MPavilion 2020
MPavilion 2020
MPavilion is an ongoing initiative of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, supported by City of Melbourne, State Government of Victoria, through Creative Victoria and RACV. Every year the Naomi Milgrom Foundation commissions an outstanding architect to design a temporary pavilion for the Queen Victoria Gardens, in the centre of Melbourne’s Southbank Arts Precinct, which are then gifted to the state of Victoria. In 2020, MPavilion responded to a year of immense global and local change by unfolding in a radical new way.
In 2020, MPavilion responded to the needs of the time by adapting its traditional model to support more artists and provide more community accessibility than ever before.
Instead of unfolding from one fixed location designed by one specially-commissioned architect, this most recent MPavilion season responded to the needs of a pandemic-affected city by delivering events across multiple digital platforms and physical locations. The amplified program not only supported a greater number of disadvantaged creatives, it also increased accessibility to MPavilion for more Melburnians in a way that was safe, sustainable and demonstrative of whole new possibilities in event programming, and the development of the city itself.
“MPavilion shines a light on the
powerful role of design in shaping our
communities and improving our lives.
It celebrates change and adaptability
each year reimagining itself anew. The
2020 program goes further than
merely adapting to change; it embraces
it as a catalyst for new opportunities”
The Hon Danny Pearson MP, Victorian Minister for Creative Industries, Nov 2020
The MPavilion 2020 season ran from 12 November to 1 April 2021, and enjoyed an overwhelming public response at a time when Melbourne was returning to life after 4 months of lockdown.
Outcomes
MPavilion 2020 met the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic by delivering a community-centred program that unfolded with flexibility, care, and imagination.
By hosting events both online and across many different sites around the city, MPavilion was able to make its program more available to more collaborators and attendees, locally and globally. The program embodied MPavilion’s commitment to the principles of sustainability and adaptive reuse by operating across the pavilions of previous years, and then inside architect Peter McIntyre AO’s historically significant Parkade car park, in Melbourne’s CBD.
The 2020 program supported more creatives, commissioned more work, operated across more platforms, and provided more programming to more people than any other season—including Victorians outside of Melbourne with its regional Amplify program, and people across the world through its highly accessible, high quality online content.
Highlights:
Noongar violist Aaron Wyatt performing a specially commissioned piece by Deborah Cheetham AO, the second edition of our M_Curators program, and introducing the Empty Spaces Summit, Topless Cinema sessions with Rooftop Cinema, a recurring Roller Disco with Malt Shop Rollers, MPavilion Hair Salon, Hope St Radio DJ sessions broadcast from MPavilion Melbourne Zoo, and MERGE—a design commission by MPavilion, Open House Melbourne and Melbourne Music Week that saw five local music acts perform in five local heritage locations and MPavilion Parkade. Another highlight was the Walsh St music program—a six-part series of live performances filmed inside legendary architect Robin Boyd CBE’s iconic Walsh St home.
210
Events over 142 days
59,190+
Views of virtual and recorded events
500+
collaborators, including cultural institutions, architects, artists, musicians, dancers, choreographers, scientists, designers and more.
11
locations across Melbourne
CASE STUDY
Empty Spaces Summit
Made possible by the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Empty Spaces Summit was a week-long symposium that invited a group of applicants aged 18-25 to reimagine ruins, empty spaces and forgotten parts of Melbourne and cities beyond.
Led by multidisciplinary artist Jarra Karalinar Steel along with mixed-media conceptual artist Dr Clare McCracken, the five-day-long program dug deep into questions around the history, use, neglect and potential of different kinds of spaces across the city—including car parks, cemeteries, vacant buildings, and more.
The participating group was comprised of 10 young doers and thinkers who were passionate about art, architecture, urbanism or public space. The participants took part in workshops, walks, site visits and lectures by special guests before generating a collective response in the form of the special event Exhale—one of the final events of the 2020 season.
CASE STUDY
MPavilion Hair Salon
MPavilion Hair Salon was a week-long event that saw MPavilion Parkade temporarily transformed into a real-life hair salon—and the site of conversations, performances, workshops and hair-styling sessions that ran a fine-tooth comb over the role of hair in shaping our identities, genders, images, perceptions and rituals.
Designed by Moth, and created in collaboration with local artist and writer Atong Atem with Where Are You From? founder Sabina McKenna, the salon was built into Parkade car park, where it played host to sessions run by HoMie, Short Back & Sidewalks, and an affecting array of artists, musicians, performers and thinkers. Events included Good Hair—a panel discussion that explored the social, political and personal experience of having textured, curly or kinky hair, led by ABC Broadcaster and Producer Namila Benson—Virtual curls—a conversation about the online Natural Hair movement, and its impact on the industry in real life—and Sensory Salon—an appointment-based experience where participants could get a mystery haircut done in silence by hairdressers from Eye Am Hair, in collaboration with installation artist, Ashley Bartholomew.
CASE STUDY
66 Records, ON3 & Outwst
In February 2021, three emerging collectives from across the suburbs of Melbourne collaborated to present a reconceptualised runway exhibition. Debuting pieces from their latest collections, ON3 and OUTWST joined forces with local music label 66 Records to create an experience that incorporated the multidisciplinary artistic mediums of fashion, music and projection art.
Mentored by MPavilion’s programming team, this collective of talented young people learned how to produce a hugely successful, full-capacity event that attracted predominantly young, fashion-and-music-focused attendees from across Melbourne—a whole new kind of audience for MPavilion.
DESIGN COMMISSIONS
Stool Dolly
Along with new kiosk uniforms, each MPavilion season needs new stools for audiences to use throughout its program.
Conceptualised by Holly Board and Peter Grove of BoardGrove Architects, Stool Dolly was the design selected for fabrication as MPavilion 2020’s official event stool. A chair that truly spoke to its time, Stool Dolly incorporated the pandemic necessity for physically distancing into its form. Reminiscent of children’s paper dolls—where folded paper is cut into a simple human form, before opening up into a train of people connected by their outstretched arms—each Stool Dolly chair could be positioned at ‘arm’s length’ (1.5 metres), or interlocked. When arranged throughout the MPavilion 2020 program, the resulting configuration allowed its users to sit safely apart, while enjoying each event together.
DESIGN COMMISSIONS
Uniforms
Every season, MPavilion commissions a local fashion designer to create new uniforms for its kiosk staff. In 2020, emerging designer Chelsea Hickman decided to take a slightly different approach to realising the uniforms when she was awarded the commision—an approach that aligned with the ethos of the whole season by centring on the principle of adaptive reuse.
Upcycled from the uniforms of MPavilion seasons past, the garments Chelsea created included over-layer ‘Lab Coats’, under-layer t-shirts, and reusable/washable Covid-safe face masks. All of the garments were custom made by Chelsea personally, making each piece utterly unique, while ensuring its ethical production.
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