessions included a performance followed by an interactive drum workshop to finish up the program, enabling everyone to join in and be part of the performance. It’s for everyone who would like to take part in the workshop and create some great rhythms together as a community.

Rod Pilois is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and music educator. He performs regularly on drum kit, percussion and guitar. When Rod is not performing his chill-out tunes in Latin-Jazz, he can be seen drumming with Beat Factor Drum Group (African/Brazilian) Johnny Longshot (Jamaican Ska) Gaia The Band (Reggae) around Melbourne. In 2018 he started the community drumming group (Beat Factor Drum Group) in the Western suburbs.

28 JUL - 11 AUG 2023 

Interacting with garments and creating immersive experiences was encouraged by Senses and Sensors. 

Senses and Sensors was a multi-disciplinary collaboration to exhibit technology wearables - interactive garments.  The exhibition incorporated garments made from recycling papers, sculpture with hardening and softening techniques, upcycling laces, biodegradable polymers, archived fabrics, scrap laces and abandon garments

14 AUG - 20 AUG 2023

Joiner photography is an art form where multiples photos of the same scene are overlapped, creating one big picture.

Jonabelle Cogan was in the Philippines and is a multidisciplinary artist with works varying from photography, line drawing, painting, printmaking, crocheting, dressmaking, silversmithing, and pottery. She derives inspiration from her surroundings, may it be nature, urban, or suburban, particularly highlighting the beauty in the everyday. Jonabelle’s mission is to share to people that we don't have to travel wide and far or even look hard to find beauty in our lives. Beauty is all around us if we still our minds.

21 AUG – 27 AUG 2023 

Nestled between Tarneit and Hoppers Crossing, Kingston Boulevard is a winding paradise of excessive dream houses. In this exhibition, Rachel’s photographic practice bought facets of domestic life and the politics of housing into the public realm. Recent works reflect and explore class tensions and politics through representations of the house/home and suburb/hometown.

Balancing an aesthetic of wealth, excess and kitsch, the exhibition explored responses to the structures of Kingston Boulevard and prompted thinking around domestic architecture and inequality, especially during a housing crisis.

Rachel Morley is a Wyndham-based artist and arts worker. Working across collage and analogue photography, Rachel’s practice explores anger, nostalgia, memory and the metaphorical ghosts bound to place. Her work responds to spaces and places as invisible repositories of the actions, emotions and people that have happened, lived or passed through. 

28 AUG – 3 SEP 2023

Art You OK? created a space to talk about art and mental health.

It was a showcase of the power of art in influencing mental health and providing people with a new option that they can adopt and apply to have better mental health.

The exhibition included works by Xiang Li, art therapists and local artists. The art therapists’ works related to how art can support mental well-being from a professional perspective. In contrast, the artists' works related to how they see the relationship between art and mental health.

Interactive sessions were included across the exhibition. With an art-therapist present, audience members were invited to create artwork to express their emotions or set well-being goals

6 SEP - 24 SEP 2023 

Inspiration. Creativity. Response. Expression. Aliveness.

Werribee South Gallery Group celebrates aliveness by exploring new experiences and expanding horizons. The group regularly shares individuals’ skills at lunches. Experimental workshops lead to playfulness, often recycling materials into something much more. Creative responses are inspired with words, poems, cartoons, photos, jokes, sketches and long discussions. Connections are creative support to all.

This exhibition shared the benefits that Werribee South Gallery Group has discovered from tapping into creative expression. There was a Making Table in the exhibition where skills sharing regularly took place and moments of creativity with those who drop in from the wider community.

27 SEP – 30 SEP 2023

A showcase of work by some of Wyndham’s local young creatives

An art exhibition of work by 8-16-year-old students of Imaroo Community Centre Art Classes.

Each week, artist and teacher Cathy Mackay works with 20 students exploring a range of art-making techniques and themes throughout the year to produce works on paper and canvas.  The mediums include charcoal on paper, watercolour, pencil and sculpture.

4 OCT – 22 OCT 2023

Presented as part of Melbourne Fringe and in partnership with Hobsons Bay City Council, artists from Melbourne's West see their worlds from new perspectives.  Wunder Gym is a practical art program to stretch and satisfy your creative curiosity. Emerging, established or simply curious creatives revel in the opportunity to extend their skills and practice culminating in a group exhibition.

Mentored by contemporary artist Elvis Richardson, artists from Melbourne’s Western regions drew inspiration from their local environment and communities as their playground. The prompt invited artists to be collectors, editors and curators using their local environment’s objects, recordings, sounds, images as their raw material and inspiration for an artwork. Exploring how their art practice changed the function of the chosen object.

24 OCT – 5 NOV 2023

Featuring works by Rukz One, Artstralis, Tommy Sea and Luke Haillay, I Will Figure It Out Laterinvited audiences to celebrate the ever-changing nature of art, where the process is as beguiling as the final masterpiece itself.

This extraordinary showcase emerged from a fluid concept, and through this very process, evolved into its captivating manifestation. Embracing the notion that the process itself is the ultimate art form, the exhibition artfully wove this theme throughout its entirety.

Artdecypher believes that art and creativity have no blueprint. Art is transformative and is shaped by, and adapts to, the time and place of its creation. They aim to shine a creative light that reaches new locations and audiences by paving new paths that challenge the “norm

8 NOV – 19 NOV 2023

Nuggets was an exhibition celebrating the third iteration of the long running public art project, Treatment which in 2023, ran from Spotswood, through Brooklyn, down to the Western Treatment Plant. Bringing objects and moments to life inside the gallery allows all those involved, alongside new audience, to re-imagine the social, material and technical connections this project has brought to the diverse communities of Melbourne’s West.

At the same time Nuggets afforded the curators an opportunity to pay tribute to key stakeholders Wyndham City and Melbourne Water and to celebrate the efforts of the production crew, volunteers and friends of the project. The curators and artists have delved into their back pockets, to find ephemera of various kinds (objects, films, photos etc..) in an attempt to do an almost impossible thing, capture the elemental experience of the project – its time, its people and its place.

Nuggets was presented by Curators David Cross and Cameron Bishop with artists Eugenia Lim, Linda Tegg, Rogue Academy, Robert Andrew, Edwina Stevens, Zanny Begg, Fiona Hilary, Peter Burke, Mick Douglas, Georgina Lewis, Anindita Banerjee, Connor Ovenden-Shaw, The Improvisors, Damien Laing, James Nguyen and Clive Gono.

In partnership with Public Art Commission and Deakin University with support from Melbourne Water, Scienceworks, Hobson Bay City Council and West Gate Neighbourhood Fund. 

Image courtesy of Public Art Commission

21 NOV – 26 NOV 2023

An immersive experience created by Fatima Measham, with visual and audio components that interact, and together complicate the narrative about our relationship with the local landscape.

Sanctuary is an artistic response to the early history of Serendip, a beloved institution for many families in the area. It is an invitation to consider the light and shadow of our interactions with nature, and the idea of malleable stories.

The experience included digital illustrations by Wadawurrung Traditional Owner Chloe Chatterton, as well as an audio loop featuring nature soundscapes, a spoken piece by Wadawurrung Traditional Owner Anie Skinner, and clips from interviews with former Serendip manager, Don White.

29 NOV – 10 DEC 2023

A butterfly, a bug, a dandelion, a thread, a yoyo.

Focusing attention on the little things in life provides a sense of grounding, calmness and living in the moment. Immersing in a process, moving with the flow, feeling the texture, applying colours, and touching material has a therapeutic effect. In this work, the hand is the repeating motif of all eight works. It symbolises the power we have to create or to destroy, to cradle or to harm.
 

29 NOV – 10 DEC 2023

The inspiration for this exhibition comes from the beautiful nature, especially the land of Australia where artist Qing Zhang has lived for ten years. Also, Eastern and Western paintings, such as traditional Chinese bird and flower paintings and Japanese woodblock prints, have given a lot of inspiration for composition. Watercolour possesses a vitality and wisdom that continues to instruct and will always remain a mentor

13 DEC – 22 DEC 2023

Enter the enchanting realm of Self Xpress CIV, where art transcends boundaries to touch the soul. This exhibition was a tribute to resilience, growth, and the profound influence of creativity, celebrating the accomplishments of 13 emerging Wyndham artists as they reveal their captivating creations. Through predominantly 2-dimensional works, each piece offered a glimpse into the artist's unique worldview. From vibrant acrylic strokes to intricate printmaking, the array of mediums is as diverse as the stories they convey. This showcase culminated a year of dedication, showcasing the transformative power of self-expression.

Image credit - Poached by Lisa North- Coombes as part of the exhibition

3 JAN - 16 JAN 2024

The RedWest Creatives Co-op’s mission is to strengthen the arts sector in Melbourne’s Western Regions.

RedWest works to secure a variety of opportunities such as pop-up exhibitions and performances, events for artists, and provide services to local artists for its members.

Primo 3 is a celebration of all things Deep West. It aims to be a pulse check of the local community arts scene. Work will span across multiple mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, video and textile works.  

24 JAN - 28 JAN 2024

Q Art Project is a youth led production achieved through the community of Q program and its supporters. This work would not have been possible without the long-term connections, change making, creativity and advocacy Q Program is built on, with partnerships such as Headspace Werribee.

Q Art Project responds to rainbow youth identifying the power in being seen and visible, with little representation in the western region to connect with. Q Art project brings the creative works together of rainbow youth to share voice, story, pride, strength and experience.                                        

Image credit - Alexavier Taiga Tchingal’s Eye Looking at gender and sexuality as an Indigenous person from the Jardwadjali nation. Named after the emu from the Gariwerd (Grampians) creation story.

31 JAN-10 FEB 2024

The Scrapatorium was designed as a friendly, drop-in maker space, equipped with sewing and other textile construction tools. Hosted by Connor Ovenden-Shaw and fellow visiting creatives were resident in the space, ready to encourage creativity. The Scrapatorium was a program centred around an exploration of waste, creativity and self-confidence.

The Scrapatorium is an extended version of Connor’s 2022 Wyndham City Artist Residency.

14 FEB – 3 MAR 2024

Visitors were encouraged to join the indirect Object to help create a series of large, tactile illuminated pillars celebrating all our favourite things. Foods, activities, animals, friends, games, or places in our community.

5 MAR - 10 MAR 2024

Playing with traditional Chinese motifs and recycled materials, the artist created a range of textile installations and sculptures that invited the audience to journey through their own story of assimilation.

After becoming an Australian citizen and by consequence, losing her Chinese citizenship, multidisciplinary artist MeiMei 莓莓 Hodgkinson started to critically reflect on her adolescent years when she endeavoured to fit into the mainstream Western society. As MeiMei flipped through her old Chinese passport with enormous red “CANCEL” stamps, she re-evaluated all the unconscious sacrifices that have been made to receive validation as a first-generation immigrant in 21st century Australia.

11 MAR – 17 MAR 2024

The Synaptica exhibition reminds us to appreciate our current understanding of the human brain and to have admiration for the ongoing science and research that continues in such a fascinating frontier.

Melissa’s first solo installation was an exploration of how human brain neuroplasticity is the master of seeking connection.

20 MAR – 7 APR 2024

Artist as Curator exhibition is an outcome of a Wunder Gym program exploring concepts of place and community within Wyndham. Artists were grouped together optimising their practices to curate and consider concepts. The concepts are geographical, community togetherness to individual places around a shared dining table expressed through mixed media.

Artists as Curators include Jonabelle Cogan, LaDY MoHaWK, Mei Mei 莓莓 Hodgkinson, Zoe Jones, Kate Robinson, Rashmi Patel, Teeny Fletcher, Christina Darras, Amal Laala, Jenny Rutsch, Rachel Morley, Ana Hanson, Jasmeet Kaur Sahi and Damien Laing.

10 APR – 21 APR 2024

This exhibition displayed the artworks of Australian participants of Earth Day 2023. It included sketches, acrylic paintings, paper art and more, as well as the creation of a theme related to environmental protection and earth protection.

Earth Day 2023 called on everyone living in Wyndham City to take care of the environment. An art competition and exhibition of international youth art, inspired Wyndham children to think, associate, design and create how to care for the environment through the way of drawing.

21 APR 2024

An evening of conscious R&B, hip-hop, and poetry produced by Nomad222 and hosted by spoken work poet Akwal Magek. This event was presented by Western Edge as part of the inaugural Open Stage program, supported by VicHealth's Future Reset initiative.

Featuring performances by Nomad222, V!NA, HOPE, and more, Open Stage: Muses explored the emotions behind the art.

Photo credit: Gianna Rizzo

4 MAY – 16 MAY 2024

Five local creatives – Hellotomato, Teeny Fletcher, Amal Laala and Tommy Sea x Rukz One used their varying skills and interests to explore public art sensibilities in an inside space.  

The community was invited in to explore and participate in the creation and evolution of the work.   

As part of the project, the creatives were offered a mentorship with Tom Groves from Backwoods Gallery in Collingwood.