Beth Arnold and Sary Zananiri: Building Foundations

4 December 2021 – 20 March 2022
Picnic & artist talk: Saturday 12 February, 12–2pm

Within Foundations 2012 is a public artwork by Beth Arnold and Sary Zananiri, originally commissioned by VicUrban for a new housing estate in the outer-Melbourne suburb of Officer, in the City of Cardinia. Within Foundations is installed on Boonwurrung/Bunurong land, on what was then an open paddock as farmlands were giving way to new housing developments as a result of Melbourne’s urban expansion and suburban sprawl. The form of the work was based on the floorplans and material palette of the neighbouring housing estates, and situated in a public reserve now known as Eastern Pocket Park. As Arnold and Zananiri note, Within Foundations ‘took a form that sat somewhere between a ruin and building site, designed as a space to sit or play. Landscaped into Eastern Pocket Park, Within Foundations referenced the great changes continuing to take place locally.’

For Who’s Afraid of Public Space?, ACCA invited Beth Arnold and Sary Zananiri to revisit the work a decade later, now that the estate is complete and home to a new community. This invitation has resulted in Building Foundations 2021–22. It is conceived as an opportunity to reassess the work and its relationship to the local community, to reflect on the passage of time, and to register the impact of urban transformation. Building Foundations is conceived in three parts: a billboard that shows Within Foundations in its original form, situated alongside the artwork as it appears now, with the established housing estate as backdrop. The project also includes a community event as an opportunity for the artists and the local community to meet one another, and to bring people together to discuss the artwork, in a spirit of civic generosity. These activities, and related research and writing, will be collected on ACCA’s website. Building Foundations equally becomes an opportunity to consider the changing nature of public art, and public and private housing development. It affords a perspective on the development of new, diverse communities, and their relationship to the art, landscape and ecologies in which they live.

Documentation of this public sculpture will also be presented at ACCA, in the Project Space: The Hoarding over the duration of the exhibition.

Register for public program here » 

Read: Rosa Ellen on Within Foundations »

Access:

This event takes place in a suburban park with grass and uneven surfaces. Access to the park is from the street. Some seating provided, please BYO picnic rug. The nearest public toilets are located 700m away at the venue Club Officer. The best PT route to access this location would be by train, the closest stop is Cardinia Road Station. Limited paid public parking is available at Club Officer. Please contact ACCA if you have any further queries about access and this event 03 9697 9999 or info@acca.melbourne