高清福利片

Curator Alexandra Brown first met Kevin O鈥橞rien during her architecture undergraduate studies in Brisbane, when she was one of many invited to contribute to an early iteration of O鈥橞rien鈥檚, now long-running, Finding Country project. Nine years on, Brown is now a senior lecturer at Monash Art, Design and Architecture and finds herself they are working on the Finding country project again. This time, her collaboration with O鈥橞rien takes the form of an expansive exhibition at the Tin Sheds Gallery titled, Finding Country | Radical Practice.

Kevin O鈥橞rien is a Brisbane-based architect, Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Sydney and descendent of the Kaurareg and Meriam people of north-eastern Australia. For O鈥橞rien, it is essential that the Aboriginal conceptualisation of Country is seen as the starting point for the City¹.

鈥淎rchitecture in Australia continues its 18th century European tradition of drawing on empty paper,鈥� he explains.

鈥淭he Aboriginal position is that this paper is not empty, but is full of what can鈥檛 be seen.鈥�

These ideas were the starting point for听Finding Country. When Brown joined the project in 2009, each contributor was given a square from a gridded map of Brisbane and asked to remove 50% of the city鈥檚 fabric, revealing Country on the map. The result was not just a reimagined city, but a group of practitioners who had each undergone a rigorous examination of their own identity and relationship to place as Australians.

Finding Country听has since become a set of practices realised in various forms with many different collaborators. The exhibition at Tin Sheds Gallery traces the ongoing evolution of the project, from its very beginnings as a project proposal in 2006, through to present day. It has been exhibited in Melbourne and Los Angeles, and taught as a studio workshop at universities Australia-wide, including the University of Sydney. In 2012 O鈥橞rien was invited to show the project as part of the Venice Architecture Biennale, where he worked with over 40 collaborators.

In the early stages of working on the Tin Sheds exhibition, O鈥橞rien handed a hard drive over to Curator Alexandra Brown, containing 13 years of correspondence, notes, drawings, photos and other forms of project documentation.听 As Brown began to forensically piece all of the ideas together, it felt important to her to represent听Finding Country听not as a series of individual projects, but as a living practice and network of practitioners.

鈥淔or example, one of the tables features work by a group of young architects who have worked with Kevin and now have their own practice,鈥� she explains.

鈥淎 big part of Kevin鈥檚 practice is about empowering people.鈥�

Throughout the exhibition the contents of each display table are being burned as part of a public performance. The custom-designed tables are then flipped and used as vitrines for the ashes, which will then become part of the exhibition. Pre-colonisation, controlled burning was used to manage the land and to encourage new growth. The transformative act of burning is central to the听Finding Country听project, both as a symbol of regeneration and as part of a need to never let the project become static.

Finding Country | Radical Practice听will conclude with a symposium titled听Indigeneity and Architecture听which will include the launch of the听Our Voices 鈥� Indigeneity and Architecture听publication and an exhibition closing event.听

Exhibition: Finding Country | Radical Practice
3 May - 14 June 2018
Tin Sheds Gallery
Tuesday to Friday 11am-5pm / Saturday 10am-2pm

Event:听Indigeneity and Architecture Symposium
Friday 15 June,听12-5pm听听
Tin Sheds Gallery
Free,