Discover what’s on at Fed Square

Artist as Animal  sees the artist, Jen Valender, endure an allergen performance across a sea of pollenated, waterlogged, canola fields while wearing high heels and carrying an harp.
Artist as Animal seeks to generate new understandings of farm work and cultural experiences of the landscape by inviting the viewer to consider how the art experience, in its intentionality, communicates both the material conditions of its own making and those of the world it exists within.
Developed during an Art + Ecology Residency hosted by the Centre of Visual Art (CoVA) at the University of Melbourne’s Agricultural College in regional Victoria, this work is inspired by Valender’s experience of the sights, sounds, stories, and serendipitous encounters with residents of all species at the campus.
Duration: 8 minutes
About Jen Valender
Jen Valender is an Aotearoa New Zealand-born, Naarm Melbourne-based, multidisciplinary artist who creates performative encounters on and with the landscape that raise questions about the relationship between art and the natural world. Through moving image, she explores the ways in which art may be used as a navigational tool to investigate human and nonhuman connections.
Valender has exhibited widely in galleries, museums and public spaces in Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, and Portugal. She holds a Master of Fine Arts (Research) from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and is an ongoing ACMI X resident artist at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
Artist as Animal DP: Gene Alberts 
Artist as Animal colourist: Ted Deacey

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Free

Screen

Artist as Animal by Jen Valender

One of Victoria&#8217;s largest and most popular multicultural festivals returns this May to celebrate Buddha&#8217;s Day. Presented by Fo Guang Shan Melbourne and Buddha&#8217;s Light International Association of Victoria (BLIA VIC), this major festival celebrates multiculturalism through the arts, music, multicultural performances, workshops and Buddhist ceremonies.
Held at Fed Square, the Buddha’s Day &amp; Multicultural Festival will run for three exciting days from Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th of May, with an immersive fireworks and lights display running on Friday and Saturday night, and is free for all to attend. Join the festival from 6.30pm on Friday 3rd May for the Light It Up Opening Ceremony, featuring cultural performances from the Chinese Youth Society of Melbourne, National Boys Choir and Taiko Drumming as well as traditional Buddhist Ceremonies by Venerables of Fo Guang Shan and guestspeakers. The ceremony will culminate with an incredible multi-media fireworks display bringing the iconic Square to life as never before seen.
Across the weekend, festival patrons can participate in cultural ceremonies, meditations, workshops and performances; enjoy guided meditation, including the popular Buddhist Ch’an Meditation at the Mindfulness Forest, venture into the Lotus Flower Sanctuary to calm the spirit and bathe the Buddha in the beautiful Lumbini Garden to purify the mind and cultivate wisdom. Families with kids can engage in learning the art of Lion &amp; Dragon Dancing, catch a puppet show or pick a favourite character for face painting and play with giant bubbles.
Over at the Fed Square Main Stage, all ages will enjoy the impressive lineup of performances and dance workshops from Victoria’s best multicultural groups: City of Melbourne Highland Pipe Band, Sanggar Lestari, Mexbourne, Jhoom Bollywood, and many more.
For more information visit: <a href="https://buddhaday.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://buddhaday.org.au/</a> 
Follow Buddha&#8217;s Day Multicultural Festival on Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BuddhasDayMulticulturalFestival/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.facebook.com/BuddhasDayMulticulturalFestival/</a> 
Follow Buddha&#8217;s Day Multicultural Festival on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bdmf.melb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.instagram.com/bdmf.melb/</a>

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Community

Festival

2024 Buddha's Day & Multicultural Festival

Korea Festival 2024, the biggest Korean cultural event in Melbourne is returning to Fed Square, free and open to the public for two days this May.
There will be a spectacular performance lineup including a K-pop dance and singing, and traditional Korean performances. The festival will be bustling with delicious Korean foods, and Korean cultural booths for craft, clothing and more.
Korea Festival 2024 is not to be missed as it will be a perfect opportunity to explore and learn about Korean culture right here in Melbourne.
Follow Korea Festival on Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/melbournekoreafestival" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.facebook.com/melbournekoreafestival</a> 
Follow Korea Festival on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/korean_consulate__melbourne/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.instagram.com/korean_consulate__melbourne/</a>

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Korea Festival 2024

Meet the heroes building a more sustainable future for us all.
Meet the food heroes of the City of Melbourne. The city is filled with people doing good every day to build a sustainable and future-proof city for us all. This is a chance to celebrate their achievements and hear more about the projects that are building climate-proof, sustainable, environmental futures for everyone who lives in or visits the city for generations to come. Let&#8217;s come together to honour their efforts and explore the transformative potential of collective action. Join the conversation and be inspired to join the ranks of Melbourne&#8217;s own food heroes.
Melbourne Conversations is presented by City of Melbourne in partnership with Fed Square.

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Talk

Melbourne Conversations: City Food Heroes

Fed Square becomes a constellation of art and stories that share First Peoples futures, connections to the cosmos, and political discourse.
The Blak Infinite is a site for sharing First Peoples connections to the cosmos, political constellations and futures.
Across Fed Square, experience large-scale installations, new commissions and conversations by leading First Nations artists and writers. Journey through sovereign political and environmental movements, perceptions of belonging and alienation, and the stories in the stars.
Anchoring The Blak Infinite is Richard Bell’s (Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang) <a href="/events/rising-embassy/">EMBASSY</a>—inspired by the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy, pitched on the grounds of Canberra’s Parliament House in 1972. Bell’s installation continues the politically driven work of First Peoples, featuring daily film screenings and a program of talks with activists, writers and artists every Saturday of the festival.
Immersive nighttime projections by Tarryn Love (Gunditjmara Keerray Woorroong) will light up each evening in the square, sharing stories of Sky Country and the cosmos, and transporting you into celestial knowledge. Tony Albert&#8217;s (Girramay, Yidinyji and Kuku Yalanji) large-scale artwork BEAM ME UP The Art of Abduction immerses us in themes of alienation, belonging, and place through colourful installations and a children&#8217;s program.
Artworks and texts across the site explore the infinite possibility of First Peoples futures. The big screen features speculative fiction from acclaimed writer Ellen van Neerven (Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch), expanding the limits of current realities. Artist Kait James (Wadawurrung) uses collage to subvert the loaded visual language of 70s souvenirs, while Michael Cook (Bidjara) creates fantasy worlds where the role of invader and invaded are reversed. Josh Muir&#8217;s (Gunditjmara, Yorta Yorta and Barkindji) supersized artwork reminds us to reach for the stars, and imagine our wildest dreams coming true.
These works across the square offer alternate narratives and ways of seeing the world, and collectively speak to the unlimited sovereign connections held across communities in Australia.
The Blak Infinite is curated by Kimberley Moulton (Yorta Yorta) (Shadow Spirit, 2023) and Kate ten Buuren (Taungurung). Kimberley and Kate would like to acknowledge the immense impact Josh Muir had on Australian contemporary art and Koorie Victoria. We honour his legacy and encourage people to visit his current solo exhibition at the Koorie Hertiage Trust Melbourne. Rest in power and love Josh, forever Deadly.
Further details for the Josh Muir exhibition at Koorie Heritage Trust: <a href="https://koorieheritagetrust.com.au/whats-on/exhibitions/jxsh-mvir-forever-i-live/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JXSH MVIR FOREVER I LIVE</a>
The Blak Infinite presented by Fed Square and RISING, co-curated by Kate ten Buuren and Kimberley Moulton.

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First Peoples

Installation

RISING: The Blak Infinite

A free First Nations-led space for forging alternate futures and dialogue in support of Aboriginal rights.
In January 1972 four First Nations men—Michael Anderson, Billie Craigie, Bert Williams and Tony Coorey—set themselves up under a beach umbrella outside Federal Parliament to protest against Australian government policies oppressing First Peoples and to demand land rights. They declared their spot the Aboriginal Embassy. Within months they were joined by thousands of protesters, and Gough Whitlam was visiting to discuss their five-point plan.
Nearly 40 years later artist and activist Richard Bell, a Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang man, created his work Embassy, a canvas tent that encourages rigorous discussion and First Nations lead political discourse, surrounded by painted protest signs reminiscent of the original. It was a tribute and continuance of the first Aboriginal Embassy and its groundbreaking moment in Australian political history.
Like the original, Bell’s Embassy is a space for reflecting the continued struggle for Aboriginal rights and self-determining space in Australia. It’s travelled the world—most recently to London’s Tate Modern Art Museum, installed in the infamous ‘Turbine Hall’, and to Documenta Fifteen in Kassel Germany—addressing local differences in race and politics through talks and screenings.
Now it’s back in Naarm for <a href="/events/rising-the-blak-infinite/">The Blak Infinite</a> in Fed Square. It’s free and open for screenings, with talks with activists, writers and artists each Saturday of the festival. Together guests and audiences will explore questions of social justice, land rights, environment, sovereignty, and coalition-building.
“The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is many things. To most Aboriginal people it is a symbol of resistance to the colonial power structure that still oppresses us.” — Richard Bell

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RISING: Richard Bell's EMBASSY

What's On

Discover restaurants, bars and cafes serving up Melbourne&#8217;s best breakfast, coffee, lunch, drinks or dinner for any occasion and budget.

Discover All

Eat + Drink

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Victoria by Farmer's Daughters

Big Esso by Mabu Mabu is an all-day bar and kitchen

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People sitting at tables in Big Esso

Big Esso - Mabu Mabu

Bringing the world’s great beers together with exciting locals from Australian craft breweries.

Good Beer Week and Beer DeLuxe, Fed Square

beer

Beer Deluxe

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Pilgrim Bar

An iconic Melbourne bar and cafe nestled in the historic Federation Wharf vaults

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Riverland Bar

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Chocolate Buddha

Embrace the interconnectivity of everything with Memo Akten&#8217;s multi-screen work exploring the merging of human and non-human consciousness – via the coded AI musings of octopus-like digital beings.
Originally beginning as an NFT collection on the ecologically friendly blockchain Tezos, Memo Akten&#8217;s eight-channel video installation, Distributed Consciousness, features 256 unique images of octopus-like Tentacular Critters created with custom Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning coded by the artist.
It was later revealed that each image had AI-generated text cryptographically encoded in it – a Verse. Invisible to the human eye, but readable by code, the collection forms a poem, a book, a manifesto. The manifesto is a human-machine co-creation meditation spanning consciousness, free will, life, death, art, technology, ritual, ecology, economy and sustainability. Each Verse was released as an audio-visual reading.
Cephalopods are incredibly intelligent; only 10% of their neurons are in a central brain, while the rest is distributed across their body, with two thirds in their arms. In a sense, they have a decentralised nervous system. Distributed Consciousness draws parallels between the distributed computation performed by smart-contract based blockchains, and the anthropological timeline, with differently evolved mythologies and deities, promoting alternative cultural values to the exploitative, extractivist, purely profit-driven neoliberal world we find ourselves in today.
Staged as a place of worship, our Tentacular deities invite us to face our final Copernican Trauma, to face the reality that humans may not be the sole keepers of what we think of as “intelligence”, “creativity” or even “consciousness”. The project also uses the extraordinary alien intelligence of cephalopods, to reflect on the new synthetic alien intelligences we are building in machines in the form of AI.
In these times of ecological collapse and urgency, we are invited to let go of the dangerous dichotomy of “Man vs Nature”, and instead embrace the interconnectedness of all human, non-human, living and non-living things across manifold scales of time and space, and actively work towards multi-species flourishing.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/memo-akten-distributed-consciousness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/memo-akten-distributed-consciousness/</a>
Image credit: Memo Akten, Distributed Consciousness (Critters video stills), 2021. Courtesy the artist

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Exhibitions

Memo Akten: Distributed Consciousness at ACMI

Welcome to Wurrdha Marra – meaning ‘Many Mobs’ in the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung language. The name comes to the NGV from the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation and supports the purpose of this space in sharing the work of First Nations artists, from emerging to senior figures, and across time and place. For First Nations peoples around the world, art and design are part of a continuum where the past intersects with the present, different materials converge, and diverse perspectives come together. The central role of art in passing down important cultural knowledge is celebrated in this display through the diverse approaches that artists take to maintaining and regenerating customary cultural practices and iconography while also creating new forms of expression.
The works included in this inaugural hang are by emerging artists as well as senior figures across both time and place. Each of these artists has in their own way been at the forefront in creating new forms of expression, and in maintaining and regenerating customary cultural practices and iconography. Great individual artists, working in Aboriginal-owned art centres or independently after studying at art school, continue to shape and transform art in Australia, inspiring many others to follow their example.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/wurrdha-marra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/wurrdha-marra/</a>
Image credit: Wingu Tingima, Minyma Tjuta (Seven Sisters) 2006, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 138.0 × 205.0 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with funds donated by Supporters and Patrons of Indigenous Art, 2006 © Wingu Tingima/Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia, Photo: Christian Markel/NGV

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Wurrdha Marra at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia

Homer’s ancient war poem The Iliad reverberates in today’s world of unrelenting armed conflict.
A Ukrainian soldier trains to defend his country. A choir sings in a Sarajevo theatre once used to stage defiant performances during the Bosnian War. Youths gather at the tomb of Homer on the island of Ios in the Mediterranean, through which asylum seekers make their treacherous journeys. Three performances reframe the opening lines of Homer&#8217;s epic tale of rage, where victory intertwines with grief and loss.
The Iliad, one of the earliest and most significant texts in Western literature, is set nine years into the Trojan war, and describes how the Greek warrior Achilles refuses to join the battle, due to his wrath at a slight by fellow Greek warrior Agamemnon. Achilles relents only when his closest friend is killed. Stanislava Pinchuk sets her work nine years into the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. She weaves together three charged performances which draw on the oral and folk traditions from which The Iliad evolved. Just as the poem contains many gruesome descriptions of death on the battlefield, so do these performers focus our attention on both the lifeforce and vulnerability of bodies in contemporary &#8216;theatres of war&#8217;.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/stanislava-pinchuk-theatre-of-war/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/stanislava-pinchuk-theatre-of-war/</a>
Stanislava Pinchuk is the 2019 recipient of the <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/collection-preservation/commissions/mordant-family-moving-image-commission-young-australian-artists/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mordant Family Moving Image Commission for Young Australian Artists</a>.
The Mordant Family Moving Image Commission for Young Australian Artists is created in partnership with Professor Cav. Simon Mordant AO and Catriona Mordant AM, the City of Melbourne, John Allsopp from Web Directions, and ACMI.

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Stanislava Pinchuk: The Theatre of War at ACMI

JXSH MVIR FOREVER I LIVE is a retrospective exhibition of artworks by the late Gunditjmara, Yorta Yorta and Barkindji artist Josh Muir (1991 – 2022).
The exhibition highlights the strength of Josh’s artistic practice and the important contribution he has made to First Peoples art and culture in South East Australia and contemporary art nationally and internationally. The works in the exhibition not only reflects Josh’s ongoing artistic legacy, but Josh himself immortalised through his art. They also showcase Josh’s love of family and community, and draw on a range of themes including cultural identity, the impacts and legacies of colonisation, mental health, addiction, personal loss and grief.
This exhibition has been proudly curated by the Koorie Heritage Trust with Josh’s mother, Justine Berg and partner, Shanaya Sheridan as co-curators.
Image credit: Josh Muir, Skip To My Lou,2015. Digital print on aluminium. Collection of Edward Lloyd.

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JXSH MVIR FOREVER I LIVE, at Koorie Heritage Trust (KHT)

For three decades, this much-loved annual exhibition has provided a platform for the next generation of artists across the state to showcase their talent, passion and ingenuity. Top Arts 2024 features the most exceptional work from students who completed the new VCE study designs of Art Making and Exhibiting and Art Creative Practice in 2023. The exhibition promises a fascinating survey of the curious, creative and innovative spirit of young artists.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/top-arts-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/top-arts-2024/</a>
Top Arts Student and Teacher Programs
Book your free self-guided school group visit, or explore the range of NGV Educator-led programming below. Bookings are required for all school groups: <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/learn/top-arts-programs-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/learn/top-arts-programs-2024/</a>
Image credits: Gabriella Vittorio, Lunchtime, 2023 Inkjet print, 59.6 x84.5 cm, Notre Dame College, Shepparton, Ngurraiillam Country © Gabriella Vittorio

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Top Arts 2024 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia

Nina Sanadze surveys the work of Melbourne-based contemporary artist Nina Sanadze. With a practice combining installation, sculpture and found objects, Sanadze references public statues, structures and monuments as metaphors for societal transformation, sometimes incorporating physical fragments and traces of public sculpture into her work.
The exhibition presents six sculpture and installation-based works which interrogate the meaning that statues carry, and the ways they reflect the values and priorities of the time and place in which they are erected or removed.
Inspired by the public monuments in her childhood home of Tbilisi, Georgia, where Soviet icons replaced imperial statues, Sanadze’s work reveals that our cities, monuments and public artworks are constantly in flux, reflecting their contemporary moment.
The works on display reference Australia’s colonial monuments in order to explore and question the emotional resonance of public art. In the installation Monuments and movements, the artist references Melbourne-based sculptures, including the Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Edward VII (1841–1910) and King George V (1865–1936) monuments in Melbourne. Replicating these monuments as flat, folding silhouettes on wheels, this installation presents these sculptures in state of flux between being assembled or dismantled, drawing attention to ideas of permanency and the ephemeral.
In Apotheosis 2021, a collage of sculptural fragments, Sanadze has used collected remnants of Soviet sculptor Valentin Topuridze (1907-1980), Sanadze’s family friend and childhood neighbour. Gifted from the family of the sculptor, Sanadze has reconstructed elements of Topuridze’s archive, piled into a large-scale installation which question complex historical legacies.
Bollard city 2018 examines the use of bollards and barriers, and related concepts of public safety, personal freedom and trust in the community. The work includes oversized bollards appearing to be made of heavy concrete, but are actually composed of lightweight cardboard and polystyrene, offering a sense of transience to these often-permanent structures.
Sanadze has held international solo presentations at Kunstall 3,14, Norway (2023), the 3rd Tbilisi Triennial, Georgia (2018), and she has staged various public art projects including the public art event, Returning the Names, together with Memorial Italia, held at the Venice Biennale, Italy (2022). Sanadze has also participated in group exhibitions at the La Trobe Art Institute, MADA gallery, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Living Museum of the West, ACE Open, Institute of Modern Art, 101 Collins and Gertrude Glasshouse, George Paton Gallery, and Buxton Contemporary Public Screen.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/nina-sanadze/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/nina-sanadze/</a>
Image credit: Nina Sanadze, Bollard City 2018, Photo &#8211; Matthew Stanton

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Nina Sanadze at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia

The Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions is a national, biennial mentorship and exhibition program that pairs emerging Australian First Nations artists and designers with one of eight esteemed industry mentors. Working collaboratively, the mentors each support and guide an emerging artist to create their most ambitious work to date.
Responding to this year’s exhibition theme of My Country, these new works are displayed in a major exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/my-country-country-road-ngv-first-nations-commissions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/my-country-country-road-ngv-first-nations-commissions/</a>
Image credit: Johnathon World Peace Bush painting. Courtesy of the artist, Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association. Photo: Leicolhn McKellar

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My Country: Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions

Visit some of Australia's most significant cultural attractions, including ACMI, the Koorie Heritage Trust and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. 

Your museum of screen culture. Navigate the universe of film, TV, videogames and art.

What's On

Eat + Drink

Victoria by Farmer's Daughters

Big Esso - Mabu Mabu

Beer Deluxe

Pilgrim Bar

Riverland Bar

Chocolate Buddha

Exhibitions

Museums + Galleries

ACMI

Koorie Heritage Trust

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia