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Museum
of Dirt: A Brief History |
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« Michael Graeve, 20thC |
The MOD was
located at 43 Bedford St in Collingwood, Melbourne, in a
nearly derelict 120+ year old workers cottage. Awaiting
renovation its floorboards were ripped up exposing the
earth for the first time in years and a small trench had
been dug exposing the sewerage pipes through the small
rooms. The Dirt, as it was known, consisted of
the whole property including the falling down sheds at
the back. The previous owner who I think was called Harry
Burden, had died there some years ago and it had been
empty ever since. With sagging ceilings, cracked walls exposed earth, stencil painted wallpaper, accumulated building debris, cooking fat stained walls - all an accumulation of past lives lived here - and with the constant flow of junkies shifting past to the shooting gallery at the end of the lane, the building itself was heavy with associations. It was recognised that this was a unique opportunity and place to conduct an investigation into installation art. I started the project by having a sign printed proclaiming its existence and placing an ad in Art Almanac, giving the hours as 3.00-8.00 pm on Saturdays only. The hours gave people time to arrive and see The Dirt at night when its dim lighting created another level of intimacy. It was open for five weeks. It was to close soon after but several people expressed interest in doing one-off five hour shows there. This was done to only entertain and interest ourselves and to create work which stimulated our conversations and informed our personal practices. As its notoriety spread more people became interested and lots of artists expressed a desire to show there. It was never intended to run for a long period of time as an "alternative" art space. It was more to provide a forum for exploring art practices and relationships to certain broader ideas like what relationship did our practices have to such loaded spaces or when was something real and when was it contrived? There were many other issues to consider, not the least of which was how we effected our and the location’s identity when we intervened. The level of intervention was important in programming the shows. It was planned to move from installations which intervened the least (a sign being the most ambiguous) to the greatest intervention (walls constructed and painted). Rent was minimal at $10.00 a show, no matter how many artists were involved in any one week and this covered exactly my own costs. There were to be no openings and minimal invitations. Many artists treated it as a gentle happy hour with their friends on a Saturday afternoon. My curatorial policy was simple. I said yes to everyone till a certain date, after that I said no to everyone. On the last day we had an almost open artist day complete with artist band and a real and simulated BBQ. Towards the end, up to 60 people a day were seeing shows and while the project could have been prolonged, I felt that the MOD’s role as a forum to discuss ideas had been fulfilled and it would serve no useful purpose to continue. The mix of artists was eclectic and responses to the MOD varied. Some chose to re-interpret the space while others used it as a resource to make to make statement of a broader nature. |
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« Tony Garifalakis YUK. |
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« Georgina
Konstandakopoulos, |
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Celeste Treloar, BBQ. » |
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« Phil Edwards, As you are. |
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Brett Jones/Phil J |
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« Laressa Kosloff, untitled. |
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Simon Kilvert/Mathew |
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MOD was: Phil Edwards Simon Kilvert Matthew Wallwork Peter Henderson Madelaine Novak Laressa Kosloff Matthew Morris Natasha Johns-Messenger Caroline Oxley John Aslanidis Chris Bell Georgina Konstandakopoulos Michael Graeve Angus Blackburn Sue Nicol Bill Cobbett James Healey Phil Jones Brett Jones DRONE Event featuring BBQ Celeste Treloar YUK Band |
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« Natasha Johns-Messenger, |
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Carolyn Oxley, |
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« John Aslanidis, untitled |
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