Midland Atelier - Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority

08-13
Midland
Atelier
2008 - 2013
Exhibition
08-13
Introduction
In 2008 the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority decided to expand the existing
woodworking facilities at the historic Midland Railway Workshops, and collaborated with
FORM to restructure the format of the site’s former Pattern Shop into a unique studio
collective, driven by a desire to support the practices of the state’s designer-makers.
Complimented by a residency program for local and international creatives from multiple
disciplines, the Pattern Shop became the heart of the Midland Atelier, a unique space
for creative development and exchange through which innovation and collaboration can
be fostered within the atmospheric context of one of Western Australia’s architectural
treasures.
Built to manufacture and repair locomotives, rolling stock, bridges, track equipment and
everything else required to maintain the state’s rail transport system (including all of the
tools needed for their manufacture), the Workshops were the largest industrial complex in
Western Australia’s history. The site today is an icon of Perth’s Eastern fringe, with Midland
Atelier facilitating a renaissance of the Workshops’ former identity as a centre for the
manufacture of bespoke and hand-crafted production.
FORM is delighted to present Midland Atelier 2008-2013, a program of exhibitions and
events celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Midland Atelier and its unique position in
Australia’s design landscape.
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08-13
Opening At Midland Atelier,
6pm Thursday 4 July, 2013
Midland Atelier at the historic Midland Railway Workshops
Yelverton Drive, Midland
Showing 5-21 July, 2013, (Thursday-Sunday Only)
Open 10 am-5pm, Thursday-Sunday
Paper, Cotton, Leather, Flowers, Wood
Paper, Cotton, Leather, Flowers, Wood will showcase Midland Atelier as a destination for
creative exchange and development via site-specific works by some of Western Australia’s
most prominent contemporary artists within the Workshops’ most impressive spaces.
Inspired by the first five traditional anniversary gifts, these installations will showcase
works in each medium by iconic Western Australian artists drawing inspiration from the
Workshops’ idiosyncratic industrial-gothic charm, including Susan Flavell’s cardboard
sculptures (Paper), Nalda Searles’ textiles works (Cotton), Tanija and Graham Carr’s
leather objects (Leather), Eva Fernandez’s installations and photographs (Flowers) and the
Pattern Shop studio designers’ works-in-progress and design explorations (Wood).
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Contact
FORM
357 Murray Street,
Perth, Western Australia, 6000
Andrew Nicholls - Curator
E: [email protected]
Kara Pinakis - Co-curator
E: [email protected]
P: 9226 2799
Thank you
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Images:
Cover: Midland Railway Workshops,
photograph by Mark Stothard, 2011
Page 2: Platypus mural by ROA on Midland
Atelier Foundry Building, 2011, photograph
by Bill Shaylor
Page 3: Wesfarmers commission in progress,
2010, photograph by Michelle Taylor
Page 4: Unhorsed detail of installation by
Susan Flavell, 2007, photograph c/o the artist
Page 5: Untitled leather sculpture by Tanija
and Graham Carr, 2005, photograph by
Victor France
Page 6 + 7: Anonymous Sculpture by Eva
Fernadez, 2013