Adaptation
Adaptation is a large scale community collaboration project that invites remote communities to unlock their creativity via online workshops. Artworks from these sessions are 'adapted' into an ever evolving public art project: inflatable sculptures, art canvases and art fabrics.
In a time of widespread uncertainty, the Adaptation project brought excitement and creativity to regional communities of Australia who were grappling with the isolation that Covid brought. During the depths of the 2020 lockdown, people from four different regions in Australia were invited to collaborate in the development of Adaptation. Collaborative art making classes where conducted via zoom in collaboration with Bathurst, Maitland, Grafton Regional Galleries and AlburyCity.
Essentially, Adaptation is a social experiment on happiness - how do we feel connected when we can't be with each other? GAS brought together over 100 people from four different parts of Australia to design a public artwork via the internet. It's a huge milestone for GAS and the one of the first online collaborative public artworks of its kind in Australia.
Using supplied art kits and curated music, participants were encouraged to get creative and express themselves in their very own homes, guided by GAS via an online zoom workshop. From nearly 1000 participant drawings, GAS collaged these beautiful participant artworks into huge "art fabrics", which were both hung in the stunning Maitland Regional Gallery as well as featuring on the inflatable installation component pictured above.
Adaptation was intended for Sculpture by the Sea (SXS) Bondi in 2020. But due to covid cancellations, it was instead at the 2021 SXS Cottesloe, in Perth. In 2020 Adaptation was also exhibited at Grafton Gallery, Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.
GAS would like to thank their friends and sponsors: Ricky Richards who are the most fantastic and generous suppliers of most of our fabrics, and Sublitech who skilfully printed all of our fabrics.
