Field Theory: Public Meeting

2022

Field Theory is a collective of artists committed to making and supporting projects that cross disciplines, shift contexts and seek new strategies for engaging with the public sphere. Their work is a combination of making, performing, curating and producing that responds to the unique conditions of specific times and places. Formed by methodologies of communication, time, change, chance and participation, Field Theory’s diverse projects are collaborative, embedded and often site-specific in nature.

Meeting Agenda 2021 serves as a prelude for Field Theory’s forthcoming participatory project Town Hall Meeting, which will take place in early 2022. Presented as part of a program of contemporary works produced by The Wired Lab – an artist-led organisation connecting Australian and international artists with rural communities and contexts – Town Hall Meeting will take the form of a democratic gathering of nine local households that comprise the small community of Muttama in rural New South Wales.

Making use of the physical site of the local town hall, as well as the format of assembly, Town Hall Meeting references the historic use of meeting places for decision-making purposes throughout history, including inter-nation forums hosted by First Peoples on lands across the Australian continent for over 40,000 years, the development of Athenian democracy in the 5th century BC, and use of ‘Town Hall Meetings’ as an informal campaign event in the lead-up to contemporary US elections. 

In Australia, as advancements in technology have enabled meetings to take place in alternative places and platforms, the physical site of the town hall has begun to lose its community purpose in many rural and regional towns. Town Hall Meeting aims to reinstate the original function of the town hall within a small community uniquely affected by issues including recent bushfires and a mouse plague, in addition to a global pandemic, to consider ideas of democracy, consensus and collective decision-making, while also reflecting on particular concerns relating to public space outside of an urban context.

An extract of this project will also be presented at ACCA, in the Project Space: The Hoarding over the duration of the exhibition.

Access:

Site TBC. Please contact ACCA if you have any further queries about access and this event 03 9697 9999 or info@acca.melbourne