Exhibition Dates 7 March - 16 May
The Maze is a large-scale, immersive papier mâché installation crafted in 1991 under the guidance of artist Suesy Circosta, with the participation of more than 100 young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds in the former City of Springvale. More than 30 years later, the work returns reinterpreted through contemporary activations by multidisciplinary artists Jon Tjhia and Fayen d’Evie. Working with local schools, some of The Maze’s original participants, Dandenong-based artists and wider community members, they have developed a contemporary response to this significant work from our collection.
The result is a participatory, intersensory engagement with the ideas at the heart of the original work. This new installation reflects on the value of polyvocality (many voices together), as well as annotation and marginalia as both artistic practice and community-building methodologies. As the work continues to change over the course of exhibition, it will take in new contributions from visitors and collaborators — who will be invited to join this collective consideration of feelings and dreams, past and future, difference and unity, survival and conflict resolution.
The Maze at Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre is complemented by a museum collection exhibition at Heritage Hill Museum and Historic Gardens. Together, the two exhibitions invite audiences to reflect on the transformative power of art to build bridges — between generations, across cultures and through time.
About the Artists
Jon Tjhia
Jon Tjhia is an artist, writer and editor working through radio and podcast, literature, photomedia, music and publishing, alongside community organising and access. An award-winning radiomaker and award-losing writer, his recent work is published by BBC Radio 3/4, Un Magazine, LOOM, LIMINAL, the Powerhouse, Avantwhatever and WFMU. Other works have appeared at Manchester Literature Festival, the Barbican Centre, City Gallery Wellington, Sydney Opera House and Arts Centre Melbourne; the ABC, BBC and CBC; and written about by the New Yorker, the Wire and the Age.
Jon is a prolific collaborator and initiator with a chronic interest in communication, access, experimentation and perspective. He’s a member of Access Lab & Library and the Manus Recording Project Collective, the co-editor of Debris and a co-founder of the sound-rich literary podcast Paper Radio. He is a teacher of Intersensory Digital Publishing at RMIT University and is widely disrespected as a musician.
Fayen d’Evie
Fayen d’Evie is an artist, writer, publisher and academic, working at the forefront of experimental, disability-led art and design. A lifetime of fluctuating vision has spurred Fayen’s creative research into blindness as a critical and imaginative position. Her projects are often collaborative, inviting audiences into sensorial encounters with artworks and texts. She has exhibited at major galleries and museums, and within biennales and festivals, across Australia and worldwide. Fayen has provided creative provocations and programming guidance to art institutions nationally and internationally, pursuing more inclusive structures and more ambitious curation of disability-led practice. She has published and presented widely on access-led and access-infused creative practice, and the radical potential of blindness to liberate ocularcentric artistic and curatorial practice. Fayen is a lecturer in the Master of Communication Design programme of RMIT University, teaching experimental typography, curatorial and exhibition design, and studios grounded in access and transformative pedagogies. She is also the founder of Access Lab and Library as well as independent imprint 3-ply, which approaches publishing as an experimental site for the creation, dispersal, and archiving of texts.
Opening Hours
| Day | Time slot | Comment | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday - Tuesday: | Closed | |||
| Wednesday - Saturday: | 11:00 am-3:00 pm | |||
| Sunday: | Closed | |||
