MPavilion  

Instead of building a new pavilion, MPavilion is doing something a little different this year. In light of the uncertainty facing the arts community in 2020, we are prioritising the most important part of our cultural sector: our creatives. With more funding than ever going directly to creators, we are commissioning people from all walks of life to create, debate and share their knowledge.

We’re so excited to launch the program for our forthcoming season, expanding the program outside of the Queen Victoria Gardens. Visitors will be able to enjoy free events popping up across the city, from the inner city Docklands to the Monash University campus in Clayton. Events will be staged in new ways to enable social-distancing and we will be implementing capacity restrictions where appropriate.

This year, our program themes are in direct reaction to the here and now. From November to April we’ll be inviting collaborators to explore what it means to be thinking and creating in this new decade.

November – ‘Re-emerge: A Remix’

2020 has been a year of radical global change. As we re-approach the world with fresh perspectives and new ideas, MPavilion 2020 begins where the whole project first started—celebrating the power of community. So how do we make the most of these shifts in our minds, collectives and cities? November is all about the ways creative collaboration can bolster, guide and inspire us in times of emergency.

—Connection as antidote
—The healing power of the collaborative project
—Answering urgency with responsive design
—Looking to First Nations custodians
—New spaces for new voices
—Rethinking housing
—The future of the city

December – ‘IRL: Exploring Social Spaces’

Here we are. But where is ‘here’? The boundaries between public and private life are dissolving in increasingly online existence. With our constant shifting from the physical to the digital (and back again), humanity is experiencing space and time like never before. In December, MPavilion zooms in on questions of social space. Between hugging and video conferencing, congregating and live-streaming, physically visiting and virtually viewing, what does presence mean? And how does an online existence affect our perception of reality?

—Identity
—Inhabiting physical and digital spaces
—Online connection
—Traditional fabrication and digital manufacturing
—The blurring of environment and time
—Ritual

January – ‘Preservation: Propagating Knowledge’

Land. Language. Architecture. Food. Design. Cultural relics. Deciding what needs protecting and maintaining—and what needs to be scrapped—is critical to a city’s growth. What meaningful ways can we tend valuable knowledge, empower emerging generations, and use the past as a tool for the future? 

—Indigenous knowledge and practices
—Generating adaptive spaces
—Empowering the young
—Communing with nature
—Taking radical new design approaches
—Prioritising green spaces

February – ‘1+1: Who Are We Together?’

February 2021 at MPavilion dives into the meaning and potential of all kinds of relationships—between people, structures, cities, and beyond. Questions around love, art, space, First Nations’ knowledge, spirituality, discord and harmony take shape through discussion, performance, workshopping and collaboration. Who are we on our own, and what can we be together?

—Occupying the city
—Communal ceremonies
—Togetherness through different cultural lenses
—Romance
—Play
—Loneliness

March – ‘Space: Experiments in Time’

If you could use MPavilion however you wanted for a specific period of time, what would you do? Turn it into a speaker’s corner? A classroom? The site of a sleepover? The birthplace of your dream design? March is the month of temporal experimentation in Melbourne’s favourite cultural laboratory—a time to consider all that is pop-up, temporary and impermanent, and push it to its limits. 

—Architecture as a ‘blank page’
—New classrooms
—The purpose of a pavilion
—Manipulating time
—Public Space