The Burrinja Collection was donated to the Shire of Yarra Ranges by collector Neil McLeod. In 2001 Burrinja contracted a conservation consultant to conduct a review of present storage and management practices. A number of recommendations were made and in 2002, with financial assistance of Arts Victoria and Yarra Ranges Council (then Shire of Yarra Ranges) a state of the art conservation system was created for the entire collection under the guidance of conservator Carol Campbell.

Burrinja Curator and Manager of Collections JD Mittmann         Discovering two separate collections objects fit together         2013

A team of staff and volunteers cleared and refurbished the storage area and catalogued the collection. Condition reports were prepared, and each item was examined in detail which gave all volunteers involved an exceptional opportunity to come close to cultural objects seemingly so foreign in their home in the Dandenong Ranges.

In 2010 the collection and its storage was assessed by staff of The Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne. In the subsequent Conservation Management Plan a series of recommendations were made in regard to safe storage and management of the collection.

Burrinja works actively to ensure long term preservation, greater accessibility and improved management of the entire collection. Burrinja staff and volunteers are undergoing regular training in collection management and preservation practices.

In 2013 Burrinja was accepted into the Museums Australia (VIC) Museums Accreditation Program, a significant step toward operation within the guidelines of National Museum Standards and application state-of-the-art collection management practises.

In 2014 successfully applied to be included in the National Library of Australia's Community Heritage Program. As a first step of the program a Significance Assessment of the entire collection was undertaken by an independent assessor.

Burrinja is working actively to ensure the preservation of this unique and unusual collection while making it available as a dynamic education resource across all levels from primary to tertiary and academic research.
To support research and learning Burrinja is in the process of establishing an on-site Research & Reference Library.

Calling all artists who need space to create… Welcome to the Aerie Creative Ecology

For 20 years Burrinja has been building community through art. Throughout much of 2019 Burrinja has been undergoing internal redevelopment and excitingly, will be re-opening in 2020. Here’s your chance to be a part of it all.

After all the anticipation, we are happy to announce that applications open Friday 1 November for the new Burrinja artist studios to be known as The Aerie Creative Ecology.

The Aerie is all about like meeting like, and then finding underlying connections with other artists and creative enterprises, providing scope for an intersection between the different artists in the community. The Aerie is a place that aims to be a playful / creative / social / cultural space that is accessible to all. This new initiative includes purpose built studios, co-working habitats, an exhibition program and creative professional development opportunities. It is our ambition that The Aerie will become a regional cultural hub for creative, public and community engagement.

At the heart of the Aerie is studio tenancy for artists, creative enterprises and arts businesses across most disciplines, ranging from visual artists, to writers, from game developers to graphic designers, and everything in between. The Aerie provides affordable space to support artists to undertake ambitious projects, sustain their practice and work collaboratively. Studio tenancy is through a competitive application process that will be assessed by a selection committee. There are 8 independent studios sized between 12-22m2 available, as well as a co working space and a shared casual studio.

Learn More and Apply

If you have any questions about the Aerie Creative Ecology at Burrinja, please call Toni Main on 9754 1509, or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Roderick Price - Studio 2

Roderick is a multi-disciplined artist working primarily in the field of sound design. His practice is based on a constant investigation into the different approaches both within and across music and sound design, and the practical implementation of such ideas in a variety of formats, media and products.

The medium of sound is a very visceral art form, one that has the ability to speak to an audience on many levels. Roderick’s aim as a composer is to create music that ignites strong emotional responses in the listener, both on a physical and psychological level. Most of his work, both visual and sonic, expresses a dark aesthetic quality that employs methods of abstraction and manipulation. His compositions often refer to ideas found in industrial, dark wave, ambient, noise and electro acoustic music.

Working with sound has created opportunities to collaborate and work between various mediums including choreography, film and television, installation, live performance and interactive media.

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Listen: 
https://soundcloud.com/amnion

Michele Fountain, Metafour Studio - Studio 4

Michele is a practicing local artist who works with textiles. She is primarily a handweaver, working mostly with rigid heddle looms. She also explores stitch and sculptural work, incorporating textile techniques and industrial materials.

Michele enjoys working with natural, primarily locally sourced materials in her handwoven textiles, and in exploring the possibilities of weaving with non-traditional materials.

Metafour Studio also offers textile supplies and weaving equipment, and carries White Gum Wool and Schacht Spindle Company products.

Andrea Innocent and Chris Jacobs- Studio 5

Andrea Innocent is a professional illustrator and designer with over fifteen years experience, regularly punching out snappy ideas for clients such as Microsoft, Cambridge University Press, NBN, Libra, TOLL and Cadbury.

Andrea is often called upon for high concept work that communicates the big ideas. Skills and experience in design and conceptual development, identities, print campaigns, web based projects, digital publishing and conceptual illustration and animation put her in high demand, her work has even won awards! In addition Andrea is a regular keynote speaker covering design and illustration, and the creative life.

A member of the Jacky Winter Group, Andrea holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Design and a Masters in Multimedia Design. Her spare time is spent wrangling a baby and a corgi, sometimes in that order. Currently residing in Melbourne, Andrea has worked across Australia, Asia and the United States.

More information about Chris Jacobs coming soon

Dave Thomson: Lost Few - Studio 6

Dave Thomson (Lost Few) is a sound artist focusing on the translation of spatiality in both natural and urban landscapes by means of physical and sonic transformation.

The solo project of Dave Thomson (Melbourne, Australia), Lost Few serves as an exploration of sound design, video installation and audial journeys that seamlessly provoke and push audiences.

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Online www.lostfew.com

Al MacInnes - Library Studio

Al MacInnes is an animator, musician and sound designer. His animation work has won awards and been shown overseas. He makes films, games, installations and commercial works.

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Matthew Riley - Interspace Studio

Matthew Riley is a designer, researcher and lecturer in animation, games and interactivity at RMIT University who has received international and national recognition for his practice. He is currently completing a PhD in the Games and Animation department at Swinburne University where he is developing a pervasive mixed reality artwork situated within the Dandenong Ranges National Park.

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Rain White - The Workshop

My practice explores the elemental energy of earth.
Our existence is ephemeral and groundless, and for me nature holds eternal comfort and stability. My art is a development of a personal symbolic language and motifs. I am inspired by philosophy, life experiences, natural forms, many artists, Sumie ink painting and research into ancient cultures, their sites of significance and symbols as a method of communication. I am interested in the notion of the icon and symbol, to universally resonate a sensation of quiet and profound power and stillness. Symbolic forms resonate through the passage of time beyond words and tap into our collective unconscious and what it is to be human. I majored in Printmaking and choose to let ideas dictate the medium. I am primarily two dimensional based but find three dimensional forms increasingly enticing. I enjoy the challenge of working with a diversity of materials combined with exploring the emotional and visual impact of colour. Ink, oil and collage are favourite means of expression for me.
As Rumi has said; 'The day you were born, a ladder was set up to help you escape from this world'.
Art has been this ladder for me.

 

Steven Firman - The Workshop

Steven immersed himself in German culture, whilst living there for three years with his family (2011-2014). During this time she travelled widely throughout Europe. Since returning to the Dandenong Ranges, he has begun a new series of painting, under the working title, Tree Change. Inspired by the natural world, with a nod to Escher and Magritte, Steven's paintings seek to capture the irrational world of a child where real places become the setting for magical things to happen.

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Stephen Glover - The Workshop

Images (left) Stephen Glover, "Rare Jewels" (detail) Mixed Media on Paper.  (right) Stephen Glover, “Improvisation 3” (detail) Oil on boar.

With scribbled line and formal shape Stephen’s artworks respond to experiences and memory of both people and place. Formed as a visual dialogue between gesture and geometry, this ever changing place is expressed through a symbolic language of emotion and reason. This is a response to the shifting nature, and impermanence of living each day.

Stephen has exhibited widely for over three decades, and his work can be found in a number of collections around Australia, as well as India, Denmark and the UK.

Jacqueline Grace, Beautiful Wasteland - The Workshop

Jacqueline is an eco-printing textile artist. She explores the inexhaustible vitality that bursts as botanical matter, metal, cloth and water dance. Her artworks are imbued with these moments of meeting. In her studio you will chance upon a fire pit with simmering dye pots, leaves, weathered bones, silken threads and fragments of poems..

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Website: www.beautifulwasteland.com.au