Day two saw the group visit RMIT’s Creative gallery First Site to hear from Alice Matteau, followed by a presentation by Jo Mair Public Art, City of Melbourne and Artist Dr Sally Mannall.

Jo Mair, City of Melbourne – Creative Urban Places, Program Lead
Jo provided a snapshot of prominent public art in Melbourne from:

• Permanent works Vault Yellow Peril, The Purse, Eagle - very small annual budget (works over $200 K)
• Laneway Commissions project (old version of test sites)
• Current day new approaches that receive smaller funding but are their to test ideas and work in the public like Test Sites opportunity for artists with public art ideas to explore and experiment/prototype with temporary creative ideas (research and develop on site) in the Melbourne central city with support from the CoM (collaboration with other parts of Council such as Smart City Office and the Innovation District/ Uni of Melbourne UniSquare) and Biennial Lab a curated activations by and with artists on sites like QVM ($10 – 30K funding)
• Semi Permananet Raising the Rattle, 9000 Hours, The Good Life, Reco Lead Light Emu’s, Seed Pods ($40k – 150k)

Highlights for me included:

• Melbourne Principles: During the lab, participating artists reimagined ‘The New Rules of Public Art’. Published in 2013 by Situations, these rules acted as a catalyst for debate, fostering discussion about the role of public art. Responding to these original rules, Public Art Melbourne created a new list, The Melbourne Principles: New Rules for Public Art, while immersed in the Lab with artists at Queen Victoria Market. The rules were developed in collaboration with Claire Doherty, Director of Situations.
• The issues and challenges delivering on major public art works from a local council point of view.
• Southbank Major Public Art Commission – prior to Creative Victoria, State Government redevelopment of the Arts Precinct
• PARKing Day is a day for turning parking spaces into pop-up parks and art – Look into this and produce a group exhibition as part of parking day. (September) 
• The development of the next Creative City Strategy for council will commence shortly. Be a part of the engagement process for its development.

Artist: Dr Sally Mannall

Artistic intervention in specific sites can reveal a cultural moment - Garden as a highly complex cultural artefact.

Approach to Garden Sites:

• Historical
• Ideological
• Cultural              Conjure layered, associative readings of the garden Idea, Place and Action
• Environmental
• Personal

Gardens generate their own meaning: 

AS IDEA – what doe the garden tell us about cultural values?

AS PLACE – about belonging, events and activations.

AS ACTION – How is it maintained?

Heide Idea Development:

• British/colonial approach to landscape/garden as different to indigenous approach (Wealth, opulence and native, natural)
•      The front garden – how we want to be perceived
•      The back garden – how we want to be
• Imprinting yourself on the land
• Humans power, dominance and control in the landscape (and the absurd)
• Heuristic Knowing: enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves - “a ‘hands-on’ or interactive heuristic approach to learning”