Takeover: The Social Studio, Outer Urban Projects, Youthworx

Presented by Bus Projects
3–6 March 2022

Takeover is a program of public events for Who’s Afraid of Public Space? that celebrates the agency of our communities of diverse young and emerging creatives, and creates the opportunity to take back public spaces following Melbourne’s successive COVID-19 lockdowns. 

Curators Grace McQuilten and Amy Spiers have partnered with Dewi Cooke (The Social Studio), David Mackenzie (Youthworx) and Irine Vela (Outer Urban Projects), and their three organisations that foster the creativity of young people from culturally diverse, asylum seeker, First Nations, neurodivergent and disabled communities through training and employment in fashion design, digital media production and performing arts respectively. Together, the curatorial team have commissioned young artists from each art organisation to present works that activate Melbourne’s public spaces, and Bus Projects’ and ACCA’s institutional platforms.

Takeover at Parliament Steps

For ACCA’s Who’s Afraid of Public Space? The Social Studio’s young fashion designers have teamed up with Outer Urban Projects’ ensemble of talented young performers from the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne to present a fashion parade celebrating modest wear on Sunday 6 March 2022, 2-3pm at Parliament of Victoria’s steps, the home for political debate and democracy in Victoria. The parade will feature textile and fashion works that reflect upon notions of modesty across cultures, accompanied by dancers, vocalists and a percussionist in an ecstatic, lively celebration of diverse young peoples’ return to public expression and public space.

Takeover at Crawl Space Radio

Coinciding with and informed by the Takeover program, Bus Projects together with Composite have invited young artists from Outer Urban Projects, Youthworx and The Social Studio to perform a series of radiophonic takeovers of Crawl Space Radio. Guided by the creative and critical agency of young and emerging creatives, Crawl Space Radio will activate and amplify their voices, and the perspectives of their communities, who have been impacted by the public housing towers lockdown, the racialised and heavy-handed police enforcement of pandemic restrictions, increasing gentrification and marginalisation in and around Narrm/Melbourne, while also instrumental in the activation of community care and social connection over the course of the pandemic. Broadcasts will be aired over March at Crawl Space Radio as well as at DAS BOOT: Artist Car Boot Fair held at ACCA’s forecourt on Saturday 19 March, 2022.

Films by Ruci Kaisila and Damian Seddon of Outer Urban Projects from this project are also presented at ACCA, in the Project Space: The Hoarding over the duration of the exhibition.

Read: Anna El Samad Mind over Modesty, commissioned by The Social Studio

Access:

Please see the Bus Projects access page for detailed information on accessibility for this project and on visiting the site.