SURFACITY

A collaboration with Chris Parkinson at MPavilion Parkville, 6-10 October 2025, funded by a University of Melbourne Museums and Collections grant.

Participatory public art project/ collectively-authored notice board/ surface texturising experiment which saw more than 400 people engage in the workshops, lectures, walking tours and mark-making we hosted throughout the week.

We densified the MPavilion’s slender modernist structure by adding a fence with coloured boards around it and inviting people to leave their marks by stitching fabrics, buffing, pasting posters, and drawing and writing with spray paint and poscas.

The project examined how cities are reflected through the images we display in public – and how aesthetic values and politics collide in Melbourne’s urban landscape.

In only four days, the boards collected several layers of markings in several media, creating more surfaces-as-opportunities-for-public-address in the otherwise visually flossed University Square.

The programme included the following free events:

✂️ Tuesday 7 October 12-1pm: textile surfaces workshop with Miriam Patience
📃 Wednesday 8 October 12-1pm: paper surfaces workshop with Babysammi
🖌️ Thursday 9 October 12-1pm: buffing surfaces workshop with Adrian Tanner
🚶🏻‍➡️🚶🏻‍♀️‍➡️Thursday 9 October 4-6pm: walking tour with me and Chris

With thanks to the fantastic project team at MPavilion Parkville, particularly Nicky Pastore and Jack Stafford, to Juan Castro for the photographs, and to Chris Parkinson, my favourite partner in creative ideation and experimentation.