Commissions

Commissioned artwork in public spaces around Melbourne

As part of our ongoing commitment to bringing GREAT ART to Melbourne we have over the past fifteen years commissioned artwork for a number of public spaces.

Thanks to Grants from Arts Council England and The Heritage Lottery Fund coupled with Melbourne Festival funds we have undertaken a number of commissions since Melbourne Festival started in 2005. We have endeavoured to work with Midlands-based artists whenever possible and commissioned pieces to celebrate Melbourne’ past and enhance our future.

Our most recent commissions were funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. In 2017 we commissioned work as part of For the Love of Lettuce celebrating Melbourne’s Market Gardening history. Photographer Christopher Mear spent a year visiting the three remaining Market Gardens to photograph the produce and the gardeners at work, these images were exhibited at Melbourne Festival in September 2017 and at three exhibitions in 2018. In 2017 we created raised vegetable beds outside of Melbourne Senior Citizen Centre with plants donated by the Market Gardens to house an Installation by Artist Emma Pegg called Nature & Nurture featuring the market gardeners nurturing hands. In addition over the Art & Architecture Trail weekend Melbourne had its own Snail Trail created by Stephen Parker, a sound installation by Rosie Clements and live appearances by the Mel Bear – Melbourne’s own vegetable hero.

Our previous commissions have included the Melbourne Sari a commission by artist Jemma Rix to create a sari representing the key features of Melbourne. This commission was part of Expanding Horizons, a joint project with Surtal Arts, other parts of it were a painting by Barbara Bagley commissioned for Melbourne Senior Citizen Centre. We also worked on a poetry project led by Debjani Chatterjee MBE and Gregory Heath to write a collection of poems inspired by the similarities between the Asian & British cultures and our devotion to TEA.