“Open for inspection”
Keely Macarow, Neal Haslem, Mim Whiting, Margie McKay and Mick Douglas
27 June → 26 July 2014
Keely Macarow, Neal Haslem, Mim Whiting, Margie McKay and Mick Douglas are members of Untitled Collective, an Australian and Swedish collective of artists, urban, graphic and industrial designers, architects and housing researchers. Members of the collective also include Guy Johnson, RMIT (Australia), Helene Frichot, KTH, Rochus Hinkel and Marcus Knutagard, Lund University (Sweden).
Our objective is to work collaboratively across disciplines to examine issues connected with homelessness and housing stress so that we can collectively move to homefullness: a future where we will have housing for all. Our motivation is to engender discussion about housing stress, affordability and aspiration because we believe that Australian housing requires new and varied options to ensure that everyone living in this country is housed in secure, affordable and sustainable housing.
For Open for Inspection, Keely Macarow, Neal Haslem, Mim Whiting, Margie McKay and Mick Douglas explore contemporary trends in Australian and Swedish housing and examine how these countries deal with housing stress and homelessness. The artists investigate how aspirations for housing and home ownership can be signified through objects, material, graphic and video interventions, and create new artworks and public forums for the Front Space at West Space that respond to the aspiration of homefullness (rather than homelessness).
Untitled Collective’s Manifesto for Full Housing, and research into contemporary Australian and Swedish housing will be embedded in and inform the artworks and public forums devised for this project. The exhibition will include a level of self-reflexivity with the narratives communicated through the artefacts, objects and video influenced by our own experiences with precarious housing.
Keely Macarow is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Postgraduate Research in the School of Art, RMIT University. Keely has worked as a producer, artist and curator for film, video, performance and exhibition projects which have been presented in Australia, the UK, the US, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Hungary, France, Scotland and Denmark. Her practice is focused on socially engaged art.
Neal Haslem is an artist in Naarm/Melbourne.
Mim Whiting has produced and directed documentaries, community art projects, oral histories, animations, digital storytelling and poetry videos. She has collaborated with performance artists, poets, composers, writers, the homeless, disabled, prisoners, children and many others. Her work embodies a painters eye for detail and visual storytelling and explores the music of authentic voices.
Margie McKay has extensive experience in the fields of architecture, urban design and strategic development. She has played a leading role in the formulation, preparation and delivery of strategies and projects that have significantly contributed to the improvement of the public environment in Australia and New Zealand.
Mick Douglas is a transdisciplinary artist whose socially engaged and live art projects explore inter-relationships between aesthetic experiences of mobility and hospitality, cultural change practices and sustainability.