We tend to take what we know about design and architecture for granted, often based on assumptions rooted in history, culture, and geopolitics. But what happens when you change those assumptions? This MMeets presented by Aric Chen, lead curator for design and architecture at West Kowloon Cultural District’s M+ Hong Kong focussed on how the museum aims to reveal lesser-known Asian narratives of design and architecture, while revisiting familiar global ones from the museum’s vantage point in Hong ...
Feb 24, 2017•57 min
Sri Lankan-born, Sydney-based artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran creates rough-edged, vibrant, new-age idols that are at once enticing and disquieting. His figurative sculptures experiment with form and scale and explore the politics of sex, the monument, gender and organised religion. While proceeding from a confident atheist perspective, Ramesh draws upon his Hindu and Christian heritage as reference points, also looking to popular culture including the internet, pornography, fashion and art his...
Feb 24, 2017•54 min
Narrate rounded out the final leg of MRelay 2016/17. Storytelling is a tool for knowledge generation and cultural transmission. The telling of one’s personal journey can be used to share cultural history and create social cohesion. This session provided a speaker’s corner for the city, a platform for ideas to be heard and stories to be told. It was opportunity to hear from ethnically and culturally diverse voices, ages and genders. Here we investigated digital storytelling, personal and architec...
Feb 24, 2017•1 hr 50 min
The third leg of MRelay considered the theme 'Pause'. What happens when we stop—if we push a symbolic pause button on our lives? How is pause used as a diplomatic moment, a break in verse, a strategic instrument, a historical atonement or a connection to place? This session presented a chance to reflect on our past lives, imagined lives and future lives, and considered our environment and the surroundings we are in. How a moment of pause can result in a total reassessment and recalibration. In o...
Feb 24, 2017•1 hr 56 min
The second lap of MRelay was Play. What can be learnt from seeing Melbourne as a playground? Recent decades have seen a rise in playful practices in the public spaces, ranging from street art to skateboarding to parkour. From flash mobs to urban gardening. From performative interventions to location-based digital games. In social frameworks how can play be used as a tool to promote inclusion, and improve and increase life opportunities and boost community morale? Architecturally, how can the con...
Feb 24, 2017•1 hr 45 min
MRelay 2016 jumped out of the blocks with the theme 'Cultivate'. We looked at the city as a place to nurture and, in turn, asked the question: how do we create a civic space that nurtures its inhabitants? Can we as citizens be both productive (and products of) a city? How do we take responsibility for moulding its environmental and cultural fabric? This session explored the power of collective consciousness and how human infrastructure can grow and maintain a healthy coexistence. From rooftop ho...
Feb 24, 2017•2 hr 6 min
This event explored the concept of nothingness in scientific inquiry, sustainability, literature and cultures that express that they ‘do nothing’. Was it vague? There was nothing to worry about. This symposium brought together leading academics, thinkers and experimental artists to delve and dive, to poke and prod and explain to you, the very idea of nothingness. On the night, international law scholar Hilary Charlesworth AM discussed the role of utopia (‘no place’) in international law; Dr Mark...
Feb 24, 2017•1 hr
A leafy park, a noisy building site, a room with a view (or without) – for better or worse, the physical spaces we inhabit have a biological and psychological effect on us. Following January's 'Vital (De)signs: Sensing space through VR', we brought together a range of voices that discussed and debated the impact of the built environment on our health and wellbeing – and the game-changing potential of virtual reality. The panel included neuroscientist Professor Julie Bernhardt of The Florey Insti...
Feb 24, 2017•56 min
In 2014 the State Government delivered its blueprint for Southbank’s Arts Precinct. The primary recommendations were driven by an urban design vision addressing the impermeable nature of the site and its disconnection from other parts of the city. Southbank is one of Melbourne’s densest residential neighbourhoods yet the lack of connection between the residents and the iconic cultural facilities remains only partially addressed. Led by urban planner, theatre producer, choreographer and dancer We...
Jan 15, 2017•59 min
Revisit Parlour at MPavilion to celebrate the launch of Marion’s List, a new public register for the women of Australian architecture. Marion’s List is created as a resource for those looking for expert commentary or input, and for those wanting to be involved in the people of architecture’s public culture—things like talks, panels, juries, teaching and much more! With Marion’s List, Parlour hopes that we need never again hear: ‘We asked a woman, but she wasn’t available.’ Marion’s List is also ...
Jan 15, 2017•36 min
Despite the fact that the built environment affects all of us daily, directing our movements and shaping how we live, it remains determined by a male-dominated property industry. This panel focused on representation of women across all fields of decision-making in the built environment from policy to design, and looks at ways to support, promote and increase gender equality across the industry. Listen back to this MTalks panel, a part of the always-engaging High Density Happiness series of talks...
Jan 15, 2017•59 min
Many young people in northern India argue that to survive in the subcontinent today you need jugaad. This is a Hindi word which means “a hack”—the shrewd use of available resources to find an ingenious solution. The classic Indian image of jugaad is a wooden ox cart that has been fitted with a modern engine, but it can describe everything from a form of housing to a way of acting in a government office, from a style of clothing to an approach to managing labour—search jugaad on Google images to ...
Jan 15, 2017•58 min
In an era of ‘planetary urbanisation’ the making and moving of urban cultures becomes a global process, but also one firmly embedded in place. Creating the 21st century city requires new ways to understand culture, place and sustainability at a time defined by dynamic flows of people and ideas. Taking cues from Bijoy Jain’s MPavilion 2016, this MTalks panel featured the shining lights of Australian academia on urbanism and kicks-off our November program that focuses on creative cities, urbanism ...
Jan 15, 2017•1 hr 4 min
For this, the first (not a) book club, i-D AU/NZ's Wendy Syfret was joined by Penny Modra of The Good Copy to look at the twelve-part episodic podcast series ‘Charles Manson’s Hollywood’ from the podcast ‘You Must Remember This’. The twelve-part series of podcast episodes “…explore the murders committed in the summer of 1969 by followers of Charles Manson, and the Hollywood music and movie scene surrounding the killings.” Wendy and Penny discussed why we’re so obsessed with Charles Mason, other ...
Dec 13, 2016•1 hr 3 min
The rise of fascism and the resulting European diaspora of the inter-war and post-war periods brought émigré and refugee modernists to live in Australia. Some were practitioners of Bauhaus from the German school of the same name often cited as the most influential modernist movement of the 20th century. Figures such as Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Inge King, Gerhard Herbst, Ernest Fooks, Fredrick Sterne, Harry Seidler, Karl and Gertrude Langer transformed Australian art, architecture and design educa...
Dec 02, 2016•49 min
Visiting Melbourne as part of the Bauhaus in Australia launch, Penelope Seidler met with Dr Ann Stephen and Philip Goad for this special in conversation MTalk at MPavilion. With an illustrious career as an architect and a life devoted to the arts, Penelope spoke about architecture then and now, as well as her life with her professional partner and husband, famed leader in Australian modernism and exponent of Bauhaus, Harry Seidler.
Dec 02, 2016•41 min
Revisit this MTalk with Glenn Murcutt, Australia’s best-known architect internationally, in conversation with MPavilion 2014 architect Sean Godsell chatting about Glenn’s enduring and award-winning career as an architect. Glenn’s illustrious career has seen him awarded the honour Order of Australia (AO) in 1996 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize for 2002—often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize of Architecture’. He is also a recipient of numerous Australian Institute of Architects Awards and has b...
Dec 01, 2016•1 hr 24 min
With a growing urban design movement focussed on creating liveable streets, the benefits of walking as a catalyst for sustainable, healthy, prosperous and attractive cities is gaining attention. From seventy years of practice, Arup recognises that a walkable city is a better city, and that the more we all walk, the better the city is. This knowledge, underpinned by hearty amounts of research, has resulted in 'Cities Alive: Towards a walking world', Arup’s recent publication. Listen back to their...
Dec 01, 2016•55 min
The Mahābhārata is South Asia’s most important literary text. A long narrative of epic struggle between two sets of parallel cousins, it tells of the transformation of social, religious and cultural mores in ancient Indian society between 200BCE and 200CE. It was once known at all levels of society and has continued to be read, heard and performed up until the present day. Hear back from La Trobe University’s Greg Bailey for this MTalks lecture that speaks about the ancient yet enduringly signif...
Nov 30, 2016•58 min
Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) in association with Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art (IMA) and Curatorial Practice at Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA) were pleased to present a special lecture at MPavilion by visiting international curator and writer, Tirdad Zolghadr. Tirdad Zolghadr is a curator and writer. He is the associate curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, director of the Summer Academy Paul Klee in Bern, and teaches at the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem...
Nov 11, 2016•1 hr 22 min
In 1914 the Griffins, minted from the firmament of the Prairie School, were newly arrived in Australia and ready to test their ideas in that rarest of all architectural laboratories, a grand urban design scheme for a new and entirely planned city. But their lofty ideals were to dissipate rapidly: their design for Canberra, which won the 1911 international competition, would meet vicious opposition and never be fully realised. Instead they conjured up Newman College and the Capitol Theatre, estat...
Nov 03, 2016•53 min
Get up close to the mechanics of centuries-old instruments with an informal hour-long chat as the Australian String Quartet presented its new series 'Close Quarters'—a concept dedicated to playing in intimate and unique settings. Enjoy a diverse and lively conversation as Australia’s pre-eminent string quartet threw aside traditional conventions to present some of its favourite music over a tipple from our kiosk and a snack from its hamper. Over dinner have a listen to this insightful chat.
Nov 03, 2016•33 min
Liquid Architecture and MPavilion presented French sound poet and conceptualist Anne-James Chaton’s Testimonies, a new performance that extends his long-term interest in linguistic experimentation, phonetic rhythms, loops, repetitions and reverberations into new relational and conversational territories focused on world events. Drawing textual material out of one-on-one encounters with visitors to MPavilion that took place in late October, this performance was the culmination of the works create...
Nov 03, 2016•1 hr 21 min
Vietnamese-born Danish artist Danh Vō joined us for a special conversation with Geelong Gallery director Jason Smith, for this MTalk. Danh Vō’s early life was defined by upheaval: Danh and his family fled their native South Vietnam, launching seaward in a homemade boat to be rescued at sea by a Danish freighter and re-settled in Denmark. Danh’s art is often attributed to these early events and the subsequent new location he and his family found themselves in—a dialogue between the historical and...
Nov 03, 2016•58 min
In the spirit of experimental activations of public space and the arrival of Public Art Melbourne’s inaugural Biennial Lab at the Queen Victoria Markets, listen to this MTalks event at MPavilion. Here you will discover what makes the Biennial Lab so intriguing. Join eminent curators in the public sphere, Khairuddin Hori and Natalie King, and Biennial Lab artist, Timothy Moore of SIBLING as they discuss their contribution to the Biennial Lab — the City of Melbourne’s latest public space engagemen...
Nov 03, 2016•1 hr
Australian dancer and choreographer Atlanta Eke brought us 'Wetware', a performance concerned with time travel. The work, a response to the RMIT Design Hub’s Occupied exhibition and further developed for MPavilion, imagined that architects from 2050 had travelled back in time via the digital universe to share a dystopian tale from a near future; a drowned world where land-based life has returned to the sea. The performance of 'Wetware' was followed by a related panel discussion entitled ‘The arc...
Nov 03, 2016•1 hr 51 min
Listen to Parlour's convivial afternoon of conversation and connection over a glass of wine. Casual and welcoming, their spring salon was the first of Parlour’s seasonal salons—supported by Parlour partner AWS—that gave an opportunity for the women of Melbourne architecture to meet, form new networks and relationships. Emerging or established, all are always encouraged to join in at MPavilion. This salon began with a short public conversation between two women of different backgrounds and shared...
Oct 25, 2016•37 min
Sonia Leber and David Chesworth are two artists who have been collaborating since 1996 in the creation of a series of large-scale installation artworks, using sound, video, architecture and public participation. These works often utilise the human voice as a principal element along with real world situations as a starting point. These situations include the old The Age newspaper building on Melbourne's Spencer Street in pre-demolition days in We Are Printers Too, and commuters stuck at an underg...
Oct 25, 2016•49 min
We all know Melbourne is big on art. And you can’t miss the fact—it’s team-coloured beanies, flags and scarves all—that Melbourne is big on sport. This special MTalks event explored Melbourne’s unique love of both, and even, the less-obvious connection between sport and art. Hear from MPavilion’s 2016 architect Bijoy Jain along with Robyn Archer as host and a bunch of people including Gideon Obarzanek, Yumi Umiumare and David Pledger who cross the worlds of art and sport. They discussed what it ...
Oct 25, 2016•51 min
What processes take place within the studio to realise works of architecture? Gain an insight into the collaborative nature of architectural design, and the studio culture of some of Melbourne’s most exciting emerging practices. Listen to this #MTalk to hear the emerging architects and graduates of Melbourne for a panel-discussion on collaboration and studio culture within architectural practice. Panellists included Monique Woodward and Izzy from WOWOWA; Michael Roper of Architecture Architectur...
Oct 25, 2016•48 min
