DRUMS BETWEEN THE BELLS // NEXT WAVE ARTS FESTIVAL // MELBOURNE, AUS // 2012

This participatory installation responded to the notion of pilgrimage, offering up bells to be deconstructed from the initial installation and taken on a pilgrimage to signify sacred space. The artwork took on a life of its own as the bells were relocated via the internet and reinstalled to a new sites through public engagement. Generating a  work with the capacity to live on via its physical and cyber space revivals. Believing in an energising force to inform new contexts, environment or transformations, the artists seeks challenges the commodity based art model  by inviting the audience to own and shape the artwork and its outcomes.  Positioning collaboration as necessary resistance, a mirror and the primary source of the critical rigour we strive to instil.  Fostering in an open ended process which places risk as the crucial ingredient in the artistic endeavour, and with clarity of intent to think anything is possible. Where multiple, radical perspectives are celebrated; complexity is embraced to maintain a focus on the edges of society as the place from which the new must emerge showing us what the sacred means to contemporary society, where curiosity is our guiding force, and it leads us in a relentless pursuit to ask more questions.

Next Wave Festival 2012 (19-27 May) themed The space between us wants to sing featured 38 new commissions involving over 600 local, national and international emerging artists and attracted nearly 250,000 people. Overall, it is a festival resolute in its social and political inquiry, showcasing young artists and challenging our understanding of what art can be, and its role in contemporary society