Slow Art Collective: Kaeru

Enter a microcosm of DIY and repurposed objects in the latest offering from the slow art makers

First published on 25 Jul 2012. Updated on 1 Oct 2012.

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The international Slow Movement is alive in Melbourne. There’s slow food, slow travel, slow science and slow design among others. In this speed-centric society the slow movement gathers momentum by asking people to pause, reflect and embrace community, the environment and sincere connections to place and people. These principles resonate with Melbourne’s own Slow Art Collective, which comprises three established artists and makers, Tony Adams, Chaco Kato and Dylan Martorell. Collectively they build works, often large scale installations, that look to environmental sustainability, the ethics of materials, DIY culture and bringing people together as the substance of their works.

The artists see every site as an opportunity to gather, fossick, dissect and resurrect and they often collaborate with local children and adults to build their microcosms. Most recently they erected a DIY Bed and Breakfast in Gertrude Contemporary for the exhibition Bellowing Echoes, where they creatively mapped Asian immigration patterns into Australia through sound, food and found objects from the Fitzroy locale. Last year they bunkered down in the Collingwood McDonald’s drive through and built a makeshift dwelling, ‘an emergency home’ as they called it, as part of the Mis-Design exhibition at Ian Potter Museum of Art. The artists forced drive through customers, the fastest of all food exchanges, to slow down and reflect on ideas of homelessness, food wastage and shelter.

In September you can enter their newest installation, Kaeru, made with the people of Melbourne and renowned Japanese installation artist Hiroshi Fuji. Intertwining art, architecture, music and environmentalism, Kaeru is a people’s garden at the Arts Centre Melbourne on the banks of the Yarra River.

Words by Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris |

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