MPavilion

Spend your evening with Tom Bloxham, founder of award-winning United Kingdom urban regeneration company Urban Splash. With just a ‘wholehearted belief in cities’ to guide them, Tom and founding partner Jonathan Falkingham began their business by filling empty buildings in the English cities of Liverpool and Manchester. Their work—which includes the revitalisation of Sheffield’s iconic Brutalist complex Park Hill—has invariably been described as groundbreaking, innovative and masterful.

The Melbourne School of Design hosted Tom in an evening of rumination about urban regeneration. Sit back and listen as Tom discusses the principles that guide Urban Splash’s designs, and how they work to combine the history of a building with a new function in the present—and let us know what you think #MPavilion

“The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.” So said William Gibson, an American-Canadian science-fiction writer (who also, incidentally, coined the term ‘cyberspace’ in his 1982 short story ‘Burning Chrome’)—and it’s this quote that has inspired the 2016 Biennale of Sydney. Helmed by artistic director Stephanie Rosenthal, the twentieth instalment of Australia’s largest contemporary arts festival will run from 18 March to 5 June 2016 across seven ‘embassies of thought’ in and around the harbour city—including, for the first time, in an old mortuary train station.

So why this William Gibson quote? What significance does it hold to Stephanie and the Biennale, and what performances, ideas and site-specific works can we expect it to generate? Listen to this intriguing MTalk as Stephanie introduces us to the 2016 Biennale of Sydney through a special illustrated lecture, presented by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA).

Thirty or so years after William Gibson first spoke his famous line, how do we view the future? Have the virtual and physical become closer, or more disparate, and how were the seventy-one-plus artists encouraged to explore these concepts? Following her address, Stephanie is joined by MUMA director Charlotte Day for further discussion and rumination on the key themes, histories and connections woven into the Biennale’s twentieth edition.

Hear a discussion about the history of women shaping the Australian city—its buildings, spaces, and social and political agendas. Led by Parlour, an advocacy organisation dedicated to expanding the spaces for women in Australian architecture, the evening’s panellists—architectural historian Dr Karen Burns, editor and researcher Justine Clark, social historian Renate Howe, urbanist Jane Jose and architect Shelley Penn—explored the powerful roles women have played as activists, architects, planners, philanthropists, policy makers, politicians and writers. Roles which have indelibly shaped the spaces, places and policies of the Australian city and, by extension, formed what it means to live in Australia today.

This event is presented by Triple R.

“In a wondrous world of riddles and hidden treasure, bumbling Jack Hare is on a race against time to deliver a message of love from the Moon to the Sun.” Pack a picnic, round up the kids and join us for a live Saturday-lunchtime reading of Kit Williams’s iconic 1979 picture book Masquerade. The magical story—which sparked a real-life treasure hunt for a golden hare necklace buried in a secret location in Britain—will be read aloud by playwright and actress Kate Mulvany, who has also adapted Kit’s book for the stage.

Six culturally and linguistically diverse spoken-word poets drop in to MPavilion in October for two Spoken Word Sessions—and this is the second. The lunchtime slams are highlights of Igniting Imagination—a collaboration between Melbourne Festival and Multicultural Arts Victoria that brings exceptional talent from Australia’s emerging, Indigenous and refugee communities to the stage. Featured in this second session: writer and storyteller Ebony MonCrief, Lebanese artist Abdul Hammoud, and MC and author Abe Nouk.

What happens when designers get together for show-and-tell? How alike—or at odds—are their approaches to similar projects? Join us as Nick Wood, founder and director of London-based How About Studio and the Australian Institute of Architect’s first Droga Architect in Residence for 2015/16, chats with Melbourne design collective Sibling (represented this evening by architects Amelia Borg, Nicholas Braun and Jane Caught) about the similarities and differences across both studios’ experiential, playful and socially engaged work.

The (informal) panel, presented by the AIA Foundation, will look at highlight projects from both practices—from Sibling’s interior design for Vice Australia’s Melbourne headquarters to How About Studio’s Flotsam installation at Selfridges Ultra-Lounge—to trace overlapping themes, and also exchange ideas.

You’ve heard it online, in magazines and in this very program, but what does the buzz term ‘placemaking’ actually mean and involve? Co-presented by Neometro and Australian quarterly Dumbo Feather, this panel—made up of Neometro’s director James Tutton (who is also co-founder and director of Smiling Mind) and Dumbo Feather’s community manager Madeline Lucas—will deconstruct the word and much more in this discussion about urban social initiatives that encourage collective ownership of inner-city communities. With thirty years’ experience in developing buildings that offer a sense of place and belonging, Neometro knows that extraordinary communities are led by groups that support personal connections and give a strong sense of inclusion and togetherness. Take a seat and lend both ears as James and Madeline discuss how a sense of family can expand out of the suburban home and into the neighbourhood.

The VCA’s Art, Social and Spatial Practice (ASSP) research cluster brings its salon-style Food for Thought series to MPavilion—and expands it. Hosted by Performing Mobilities’ James Oliver and Mick Douglas, this pop-up forum with Brooklyn-based artist Marshall Weber and Sydney-based “anarchitect” Keg de Souza will investigate the potential of both the material and social production of art as object, performance, spatial practice or relational experience. Where and how do public conversation, artistic practice and research intersect? Come along and help fill MPavilion to the petals with lively conversation—or healthy art debate.

Pack a picnic, round up the kids and join us for a lunchtime reading of John Marsden and Shaun Tan’s popular picture book The Rabbits—a partly allegorical fable about colonisation told through the eyes of the colonised, but with an unseen narrator. The fable describes the coming of ‘rabbits’—an encounter that is at first friendly and curious, but later darkens as it becomes apparent that the visitors are not who they once appeared to be.

Join London Design Festival director Ben Evans and Google Creative Lab director Tom Uglow for the launch of 25XDesign. Conceived by Ben and developed by Google’s Creative Lab, it’s an interactive digital event created to celebrate design and place.

MPavilion’s 2015 architect Amanda Levete has contributed her 25 Melbourne design inspirations—from Ugo Rondinone’s ‘Our Magic Hour’ in South Yarra to Walter Burley Griffin’s imposing Newman College façade and Napier Waller’s 1933 Newspaper House mosaic—to be displayed and experienced in 360 degrees. Whether you’re in the gardens, at your desk, winging over some far-flung ocean or wandering the city—you’re invited to jump into your browser and take the virtual tour.

Launching first at MPavilion as part of our 2015/16 season, 25XDesign uses an experimental platform called Story Spheres, developed by Google’s Creative Lab. Story Spheres takes a 360-degree image and overlays it with audio files so that, for the first time, you can experience MPavilion and other Melbourne design landmarks up, down and all around with sound. Story Spheres uses experimental browser technologies including webGL and 3js and can be viewed on desktop, mobile and through Google Cardboard—giving people a virtual-reality experience.

25XDesign will become an annual, virtual event on the MPavilion program, featuring a new Melbourne tour created by each year’s commissioned architect. The project aims to place MPavilion centrally but also expand its reach geographically. We look forward to seeing you at the launch and/or on the internet!