For Us By Us was a collaborative project between 24 fashion design students and 6 local emerging artists. Inspired by the work of each artist, the designers created garments from recycled clothes over a term length, with the outcomes exhibited in fashion film. The premiere of the works took place on the 29th of October, 2010 at the Tribal Theatre in Brisbane.
The collaboration was documented through film exploring the themes of (1) creative capital and popularity in fashion and art and what cross-disciplinary collaboration offers in this respect, and (2) the viability of a raw creative economy in underdeveloped cultural hubs like Brisbane.
This project was created by RaraCurio and Vegas Spray, in cooperation with QUT Creative Industries and numerous other central figures to the local and national creative sphere.
Art collectives Clark Beaumont and Ok Yeah Cool Great utilised Vegas Spray’s online platform to create new and experimental work. The artists responded and developed new works via online mediums to establish a network and a visual art collaboration.
Over the four week period the artists produced works which were uploaded at Vegas Spray.Com for the public to view and engage in different approaches to making work for an online platform. The website became a dedicated art space which facilitated unique visual art networks and relationships between the artists and the viewing public.
Joe Biel is a visual artist working primarily in two dimensional media. He received an MFA in Painting from the University of Michigan and is currently on the faculty at California State University Fullerton. He was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation award in 2003 and again in 2008. He lives and works in Los Angeles
Michelle Knowles is a Brisbane based, emerging contemporary artist. Her practice explores notions such as the uncanny, the fetishisation of objects, performance and ritual, the otherworldly and imaginary spaces. A curiosity in belief systems and broader spirituality is the catalyst for experiments in both video and photographic works that utilise objects, including handmade artefacts, as tools for transformation.
It’s all about finding the best way to create volumes of light and shadow by using oil paint on a canvas, telling short stories in a painting which would otherwise need many words to be told.
