Martha Ackroyd Curtis is taking multisensory performance art from Melbourne streets to New Zealand
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02.06.2021

Martha Ackroyd Curtis is taking multisensory performance art from Melbourne streets to New Zealand

Words by Talia Rinaldo

The Video’s Suitcase Walk will be livestreaming from the streets of Melbourne this month.

Locally-renowned urban performance art The Video’s Suitcase Walk returns to Melbourne’s streets this month as part of the Auckland Festival of Photography.

Based in New Zealand from Thursday June 3 to Sunday June 20, the premium international photographic festival brings together both local and international photographers, curators, students, amateurs and professionals to encourage the celebration of photography as an art form.

Representing Melbourne this year, local artist and writer Martha Ackroyd Curtis (Hello Titty) will present her urban performance art project, The Video’s Suitcase Walk, which has been making waves in the arts space since its inception in 2015 thanks to an art grant from the City of Yarra.

What you need to know

  • Martha Ackroyd Curtis is live streaming The Video’s Suitcase Walk from Melboourne to New Zealand audiences
  • The performance piece will be presented as part of the Auckland Festival of Photography
  • The Video’s Suitcase Walk will be filmed in Melbourne on June 12 and livestreamed on the same day

Keep up with all the arts news, reviews and interviews here.

Accompanied by The Stroll Collective, Ackroyd Curtis brings cutting-edge video art to the street in a clever, non-obtrusive way through a ‘moving screen’ that quite literally is carried around streets and street corners, with a strolling pedestrian. Merging performance with video, the little ‘video capsules’ are to be shown on the front of suitcases and walked in a chic and completely original creative concept.

With the crew pausing at different moments, the audience can view the screens and watch on as they just stroll through the city, allowing people to consume video art in an entirely different way, out of the gallery context and onto the streets and nightlife of the city.

While Ackroyd Curtis will be filming the project live in the CBD, the exhibition will be livestreamed to Auckland festival audiences connecting the two cities as one, as well as being available on-demand for the duration of the photography celebration.

Working in the realms of video, installation and multi-mediums, Ackroyd Curtis’ work consists of large-scale installation art, which is formulated through cohesive conceptual design. With a catalogue of video art spanning the last decade, containing upwards of 25 completed works, Ackroyd Curtis has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas, and participated in various art festivals including Midsumma and For The Love of Writing Festival.

Having been part of groundbreaking female power-orientated exhibitions including the highly-regarded Backflip: Feminism and Humour in Contemporary Art, Ackroyd Curtis’ art is worth witnessing if you haven’t already.

The Video’s Suitcase Walk livestream will run on Saturday June 12 between 5pm-6pm, Melbourne time. Details on how to watch the livestream will be disclosed a few days before the event. For more info, head here

Note: The live-streamed event has a COVIDSafe plan B in place for the livestream.