A collection of talks, exhibitions and other events held around Brisbane will explore the relationship between architecture and art and examine the various ways in which the collaboration between the two practices is mutually enriching.
Architecture and Art Week, which is set to take place from 10 to 16 June, is a collaboration between The University of Queensland, State Library of Queensland, Museum of Brisbane, Pecha Kucha Brisbane, Australian Institute of Architects and Brisbane Open House.
Cameron Bruhn, dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Queensland (and former editorial director of Architecture Media, publisher of ArchitectureAU), said, “Architecture and the arts have a close and productive relationship. Architecture and Art week features events that explore everything from theatre design to public art; from cultural policy to artful living.”
“Each of the events examines the relationship of the arts and architecture and the way collaborations and exchanges enrich both fields of creative endeavour.”
Gavin Street by People Oriented Design (POD).
Image: Veronica Sagredo
The event program begins with Radical Houses: identity and public life in the Queensland House 1975–1989 at the Dome Gallery. This forum will bring together architects and artists to explore housing in inner-city Brisbane during the booming counterculture years of the 70s and 80s, a period “associated with communal living, radical politics and alternative cultures, which came in contact with a burgeoning local music scene – all set against a background of social and institutional conservatism.”
Then, at the University of Queensland, a one-day conference will “explore the way architects shape the way we live.” Titled The Art of Living, the event features a speaker program comprising emerging and established alumni of the university, who will present their residential works and, in the process, interrogate the creative practice that is in some ways closest to our everyday lives.
“The UQ Art of Living Conference will celebrate the contribution recent projects make to the story of Australian architecture and examine the way architects shape the way we live,” said Bruhn.
“The eleven architecture practices presenting at The UQ Art of Living Conference are pushing the boundaries in residential architecture, creating homes that respond to people and place.
“The presenters are established and emerging leaders in the field; architects who are creating homes that are empathetic, beautiful, resilient and sustainable.”
The speakers include architect Murray Barker, Brian Bass (director, Popov Bass), Melody Chen (director, Atelier Chen Hung), Anthony Clarke (director, BLOXAS), Marjorie Dixon and Leah Gallagher (directors, Kin Architects ), Shaneen Fantin (director, POD), Michael Hogg (director, Hogg and Lamb Architects), Zuzana Kovar and Nick Skepper (directors, Zuzana and Nicholas), Michael Lineburg and Lynn Wang (directors, Lineburg Wang), Anna O’Gorman (director, Anna O’Gorman Architects) and David Teeland (director, Teeland Architects).
The university will also play host to a colloquium, convened by Françoise Dussart and Timothy O’Rourke, that will explore the practice of procuring and displaying Indigenous artworks in public healthcare buildings.
Other highlights include Home: A Suburban Obsession, a unique exhibition of the work of husband-and-wife photographic team Frank and Eunice Corley. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the pair worked as guerrilla photographers, trawling the suburbs of Brisbane and taking unsolicited photographs of homes that they would then offer for sale to the owners.
The exhibition draws on one of Australia’s largest housing photography collections – a collection of more than 60,000 photos saved from under the couple’s house following their deaths. It also includes artistic responses from artists Muge Belek and Frederico Fialho Teixeira, Jennifer Marchant, Ian Strange and Seth Ellis.
For the full event program, go here. For more information on the UQ Art of Living conference, go here.
