Augmented reality, projections, soundscapes, inflatables, luminescence all at your fingertips. Welcome to What’s Up Stonnington, a fully immersive and interactive series of art installations built to intrigue and inspire. The future of Stonnington starts right here, right now, and we’re giving you the chance to be right in the middle of it – literally.
Presented on the traditional land of Boon Wurrung and the Wurundjeri people, this program transforms the space into a place of fun, joy, discovery, education, and imagination for all. The full program sees installations change every three weeks, encouraging constant collaboration and conversation amongst the community, artists, and visitors.
Each different iteration throughout the 6-month program presents an eclectic mix of creative formats that stimulate all the senses. Innovative, inclusive, engaging, and inspirational – the program promises a totally new multidimensional experience every time to keep you coming back for more. As well as a veritable smorgasbord of different artistic styles and practices, What’s Up Stonnington is proud to partner with gender-diverse, neuro-diverse, first nations, and differently-abled groups, to guarantee a little bit of something for everyone to share in and become an integral part of as we reinvigorate the City of Stonnington and get your creative senses tingling. Every one of the installations demonstrates the dynamic and ephemeral nature that excites and drives so much of our contemporary creative culture, so don’t blink or you just might miss out!
Listen Up: Find yourself in the depths of an immersive soundscape created by multi-talented Naarm musician and multi-sensory artist Lost Few. Listen Up explores arid, uninhabited corners with processed instrumentation and greyscale electronics. Lost Few’s interdisciplinary approach pieces together visceral experiences in sound, light, scent, touch, and vision for something we promise you’ve never felt before. Become a part of the Listen Up installation, and discover a totally unique sensory experience representing the diversity of Gender Binary, Intersection, Fragility and Masculinity.
Glow Up: Have you ever wondered what it might feel like just to live inside a lava lamp… or even the Jellyfish forest from Finding Nemo?? Well, 90’s kid or not, you’re definitely not alone and you don’t have to imagine any longer! Dive right into the Glow Up installation. Manoeuvre your way through the larger-than-life bubbles and play amongst colourful, glowing inflatables of all sizes. This one is completely hands on – get tactile, get moving, and get weird!
Chalk Up: Enter a wonderland of words. Everyone is invited to completely transform the space around you – leaving your messages and drawings directly on the walls and floor. Take in a little wisdom, inspiration, and maybe a few good one-liners from the glowing neon scribbles, and add your own commentary to this collaborative conversation piece. Come back as many times as you like over these three weeks and watch as the IRL group chat grows. Better than reading the back of a bathroom stall, any day!
Hands Up: For Deaf artist Jaycob Campbell (AKA Gonketa) hands are a fascinating, complex, and incredibly useful thing. Using unmissable bold, bright colours, and line-work influenced by manga, comic books, pop art and street art, Gonketa explores hand gestures, shape, and form to communicate through sign language on a whole new level. This work empowers the Deaf community and raises awareness about the use and intricacy of sign languages, as it’s also amplified to tell a story that spans across multiple languages, dimensions, and art forms with the help of dynamic augmented reality from Keo Match.
Light Up: For this lit installation, we’re proudly partnering with the Centre for Projection Art. Working with artists exploring the medium of projections, the Centre for Projection Art elevates the digital form in site-responsive ways, and places the artist in moving conversations with the audience. Projections will alter the way you perceive the space to expand the possibilities of site and self.
Speak Up: Presented on the traditional land of Boon Wurrung and the Wurundjeri people, Speak Up is a First Nations feature mural & audio installation. Melbourne-based First Nations street artist Jeswri will collaborate with our local First Nations storytellers to create a large-scale mural that represents themselves, their lives, their culture, and their people. For three weeks, the space will become home to their stories; a meeting place for all visitors to share a quiet contemplative moment and take in the history, pride, and vibrancy of our diverse community.
Proudly supported by the City of Stonnington.
Located on the corner of Izett Street and Chatham Street, Prahran (corner of Prahran Square).
