It’s one thing to base a clothing collection on a film heroine, but Sydney art duo, bams and ted, have taken it one step further, dedicating the entire contents of their pop up store to a fresh fictional hero every four weeks. The bams and ted store, which is currently part of the three-month Arcade shop residency at the newly re-launched Gaffa gallery in Sydney has already paid tribute to the lovely but missing schoolgirl Miranda from Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock and Grace Kelly’s femme fatale Frankie from Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief, with super sleuthing detective Jessica Lange of television series Murder She Wrote to come in April.

Sisters Rachel and Claire Fuller are behind the imaginative and playful spaces, the artist and stylist team sourcing vintage clothing, jewellery, shoes, accessories, homewares and nightwear that reference the featured character perfectly. The end result feels part film set part adult sized dress up box.

Most of the stock comes from the long time collectors personal stash of vintage items, with the former country girls popping back to op shops outside the city close to where they grew up to source extra items.

At first glance the bams and ted set up seems reminiscent of Vivienne Westwood’s legendary Kings Road store of the 70s, with its ever-changing name and contents honouring varying British subcultures. But the girls point out their store is not merely about reinvention but is also site-specific. Their shop sits in a nineteenth century police station and their actual store was a holding cell in a previous time. A murder mystery theme ensued, with the girls picking out films and heroines they admired whilst growing up as themes for the stores three incarnations.

With the last changeover due at the beginning of April, the girls are on the hunt for a more permanent shop space in Sydney and haven’t ruled out the possibility of going into menswear in the future or an online shop. [lead photo by Rachel Fuller]

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Last week, a bunch of young Sydney creatives were asked to describe their vision for the city in the time it usually takes to run to the bus stop, boil an egg, or listen to a decent pop song. Three Minute Sydney launched the two week Creative Sydney festival, the city’s first winter festival to celebrate and promote local creative industries. Sydney’s acclaimed but extremely humble comic artist Matt Huynh stole the show with a three minute time lapse video presentation, a speedy sequence of comics created one frantic Sunday afternoon. From the iconic Eternity message chalked on the city sidewalks to scenes from the city’s late night meat-market bars, indie gigs and packed trains, Huynh explored the places and stories of Sydney in black and white.

Last year’s winner of the Sydney Design week travelling scholarship from the Powerhouse Museum, British Council and Art NSW and a former winner of the Cut & Paste digital design competition, Huynh is a reluctant regular on the Sydney design and art circuit, delivering talks and workshops and hoping to encourage the emergence of a distinct Australian comic scene. The artist has his dextrous fingers in many pies, making art, mischief, books and occasional hip-hop sets with the Popperbox collective, illustrating for magazines and currently working on fitting out an entire cafe in a Sydney museum.

Special cheers for Zolton and Zac Zavos from Lost At E Minor who were named in Creative Sydney’s top 100 Creative Catalyst list for all their efforts in making this site a super source of good looking creative content.

Somewhere in a Sydney park, exact location undisclosed, sits a custom built wooden house fit for one. And if you happen to stumble across it, you simply lift it up, climb into the hole dug underneath it and make yourself at home. The makeshift shelter, which loosely resembles a human-sized kennel, is the latest work of Sydney art collective the Bababa International. The trio, consisting of Stephen Russell, Ivan Ruhle and Tom Melick (fourth member Giles Thackway has temporarily absconded to Mexico and is probably wearing a protective swine flu mask at present), say there are plans to install a radio at some point to make the shelter more homely and install similar constructions in parks across Sydney. And they reluctantly offer some hints of this particular houses’ location, saying it’s located in a park in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, past a hedge and close to a tennis court.

The wooden park house, though highly unusual is not inconsistent with the work of Bababa International who have shown that there’s still beauty in the slow reveal, in curiosity, playful investigation and discovery.

A past Bababa work took the form of homemade curries, delivered for free direct from a kitchen under Sydney’s Kudos gallery by the hard working, bike riding Bababa members. But only to a curious few. The exhibition, entitled Possible Curries was ambiguous to navigate. Curry ingredients housed in wooden crates were mounted on a wall, eggplants, cans of coconut cream and potatoes all on show. A bicycle ramp ran down the middle of the gallery and another wall housed a list of people’s names and addresses, which were then pinpointed on an oversized map of Sydney.

An otherwise esoteric spectacle for the passive viewer, it was only the audience members who ventured down a small flight of stairs into a concealed space that housed a kitchen and makeshift ordering station who were rewarded with a home delivered curry. Bababa member Stephen Russell proudly reflecting that the artwork was both physically and conceptually warm, filling bellies across Sydney and bringing unexpected joy.

The three laugh about one particular woman, who had wandered into their show and ordered a curry, only to squawk hysterically in delight when Bababa made their delivery. Other recipients, despite ordering curries and arranging delivery times were surprised that the collective actually came through, having mistaken the exhibition as a rouse. The project itself was an elaborate operation that became full-time operation for the three involved. There were curry ingredients to be bought, cooking to be done and constant deliveries to be made. And it wasn’t without a hiccup, Ivan spent most of his time in the underground kitchen, pumping out meals after he broke his hand when a ute hit him after his first bicycle delivery.

Next up for the philanthropic three is a trip to Hong Kong to set up a nail salon within the Para/Site Art Space in Sheung Wan. The boys, who will be tending what they dub the ‘pamper zone’ have been doing their research, arriving fresh from a manicure and pedicure session and keen to inspect broken nails.

Bababa International are super hands on in their creations and even in unknown territory, outsourcing doesn’t apply. The three agree that they always start with a semblance of a plan, which only solidifies once the installation starts taking place. For their nail salon in Hong Kong, they plan on building all the furniture themselves from materials found upon arrival and envisage lo-fi feet-powered pumps for the foot spas, with Tom enthusiastically miming just how he’ll pump bubbles with one foot whilst tending to a manicured hand. Though he is quick to point out that although their works have involved a high level of physicality and some extent of endurance, they are not performance works. Instead, the projects pursued by the collective all aim to create experiences for an audience that they would not encounter ordinarily, events that go beyond stunts and challenge people to engage and interact with the work to give it meaning.

And whilst a nail salon run by three boys still learning the basics of nail care seems all entertainment and novelty, the project has intriguing socio-political undertones. The collective are targeting Filipino maids to pamper on their day off, the salon inspired by an entry Ivan came across on Talking Heads front man David Byrne’s blog (http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2009/01/011709-hong-kong-the-future-of-no-future.html). Byrne noted whilst on tour, the women congregating on Sundays in an underpass to have a picnic of sorts, sitting on tarpaulins and sharing food and stories, the space being one of the few places the women of low socio-economic means could gather on their day off, given Hong Kong’s public spaces. The salon, tucked away in a gallery will target this hardworking ethnic minority with nail files and foot spas all in the name of art.

Those in Sydney can catch Bababa International at the Creative Sydney event, part of the Vivid Sydney festival. Stephen says sadly that their initial idea to ‘install dog houses throughout the room and release them nearing the end of the performance, allowing them to lick, hump and pee on whomever they wanted’ got shelved for logistical reasons but promises but their next idea is probably better.

Upcoming shows:
8-9pm June 11: “New Dogs, Old Tricks” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
6-8pm June 18: Exhibition at Para/Site Art Space, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

Some things are better said in thread, which probably doesn’t make sense unless you’ve seen the extensive stitched work of Sarah-Jane Cook, an Australian visual artist who works primarily with needle, thread and lace trimmed hankerchiefs. Sweet from afar, a brief admiration of Cook’s handiwork gives way to an inspection of the messages embroidered. Ranging from a thank you for the easter eggs note from child to parent, to pro and con lists, scribbled shopping lists, recipes and abusive notes left for housemates, the collection is diverse and reveals much about the unknown characters who probably penned them in haste.

My favourite? ‘Whoever ate my icecream can keep your filthy hands off it’, stitched in bright orange running writing on a cream hanky trimmed with lace. If only I had it on hand to stick to the freezer door when one such unfortunate instance happened at home.

Cook, a chronic collector, hoarded notes and lists for some thirteen years before selecting a precious few to transform into permanent monuments, a kind of social history, which makes me wonder if her practice will ever extend to sewing particularly telling Facebook statuses or late night tweets.

So simple, yet surprisingly effective, a black and white printed poster strapped to a telegraph poll still has the power to entertain, offend and inform. Especially when they deviate from the usual moving sales, lose-ten-pounds-in-four-weeks and public hunts for housemates. A single A4 sheet precariously stuck to a pole caught my eye, a public declaration of love to no one in particular, complete with tear off reminders. It was simple and sweet, especially appreciated during a time where recession, financial crisis and impending doom are mentioned so frequently.

The print-on-demand Tights Are Not Pants posters are quite a different story. Having emerged as a subject of contention in Nylon last year, the Tights Vs Pants debate has reached new heights. Perennial tights wearer Lindsay Lohan is often to blame, and suddenly women of the world are being urged to reconsider their beloved leggings as everyday outerwear. You can even choose from the direct ‘TIGHTS ARE NOT PANTS’ posters to the slightly more aggressive ‘tell you douche friends: TIGHTS ARE NOT PANTS’.

No photoshop skills required. This kind of activism is paper and pen friendly.

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It started as a joke, a mail out of twenty tiny presents enclosed in matchboxes to friends, containing gifts so personal that they could safely be tracked back to me, despite being sent anonymously. Then came the suggestion that I start leaving them randomly, like a kind of calling card, on a whim, wherever I went. Two years on and I’m still doing just that. Matchboxes containing everything from tea bags, miniature harmonicas, baby babushka dolls, Spiderman knitted fingerpuppets, ten-pin bowling sets and a crazy amount of novelty erasers have been left around Sydney and the world; their contents and locations blogged semi-religiously. After a year, the donations started trickling in. People who had found out about the project started sending their findings, little gifts arrived in international matchboxes or in paperbags with tiny hearts printed on them. Boxes have been left as far as Paris, dropped into the handbags of unsuspecting women, on windowsills and in galleries. Currently there is a slight problem of distribution, with excess boxes building up in my bag as I trek from work to home everyday. So if you want a box, or have any suggestions, I’m all ears.

Banky’s done it before and now so can you, at least metaphorically. A group of Palestinian graf artists will spray-paint emailed messages onto the massive concrete wall that divides Israel and the West Bank and send you photos to prove it. The aim of the project is to creatively transform the physical purpose of the imposing eight metre high wall of separation into one of communication, joy and unity. It’s also a decorative, peaceful and simple way for the Palestinians behind the project to remind the rest of the world of their existence and plight. Funds raised go towards small-scale social and cultural projects in the West Bank, with the Palestinian Peace and Freedom Youth Forum behind the spray painting.

This isn’t an outdoor art installation, but it is still somewhat curated. Or maybe hoarded is a better description. Somewhere in the inner western suburb of Sydney’s Summer Hill, there is a brightly coloured collection of garden gnomes on display. The owner of the home is yet to be seen, but there are hundreds of gnomes, side by side, all with equally dopey expressions on their faces and accompanied by a second fixation: caterpillar soft toys. There are so many gnomes, the garden is no longer visible. Maybe it’s an Amelie style prank that has just piled up over the years?

Mildly fascinated and entertained by the ever growing collection, I decided to make my own contribution one afternoon when a cheery looking garden gnome appeared at the local op shop for the bargain price of $1. Big blue bow tied neatly around its neck, it was ready for dispatch. But on arrival, it appeared that the gnome collector already had five of the exact same type.

If you can’t get enough people watching in when you’re out and about and love reading those trashy red carpet fashion specials in weekly glossies, there are quite a few time consuming fashion blogs out there in which be immersed. Thoroughly. For the Vogue-reading, detail-loving fashion forwards, there’s the happy curation that is The Sartorialist. The baby of an ex-fashion marketer, the bodies featured on this site are chosen for their individuality and experimentation: be it long blue socks and Burberry gumboots on the rainy streets of New York, or a three-piece suit complete with handkerchief and flower on an aging gentleman.

Wardrobe Remix,on the other hand, is a fashion free for all, where any willing participant can upload their outfits (and some do daily) to a Flickr site. And sometimes, you get attached and after checking your essentials of a morning: your email, Facebook, the daily headlines, you skip over to see what your favourite fashion blogger is wearing. I’m stuck on Lulu, maybe because I’m also Asian with blunt bangs. But she has sass and she can pull off platform Dr Martin style red Chloes.

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As a child, I took piano exams in over-sized white rooms, on baby grand pianos that felt unfamiliar and echoed strangely as someone across the room observed me in silence. It felt clinical, intimidating and completely devoid of warmth. Last week, I started noticing upright pianos, some painted haphazardly, others respectfully untouched plonked in the most unlikely places throughout Sydney. There was one on the edge of the baby pool at the local swimming pool, with a young girl in a rainbow striped dress tapping out a happy but disjointed melody; another shaded under a tree at the park on the way home.

Even though I was too shy to sit down and play something (most had some kind of written invitation on them: Play Me, I’m Yours), I loved them for their idiosyncrasy and their ability to interrupt the defined uses of a space. It turns out they are part of a Sydney Festival initiative, with 30 street pianos scattered all round the city, from bus shelters to tattoo parlours, ferries and pools.

Even sweeter still, encountering a misplaced instrument is not the end point of the project. The website invites finders and onlookers to decorate the piano however they feel and record their decorations or performances digitally, to be published on the site: a documentation of each piano’s experience in the city.

Exploding cupcakes, violent shark attacks, volcanoes, flying men and the pastel coloured remains of a café latte have all been depicted by emerging Sydney artist Tony Curran, who describes his works as experimental neo-paintings. Sitting somewhere undefined between sculpture, installation and conventional painting, Curran distills images onto layers of acetate or resin before physically reconstructing them into a completed work. It’s a precarious process, with the alignment of each layer crucial in the making of the image and the acetate layers easy to steal, an unhappy discovery made at his first solo show.

He has also toyed with visual perception and optical illusion in his works, painting portraits in red and green and supplying galleries with hand crafted 3-D viewing glasses. Currently locked out of his Sydney studio (due to carelessness not expulsion), he is concentrating on his curating his second show, for arts based club night The Wall at World Bar in Kings Cross, Sydney, to be launched as part of the Worlds Collide Australia Day celebration on January 25.

A nerd at heart, Curran is a keen consumer of both scientific and artistic journals, so committed to his craft that he admits to eating blueberries to improve his visual strength. Having been exhibited in artist run spaces, commercial galleries and museums in Australia and overseas, starting work as a curator and arts writer, Curran is eager to contribute to a greater arts dialogue. He is currently developing ‘Realperspectives‘, which he hopes will become a funded research body that showcases and supports the divergent works and worldviews of other creators.