Footscray’s Maddern Square will light up this Friday night with vivid projections, roving performers and the launch of a street art project by French artist Aline Brugel that’s truly one out of the box.
Brugel says her Australian premiere paste-up project, Corps in Situ in Footscray, features life-size images of people in boxes, placed in surprising locations.
“The project started with a walk around Footscray, trying to get to know the city better, working and playing with the colour blue.”
Fifteen sites have been selected, tying in with the blue theme of Victoria University’s ‘Bluscray’ centenary celebrations.
Brugel says the works were formed by checking the dimensions of the chosen sites, playing with the architecture of the building, then making a box with the same dimensions.
“We then had 15 boxes of different sizes. We did a three-day workshop photo-shooting people in the boxes,” she said.
“I asked them to play around with how they were looking out of the box, saying ‘imagine if you were really in this place, how would you look out at the people looking at you?’, then I would take their picture.”
Each location will feature three different pictures across coming weeks.
Brugel says she hopes to make people take a new look at surroundings that may have become overly familiar.
“We like to surprise people, whether or not they know about the project, to look at these places with a new eye, make them think.”
The project will be launched during Friday night’s celebrations in Maddern Square, part of the current West Projections Festival (until September 11).
The entertainment, from 6-9pm, will also feature DJ and VJ entertainment, food trucks and a bar hosted by Two Birds Brewing.
