TURRBAL & YUGGERA COUNTRY
JACOBS LN
WOOLOONGABBA
JACOBS LN
WOOLOONGABBA
Globally, substantial amounts of land are dedicated to car parks – in Meanjin [Brisbane], there are 25,633 parking spaces in the CBD alone. FORMS OF ASSEMBLY is a public art intervention and workshop activation that critically re-imagines car park spaces as a resource for community connection and collaboration. Situated in Jacob Lane, this project reexamines the liminal quality of parking facilities and constructs a site for active community gathering and urban triangulation. The audio walking tour program invites the community to consider the impacts of this infrastructure on our urban environment and creatively re-imagine our city spaces as sites for community development.
Brisbane Free University (BFU) believes that education should be a Commons and opens an autonomous space in which the empowering processes of teaching and learning belong to everybody. BFU re-imagines education by bringing critical thought to the heart of the city, challenging the divide between the academic sphere and the public forum.
Listen to the audio tour playlist online now ︎︎︎
FORMS OF ASSEMBLY was presented as part of the 2023 Brisbane Art & Design Festival.
Documentation by Cian Sanders.
Brisbane Free University (BFU) believes that education should be a Commons and opens an autonomous space in which the empowering processes of teaching and learning belong to everybody. BFU re-imagines education by bringing critical thought to the heart of the city, challenging the divide between the academic sphere and the public forum.
Listen to the audio tour playlist online now ︎︎︎
FORMS OF ASSEMBLY was presented as part of the 2023 Brisbane Art & Design Festival.
Documentation by Cian Sanders.
“In this vestibule space, a breathing space between carparks and buildings, Hayward’s work becomes all about space: space that is taken up, space that is unceded, space that is liminal and space that is not. So much of our experience as humans comes from our relation to space and how we inhabit it. FORMS OF ASSEMBLY resituates us in a space for reconsideration.”
Text excerpt by Tess Bakharia.
Full text available below.
Exhibition text by Tess Bakharia below ︎︎︎
At such a time when conversations surrounding place and ownership are increasingly prevalent in so-called Australia, FORMS OF ASSEMBLY is an opportunity to pause and consider the nuances of these concepts.
Situated in a commercial carpark on Jacob Lane, an inner-city lot adjacent to two multi-storey carpark complexes servicing the Mater Hospital, the work invites viewers to inhabit the often-uninhabited space that is carparks; reserved for vehicles and capitalised upon by private corporations and the government alike.
Facilitated by Georgia Hayward, an artist and arts worker based in Meanjin/Brisbane, accompanied by Brisbane Free University’s carpark walking tour podcast series, and hosted by community space Echo & Bounce, FORMS OF ASSEMBLY is in its basic form a temporary occupation.
The word occupation here carries dual meaning. Immediately, it calls to mind Western occupation of so-called Australia and the imposition of concrete structures, such as carparks, upon Country. In FORMS OF ASSEMBLY, occupation undergoes a reversal, occurring instead as a defiant intervention of activation and cohabitation within these capitalist spaces.
Through large, bright blue foam mats resting upon repurposed exhaust pipes and mufflers, objects we don’t often see isolated from cars, Hayward grounds us on the floor, a space we don’t often spend time inhabiting, least of all in carparks. The soft, comfortable tactility of the mats taps into our inherent desire to relax, usually suppressed in our labour-driven society.
It seems, through creating comfortability in harsh surroundings, Hayward is also asking us to consider the importance of these contradictions. Our impulse is to sit, lie, recline, relax, be grounded in the space – but what is actually occurring here? Why are we congregated in a carpark we would otherwise traverse through, and what is the significance of us being here?
FORMS OF ASSEMBLY encourages intentional cohabitation of colonised space, to not only consciously consider where we are and how we got here, but to also consider who else we are here with. Through a framework of social triangulation, Hayward actively subverts the modern tendency towards individualism by positioning seating areas in a triangular formation, cultivating communal interaction.
Beneath a canopy of multi-storey carpark complexes, we assembled collectively, returning to our inherent need to exist in groups. FORMS OF ASSEMBLY looks forward to an alternate future where we embrace our impulses to sit on the ground, to walk bare foot, to exist as one with land and body in spaces designated for relaxation rather than labour.
In this vestibule space, a breathing space between carparks and buildings, Hayward’s work becomes all about space: space that is taken up, space that is unceded, space that is liminal and space that is not. So much of our experience as humans comes from our relation to space and how we inhabit it. FORMS OF ASSEMBLY resituates us in a space for reconsideration.
︎︎︎ By Tess Bakharia
Tess Bakharia is an early-career arts worker, artist and writer of mixed descent, based in Meanjin, Brisbane. She is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) at Queensland University of Technology and has previously studied in a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication) at Queensland University of Technology. She is interested in the decentralisation of contemporary experience and the imagining of alternate futures within the complexities of our current world.
At such a time when conversations surrounding place and ownership are increasingly prevalent in so-called Australia, FORMS OF ASSEMBLY is an opportunity to pause and consider the nuances of these concepts.
Situated in a commercial carpark on Jacob Lane, an inner-city lot adjacent to two multi-storey carpark complexes servicing the Mater Hospital, the work invites viewers to inhabit the often-uninhabited space that is carparks; reserved for vehicles and capitalised upon by private corporations and the government alike.
Facilitated by Georgia Hayward, an artist and arts worker based in Meanjin/Brisbane, accompanied by Brisbane Free University’s carpark walking tour podcast series, and hosted by community space Echo & Bounce, FORMS OF ASSEMBLY is in its basic form a temporary occupation.
The word occupation here carries dual meaning. Immediately, it calls to mind Western occupation of so-called Australia and the imposition of concrete structures, such as carparks, upon Country. In FORMS OF ASSEMBLY, occupation undergoes a reversal, occurring instead as a defiant intervention of activation and cohabitation within these capitalist spaces.
Through large, bright blue foam mats resting upon repurposed exhaust pipes and mufflers, objects we don’t often see isolated from cars, Hayward grounds us on the floor, a space we don’t often spend time inhabiting, least of all in carparks. The soft, comfortable tactility of the mats taps into our inherent desire to relax, usually suppressed in our labour-driven society.
It seems, through creating comfortability in harsh surroundings, Hayward is also asking us to consider the importance of these contradictions. Our impulse is to sit, lie, recline, relax, be grounded in the space – but what is actually occurring here? Why are we congregated in a carpark we would otherwise traverse through, and what is the significance of us being here?
FORMS OF ASSEMBLY encourages intentional cohabitation of colonised space, to not only consciously consider where we are and how we got here, but to also consider who else we are here with. Through a framework of social triangulation, Hayward actively subverts the modern tendency towards individualism by positioning seating areas in a triangular formation, cultivating communal interaction.
Beneath a canopy of multi-storey carpark complexes, we assembled collectively, returning to our inherent need to exist in groups. FORMS OF ASSEMBLY looks forward to an alternate future where we embrace our impulses to sit on the ground, to walk bare foot, to exist as one with land and body in spaces designated for relaxation rather than labour.
In this vestibule space, a breathing space between carparks and buildings, Hayward’s work becomes all about space: space that is taken up, space that is unceded, space that is liminal and space that is not. So much of our experience as humans comes from our relation to space and how we inhabit it. FORMS OF ASSEMBLY resituates us in a space for reconsideration.
︎︎︎ By Tess Bakharia
Tess Bakharia is an early-career arts worker, artist and writer of mixed descent, based in Meanjin, Brisbane. She is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) at Queensland University of Technology and has previously studied in a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication) at Queensland University of Technology. She is interested in the decentralisation of contemporary experience and the imagining of alternate futures within the complexities of our current world.