New Babylon

New Babylon is a project that challenges the way we interact with, and move through, our urban environments. Culminating in performance, installation and sound works being located throughout the Melbourne CBD, these works reinvigorate public spaces by interrupting their current uses, and by engaging with problematic or ignored locations.

Showcasing fresh work by seven innovative young artists, the project asks: what is the role of the artist in imagining the future of the city of Melbourne? How can we reshape and re-imagine public space? How can we meaningfully reclaim the city space as our own?

About the Artist

Jessica O'Brien

Jessica O’Brien is a Melbourne-based independent curator. A former board member of Seventh Gallery, Jessica was first Treasurer, then Administration Officer of the gallery. Having recently left an assistant registrar position at Deutscher and Hackett auction house, she is currently employed at Asialink, assisting with artist residencies and exchanges.

Pip Wallis

Pip Wallis is a curator and writer. Her practice centers on alternative art writing and ficto-criticism specifically in the context of feminist discourse. Previously Curatorial Assistant in Prints and Drawings at the NGV, Pip is currently Gallery Coordinator at Gertrude Contemporary.

Anna Miller-Yeaman

Anna was awarded the Victoria Harbour Young Artist Initiative, Docklands, and $2000 sculpture prize in 2010 and has exhibited at Platform, Bus Projects and at TCB Art Inc. Her practice is concerned with reconfiguring public objects and facades.

Eliza Dyball

Eliza Dyball utilises photography, video and sculpture to construct parameters and literal spatial limitations on space and subject. Eliza has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) Photography, and her work has toured internationally as part of the reGeneration2 exhibition and was included in 3 Square 2 at Conical, Melbourne, 2011. Eliza is a current studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary.

Esther Stewart

Esther Stewart’s practice explores the nature of the constructed environments in which we live and occupies a space between the functional and the purely aesthetic object. Esther has a BFA with Honours from the VCA. She has exhibited at Platform Contemporary Art Space, TCB Art Inc and Rearview and was included in Fresh 2010 at Craft Victoria.

Jessica Pinney

Jessica Pinney has a Master of Arts, Sound, from London College of Communication and a Masters of Art, Aural and Visual Cultures, from Goldsmith University London. Jessica has exhibited as a performer and sound artist in Melbourne and the United Kingdom since 2007 under the name ‘JUAREZ’, releasing several albums with her band Johnny Saw Horses. In 2011, Jessica was awarded the Art Start Grant by the Australia Council.

Kay Abude

Kay Abude is a sculptor based in Melbourne with a Masters in Fine Art from the VCA. Her practice is a hybrid of drawing, object making, photography, film, installation, costume and performance.
Recent exhibitions include Floating above shadows, moored beneath clouds: Great Heights 2, Melbourne Central, 2010 Next Wave Festival and To work/to be in three spaces/places at once, West Space: The West Wing in 2010.

Renee Cosgrave

Renee Cosgrave is concerned with colour, form and surface and an intuitive mode of making through painting, drawing, collage, installation and wall paintings. Renee has a BFA with Honours from Monash University and since 2007 has taken part in over twenty exhibitions and collaborations, including a solo show at Shepparton Art Gallery, 2009, SNO Gallery, 2010 and Mehringdamm 25, Berlin, 2011.

Renee Miller-Yeaman

Renee and Anna Miller-Yeaman’s collaboration draws on their shared artistic practices and Renee’s architectural background. Both have bachelor of Fine Arts Degrees from Victorian Collage of the Arts. Renee is completing her Master of Architecture at Melbourne University. She has exhibited at TCB Art Inc, Rearview, Museo De La Ciudad De Leon, Mexico and is currently involved with art projects at the Fitzroy Adventure Playground. Her interests lie in the packaging and presentation of nature in urban contexts.