Reverie Projects, in association with the Villa Alba Museum, is devoted to establishing a dialogue between the historic house in Melbourne’s Kew and contemporary art practitioners. This dialogue takes the form of a series of exhibitions in which the house acts as subject and muse.
Exhibition Details Now Confirmed
We have now confirmed the dates of the exhibition, which will run from Friday 25th to Sunday the 27th of May 2012. The Museum will be open from 12:00 - 6:00 pm each day. Admission to the Museum costs $15. A percentage of this price, along with 30% of the profits made from the sale of the artwork, will be donated to the Villa Alba Museum Board to assist in the continued preservation of the house.
We will be hosting our official opening on Saturday 26th May at 1pm. All are welcome! The opening will be followed by a Jazz Afternoon featuring a performance by the renowned Fem Belling Trio. Read more about them in the post below.
So be sure to write these dates in your diary! We look forward to seeing you there. More information about the exhibition, including the location of the Museum, is available from the Exhibition Info page located on the right hand side of the web page.
The Fem Belling Trio
We are very excited about the Jazz Afternoon we have scheduled to coincide with the opening of the Narrative Space exhibition from 2:00 pm on Saturday the 26th May. The Jazz afternoon features a performance by the outstanding Fem Belling Trio.
The Fem Belling Trio:
Award winning jazz vocalist and violinist Fem Belling is taking Melbourne by storm. Her beguiling, versatile voice and powerful stage presence lend excitement, authenticity and class to the great jazz classics.
She has worked with the international & Australian jazz greats and has spent the last few years as the leading lady in London’s West End and has just finished playing Liza Minnelli in THE BOY FROM OZ.
Playing a spectacular electric violin Fem creates a dynamic live performance.
On piano, we have the legendary Howard Belling (who happens to be Fem’s father). Howard has shared the stage with luminaries such as Ray Charles and Sarah Vaughn and is a renowned pianist in the Australian jazz world.
Aria Award nominee (and her brother) Zvi Belling from The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra is featured on double bass.
Everything from the Ella to Ellington, Billy to Basie, Chet to Coltrane, Satchmo to Sinatra, this quartet is packing the jazz clubs around town.
shadows - Isobel Parker Philip 2012
Profile of Sarah Parker: Coordinator of Reverie Projects
Sarah Parker is the founder and coordinator of Reverie Projects. She was introduced to Villa Alba when she was just 14 by her mother who was, and still is, involved with the house. This was the beginning of a long and intense love affair with the space.
Sarah saw the house as an inexhaustible source of creative inspiration and potential. The house has had a formative influence over her own art practice, with Sarah returning again and again to its story of loss and recovery within the symbolic content of her painting and sculpture. She has been working with the Museum on various projects over the last 10 years and in 2009 she founded Reverie Projects as a way to further encourage the relationship between the house and the contemporary art community.
Her connection to the house is deeply personal – this project is a labour of love.
Cabinet of Curiosities, featuring ‘Artemis’. Installation Shot, Reverie Exhibition 2009
Sarah: The most important part of this exhibition is the house itself. As artists, we have been invited into this space to exhibit our work but we can’t forget that the house is an exhibitor too.
It is really important that the show doesn’t overtake or overpower the house. The house needs to speak for itself.
I see the house as another artist. It is the most important artist, exhibiting its atmosphere, its light and its history.
We can’t be too intrusive – we are merely guests in this remarkable and precious space.
Villa Alba has a majesty all of its own. I’m in love with this place. I knew when I walked in for the first time as a teenager I would always hold this place close to my heart. I thought it was incredible that a group of people got together to protect, nurture and care for an abandoned building.
It’s up to us to keep the passion and history going. So many beautiful historic houses have been lost. Here we have a house that has been cared for by a wonderful group of people that love it. This is so rare and we are so lucky to be a part of it.
This exhibition is about raising awareness about the house and helping the committee raise funds to keep it alive. It is vital that this committee and its volunteers continue to be supported – without this committee and the Friends of Villa Alba there would be no house and no museum.
This is a story of growing old gracefully. Over the years, as other properties have been sold and renovated, this house held its ground. It has been rescued from oblivion, and with it the stories of all those who lived here and made this space their home.
The intense shine of the patina on the wooden stairwell has been created by thousands of hands moving up and down, day after day. By ensuring the house doesn’t disappear we are making sure the traces of these hands don’t disappear along with it.
Family Portrait: Mamma has a Bird Hat, mixed media 2012
light - Isobel Parker Philip 2012
The Stairs - Isobel Parker Philip 2012
Narrative Space - Submissions Open
Narrative Space is the next installment in the series of exhibitions being held at Villa Alba, co-ordinated and curated by the Reverie Collective. The exhibition’s thematic focus is built around an investigation of the relationship between a house and its history and the way a particular space is conditioned by the narratives that unfold within it. We want to explore how a space can become almost human - marked by its own personality - when framed by these narratives.
We want participants to take Villa Alba as their muse, using the house as the starting point for their personal explorations into the intersection of memory, place and narrative. Artists are invited to approach the house as subject matter either literally or metaphorically.
The central protagonist in a story that chronicles the transition from deterioration and decay to gradual regeneration and re-discovery, Villa Alba prevails as an inexhaustible source of inspiration. In the last few years, as the conservationists have removed the over paint to reveal the stunning murals below, the house has slowly been unmasked. As its layers are being peeled back its original charm is being restored.
We want our participants to take on the house’s story and make it their own. We want them to construct their own narratives. To compliment the exhibition’s thematic agenda, we are specifically looking for work that takes the form of a book. Our definitions of the ‘book form’ are fairly flexible.
Submissions are now open and the deadline for expressions of interest is the 14th February. The submission guidelines and conditions are available through the link at the top of this page - we’ve made it so easy to find (you won’t have to continually scroll down this blog) so there is no excuse for missing the deadline!
We look forward to viewing your submissions! Please email us at reverie.va@gmail.com if you have any questions.
window detail // stairs// front room
The Vestibule // The Lower Level Corridor
