Join Kate Matthews and Fred McGrath Weber at the Paste Your Place pop-up placemaking event at Kingston Arts Precinct this Saturday. Photo: Paste Your Place.
A pop-up public art event this weekend will create a unique mural and bring the Kingston Arts Precinct to life with the help of the community and local youth.
Paste Your Place, a community-led photographic project, will capture what young people want to see in their public spaces. This will be displayed for the whole community to see in a special mural outside the former transport depot in Kingston.
The mural – or paste-up – is a form of street art in which printed photographs are pasted onto surfaces using wheat paste glue.
The Suburban Land Agency and artsACT will team up with two Canberra paste-up artists, Kate Matthews and Fred McGrath Weber, to create the larger-than-life mural.
Fred said paste-up was a fantastic medium for quick and easy expression.
“We couldn’t think of a better way to get the community involved, especially voices we don’t always hear from like young people, than by hosting the activation at the Old Bus Depot Markets,” he said.
Kate said she was excited to use photography to engage the community in its own public spaces.
“Fred and I are Canberra artists who do different things. So this is a great opportunity to be supported by the government to give people voices in their public spaces,” she said.
“I think Canberra’s art scene is incredibly supportive. There are lots of opportunities for younger artists and emerging artists like us to get our projects off the ground through the support of event sponsors artACT and Suburban Land Agencies.
“In bigger cities like Melbourne or Sydney, it would be quite difficult to do what we do. But to stay in Canberra and do these murals and projects is just amazing.”
Paste Your Place is part of a creative placemaking activation for the future site of the Kingston Arts Precinct.
“We want the project to get people involved and capture what they want to see and paint and photograph it onto a mural,” Kate said.
“By asking the locals to visualise what they love about their public spaces and creating a mural for anyone to add their faces onto, we are inviting a creative dialogue about our places and community.”
Fred and Kate have been on the Canberra arts scene for seven years. Photo: Paste Your Place.
So join Kate and Fred to help capture the future of Kingston’s art scene.
“We’re running a workshop where locals come together and photograph the public spaces around Kingston. It’ll focus on creating the place and background of the mural,” Kate said.
“Then we will have a pop-up stall where anybody walking by can have their picture taken by us to be printed and pasted on top.
“It’s an elaborate concept, but the result is quite a broad capture of what placemaking is all about, while involving the wider community in a really creative way.”
Kate welcomed all communities to reach out to the paste-up pair if they felt a similar project would work for their special place.
On Saturday, 2 July from 11 am – 3 pm, you’re invited to walk around and take photographs of the Kingston area. The photos will be printed to create a collage on a big temporary mural displayed on the wall.
On Sunday, 3 July from 9:30 am – 2: 30 pm, get your photo taken at Kate and Fred’s stall at the Old Bus Depot Markets so it can be added to the mural.
Once complete, the mural will be displayed on-site for three months.
To participate and make your mark on Canberra’s art history, visit Paste Your Place.
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