AU T U MN / W IN T E R 2021
Art and Community
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Communities around several regional galleries, including Maitland’s, were invited to participate in a large-scale collaborative creative project during 2020, the result of which is now touring New South Wales. Two Maitland-based community groups, Mai-Wel, which provides disability support services, and Inside Out, an inclusive artist collective, participated in an exciting creative collaboration during 2020, alongside community members from Grafton, Bathurst and Albury. The resulting large-scale sculpture was exhibited at MRAG in January.
were then adapted into large collages – often merging four or five artist’s work together to create one cohesive whole. These collages were then shaped into soft sculptural forms and integrated into a giant inflatable sculpture – an expressive, complex organic structure which viewers can experience by walking through and around, taking in colourful textile patterns as they explore. The sculpture is a burst of colour and curiosity, as though strange but happy plant life has taken root and risen up from the bleakness of COVID lockdown.
The Adaptation project was a series of online creative workshops led by Goldberg Aberline Studio during the peak of social distancing, which used drawing, music, movement and a sense of fun to encourage participants to find their ‘happy place’ and vibrant creative release. Small-scale works produced from these workshops
Other community groups involved in the project were those connected with the regional galleries of Grafton and 22
