City Commissions
is one of seven initiatives that artsACT is delivering as part of the Creative Recovery and Resilience Program.
artsACT is delivering the project to further its goals for recovery and resilience of the local arts sector following disruption due to the ongoing pandemic. The Creative Recovery and Resilience Program aims to pilot new models of delivering arts industry support; and to identify ongoing and emergent needs of the arts sector.
contour 556 is delivering the City Commissions project on behalf of artsACT.
Project outline
contour 556 is commissioning works from three artists: Alison Alder, Michael Sollis, and Sammy Hawker.
The City Commissions project tasks three artists with exploring the identity of the city as it is expressed through the contribution of community organisations.
The artists will experience new collaborative opportunities, working closely with contour 556, artsACT and the community organisations to develop/install/perform/deliver their artwork.
Project objectives and values
Through artsACT, the program has a dual focus – recovery and resilience. Recovery can occur with a return to public engagement and resumption of activities, supported by public funding. Resilience will grow the capabilities of arts practitioners and take advantage of other forms of engagement that have emerged due to the technological and societal changes caused by our response to the pandemic.
Portrait
by Sammy Hawker x Headspace Tuggeranong
“Exploring the possibilities of ‘making’ rather than ‘taking’ a photographic portrait in collaboration with the subject”
With the pandemic similarly leading us to now double-think how and what we touch, this artwork invites participants from a community group to handle/manipulate/rupture a photographic negative in order to introduce something of themselves into the frame.
Hit Print!
by Alison Alder x Hands On Studio
“A two-way project between Alison Alder and 8 HANDS ON STUDIO artists, an art practice methodology that is static”
HIT PRINT! will provide the group of artists with an opportunity to reflect on ways the pandemic has impacted upon their lives. The collaborative exploration will prompt the artists to generate a series of prints based on their individual experiences with a collective overall outcome.
Reticulum
by Michael Sollis x Cancer Council ACT
“A network that is divided or mark. Approach is to connect the experiences of immunocompromised cancer patients and their families, the stars that slowly drift further away, and the landscape of Mt Stromlo”
Reticulum, will weave together interviews from immunocompromised families with music inspired by the increasing isolation of the stars.