Bespoke City - First Friday

Bespoke City

4pm - 9pm, Friday 02 October, 

cnr Greens Rd and Oxford St, Paddington. 

On October 2, UNSW Galleries First Fridays is spilling out into the streets for the first time. Curated by Laura Fisher and Sabrina Sokalik, Bespoke City is a one-night only art exhibition that invites audiences to reimagine Sydney’s urban environment. The UNSW Art & Design courtyard and the community outdoor space between Greens Road and Napier Street will be filled with projections, unique installations, sculpture, video, kinetic artworks, demonstrations and stalls. Many deploy the bicycle to generate light, colour, sound and energy, while others treat it as a metaphor for the city itself – reminding us that it can be deconstructed and remade and that we are all implicated in the politics of public space. 

Works include:

An Electronic bicycle orchestra: We’ve commissioned bike-energy champions Milkcrate Events to create a sound installation powered by five stationary bikes. Riders can collaborate to fill the campus with an ambient and evolving sound piece.

An Autonomous painting machine: Meet a robot-painter created by artist Jeffrey Wood that tracks human movements to create curious images reminiscent of the cosmos.

A Microbiology in the urban wild: Examine the city at the molecular level using a bike-powered laboratory created by BioFoundry: Australia’s first Citizen Scientist lab.

A Pedal powered light mural: Climb on and peel back the layers of the city. UNSW Art & Design students Jonathon Bolitho and Jobe Williams, UNSW Geological Sciences student Jeong Greaves, and Mackenzie Nicks are creating an expansive mural illuminated by bicycle powered LEDs, allowing riders to interact with the image through modulations of light and colour.

You’ll also encounter works by UNSW Art & Design academic and artist Richard Goodwin, UNSW A&D alumni Josh Harle, UNSW A&D PhD student Maria White, ARTcycle, Janine Bailey, and James Gulliver Hancock will be developing a mural with UNSW A&D students over the week.

Don't miss amazing engineering and design from CreateUNSW + Bike-ology, Hanley Weng,  and Jamil Yamani. And a variety of demonstrations and stalls will show off the best of Sydney’s cycling culture.

And of course, as with all First Fridays, UNSW Galleries is open until late so this is a fantastic opportunity to see the new exhibitions People Like Us, Streets of Papunya and the John Fries Award 2015. On the night, Vivien Johnson's book Streets of Papunya: The reinvention of Papunya painting will be launched by Punata Stockman Nungarrayi, Chairperson of Papunya Tjupi Arts. A special performance from Tilau Nangala, Isobel Gorey Nambajimba, Isobel Major Nampitjinpa and Punata Stockman Nungarrayi will accompany the launch.

In partnership with Sydney Cycleways and the Heart Foundation, First Fridays: Bespoke City has been supported by the City of Sydney through a community projects matching grant and some invaluable sponsors: Bike Sydney, Stallion Bikes, Colour Copy Centre, Reid Cycles and Arts Hotel. You can find out more by visiting the Veleoscope website.