Artist
Artist: Makeshift
Curator
Curator: Margaret Farmer (COFA)
Date Installed
Installed 1 Mar 2012 - 31 Mar 2019
Location
Intersection with Campbell Street / Flinders Street / Oxford Street, DARLINGHURST, 2010
Project
Project: Taylor Square Temporary Art program
Artist Website

Intersection with Campbell Street / Flinders Street / Oxford Street, DARLINGHURST, 2010

Artwork Description

On the edges of an organic farmer’s market in the thick of the city, a curatorium of thinkers, activists and dreamers is assembled to catalyse another space of exchange, a subterranean ‘dark market’ trading instead in radical economies, growing cultures and craft futures.

– Makeshift, 2012

A leaf from the book of cities by Makeshift was part mobile printing press, part think tank, part underground society. Makeshift is responsible for site responsive interventions and for this project they joined with the Sydney Sustainable Markets every Saturday in March 2012, to provoke new ways of interacting with urban and natural environments.

Temporarily occupying the historic former men’s and women’s conveniences, Makeshift transformed these underground spaces into a ‘market’ type installation that evolved each week.

Think tank

At ground level, the disused women’s convenience hosted weekly meetings, creating a platform for re-thinking craft politics and futures, where creative thinkers from across Sydney came together to discuss their ideas for building a more sustainable future for the city.

They created a series of tactical gatherings, making time for sharing old and new strategies for rethinking and redirecting how we collectively sustain ourselves. Weekly conversations were directed by invited guests with expertise in a particular area. Market-goers encountered such exotic offerings as a jar swap gang, a fermentation club, a radical reading room and a ‘nu-craft’ think tank.

The first week was led by design theorist and educator Matthew Kiem, with guests John von Sturmer, Rebecca Conroy, Zanny Begg and David McNeill. Subsequent participants included Lara Thoms and James Arvanitakis.

Makeshift’s final think-tank was broadcast through speakers positioned in the men’s underground toilets and the closing event included a performance by the Un-real Estate Agency, which examined how people occupy space and contribute to the city.

Printing press

Downstairs in the old men’s facilities, Sydneysiders could enter an underground world of experimentation and creativity, crafting an experimental publication on re-crafting the city.

An antiquated hobby printing press turned these ideas into limited-edition artworks – typeset in situ as a series of short, provocative communiqués on the topic of ‘Craft Futures’ that were distributed to passers-by on the last weekend.

Pop-up tea house

The Happy Quarter, a pop-up tea house, activated Taylor Square north by serving tea and conversation, engaging with the local community to exchange services rather than handover cash.

Artists

Tessa Zettel and Karl Khoe are Sydney-based artists and co-directors of Makeshift, who collaborate together on a wide range of projects concerned with enabling sustainable futures.

Their practice encompasses sculpture and installation, drawing and printmaking, writing, live art and design, often as part of participatory site-based interventions that make visible contested histories and possible futures.

Their interdisciplinary works are characterised by mobility and making-do, often appearing as temporary, site-responsive interventions that activate public spaces and provoke new ways of interacting with urban and ‘natural’ environments.

 

Taylor Square Temporary Art Program 4

The Taylor Square art program ran from 2009 to 2013 and invited artists to develop temporary projects and installations that would transform the area from a busy intersection into a creative hub.

For the fourth Taylor Square program the City of Sydney invited collaborations from artists and arts organisations and selected We Make This City curated by the Margaret Farmer, College of Fine Arts, as a NIEA Curating Cities project. This program tackled inertia regarding climate change, countering fear and frustration with trust, beauty, community and positive action on this urgent social question.

We Make This City included four artworks:

Drift by David Cross was on view from 17 November – 18 December 2011.

Rekindling Venus: in plain sight by Lynette Wallworth was on view from December 2011 – May 2012.

Cycle-in Cinema by Magnificent Revolution Oz was screening from 24 – 26 February 2012.

A leaf from the book of cities by Makeshift on view during Saturdays in March 2012.

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