Past Exhibition

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot is a performance, photographic and installation based body of work showing off the latest footwear and fashion needed for global warming by Australian artist Sylvia Schwenk. A performance of Boots for Rising Waters, will see women modelling gumboots with black stilt-like fixtures on their base, on the opening night of the exhibition.

Schwenk's work is generally socially based interventions performed in the urban landscape, and she looks to reconnect art and life through performance. She uses fashion, life between buildings, the human body and performance to create awareness, discussion and engagement of issues, through participation. Schwenk’s performances are based on a platform of fun and lightheartedness, which engenders positive experiences for the performers and passers-by, who become actors in the shared public space of the intervention. See www.schwenk.com.au for more details.

As a part of the 2009 Dunedin Fringe Festival, Schwenk will choreograph and direct X Performance Dunedin , where local participants will form giant and individual Xs with their bodies in and around the Octagon. Schwenk says she "uses the city as a canvas because it is such an essential space for interaction, for exchange and social activity across people of all different demographics." X Performance Dunedin will look at various issues including community and freedom of expression.

 Performances

Tuesday 24 March 2009: Opening performance Boots for Rising Water, Sylvia Schwenk , Blue Oyster Upper and Darkside Galleries

Friday 27 March 2009: X Performance Dunedin Sylvia Schwenk, The Octagon

Friday 27 March 2009: “Devloution #1” and “Thus I spoke Silence” Sudhir Kumar Duppati, Blue Oyster Lower Gallery

Saturday 4 April 2009: WISH – About Spaces Sarah Forgan and Irvine Forgan, Blue Oyster Lower Gallery

Traces of the performances will inhabit Blue Oyster gallery spaces from Tuesday 24 to Saturday 18 March 2009.