Goodbye blogger.

Hello new site!

http://cargocollective.com/michellegordon

Now on video #2!

Because who doesn't like a bit of slow-mo confetti?

Piñata Dress from Tim White on Vimeo.

All people involved can be found in the links to your right ☞☞☞

✌

Confetti and more pinatas.

Here are some stills from a project developed alongside Bernadette Francis and Sarah Barrow. Filmed by Hana Davies and Lizzie Hollins this will become a short film edited by Tim White.

EXPLOSION

Pretty excited about a new collaborative project with one very talented Melbourne fashion designer. It will feature some kind of exploding dress.

Talk Talk Talk

We spoke at a Pecha Kucha night at ACCA as part of the opening night of the State of Design Festival. It was kind of nerve racking... There were 100's of people there! Eeep.
We spoke about audience participation and collaborating with the wider public in relation to the pinata project and the coloured fringe on the grey landscape.
Photos to come soon!
And here is a link to Pecha Kucha....
http://www.pechakuchamelbourne.com/

It's a cool idea where each speaker shows 20 images and each image is shown for 20 seconds. It was actually quite fun once we started.
Aye aye aye!
Hasta Luego!

Fringe-tastic

Sarah and myself are currently working on some ideas that feature the grey sky of Melbourne winter and colourful fringing in public spaces. We are exploring celebration once again and also the idea of putting ourselves in situations that can be a little painful but ultimately rewarding. We are fringing public space in the middle of a cold winters day our fingers numb and getting rained on just to make you smile and get you out of the winter rut! And also to make us smile and make sure we don't get into that horrible winter depression! Yuck!






I'm still a little unsure of where this project is heading.... Maybe a large scale fringing of a building somewhere in the Collingwood/Fitzroy area... Maybe...

Now on video!

A guy called Richard Kendall made this video. Let's smash more pinatas!!!

¡INSTRUCCION. PIÑATA. DESTROZAR!

This was a project in three parts put on in February 2011 at Dear Patti Smith Gallery on Smith St Collingwood.
Here's the exhibition statement -
¡INSTRUCCION. PIÑATA. DESTROZAR! Is a celebration of transformation and new beginnings in the guise of building and destroying piñatas. The project is in two parts; the first begins with an open invitation for participants to take part in a piñata making workshop. During this day the participants are guided by two senoritas to construct a piñata and implant in this object a past event that they would like to leave behind. The second half of the project involves the destruction of the piñatas and the cathartic experience for both the maker of the piñata and the baton wielding participant. This project hopes to create a ritual of exorcism through a creative, constructive and enjoyable act.
Below are images workshop madness!!




And the finished product and the smashing!!




And now the destruction debris!!

Mixed Tape Project

Working full time and saving for overseas travels and then going overseas = a quiet creative output last year. It was also the year that a very important collaboration formed. Sarah Barrow and myself teamed up again and a powerful force was unleashed!
After many chats about our mutual love for cassettes and participatory arts projects and letterboxes we settled on the Mixed Tape Project. The idea is to produce a number of cassettes based on a system where one person records a track on the tape and then posts it back to us who then post it on to another person. We have changed this system to an email system though now with a handmade mailout surprise to each person who gets a track on the tape. It's still an unpredictable outcome where we get as much as a surprise as the audience. Check out the blog for details.... (http://mixedtapeproject.blogspot.com/)
We also ventured up to This Is Not Art with a swag of homemade cassettes under the label name "Cassexx" to sell at the Zine fair. It was a success! Cassexx sold out!
This project is still going strong after one year. The tapes are yet to be completed and we are always open for more collaborators!

No Vacancy presents Process Unstitched

For around two months myself and several other clothing people got to work in a space in Georges Building in Little Collins St Melbs for free! The only thing was that the space was a fish tank full of artists who could be viewed by the office workers who use the building as a thoroughfare.
After the two months we put together an exhibition of the work created inside the space. I worked with Kiri Gorter under the title Park and Best for this exhibition. Other people who exhibited were Made by Warren Designs, Violet and I, Sarah Hankinson and She is Frank.





In that first image the neck piece is by Kiri Gorter and it is rad! The blue dress was by me!
The second image is a handmade leather cape piece.... which took hours.

The Suicide Show

Melbourne Fringe Festival! This show was really up my theatre alley! I actually haven't worked on any theatre since then.... No offers have piqued my interest since this one. Sigh.
Anyhow.... The Suicide Show was a study on male depression but through cabaret performance. It was very sensitively directed by Martin White and had a really beautiful balance of melancholy and happiness. The lighting design was by the talented Adam Hardy and Kimberly Kwa (all VCA alumi class of 2008).
What you really can't see in the photos is that the stage was built on 70 odd builders pallets (like the kinds you get bricks delivered on) with masonite sheeting laid on top. The entire space was surrounded by clear plastic sheeting and the backdrop of flouro tubes where held in place by a wall of chicken wire. It was masculine and stark yet beautiful. My proudest moment in theatre for sure.
The show went on to be nominated for several Green Room Awards.

The Suicide Show
Directed by Martin White
Musical Direction by Mark Jones
Designed by Michelle Gordon
Lighting Design by Adam Hardy and Kimberly Kwa

Homeward Return 2009

After finishing VCA I went back to Newcastle to work with my old theatre company Tantrum Youth Theatre. Here I was invited to work with the 16 - 25 year old group on a show to be presented in a disused office space in central Newcastle. Directed by Brendan O'Connell, this devised work is an example of the massive trend in my hometown of converting all that empty real estate space in the CBD into functioning places for artistic creation (see Renew Newcastle Project created by Marcus Westbury and Marni Jackson).
I didn't end up getting many photos of this piece unfortunately.....
But the work did end up getting remounted however as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival.

Peepshow
Directed by Brendan O'Connell
Designed by Michelle Gordon

The VCA Years

Moving to Melbourne in 2006 to study at the Victorian College of the Arts theatre design program. Here are a selection of designs I created....

The Plains. Directed and written by Lachlan Plain
Set Design by Sarah Barrow
Costume Design by Michelle Gordon
Lighting Design by Adam Hardy




Traps.
By Caryl Churchill
Directed by Naomi Edwards
Set Design by Michelle Gordon
Costume Design by Chloe Greeves
Lighting Design by Peter Darby