A major part of Harman Qadri’s practice is community collaboration with public outcomes including exhibition, ephemeral installation or permanent artworks. Commissioned work by communities often leads to permanent works, but other methods of support such as grants, volunteer work and reciprocal agreements help to sustain more experimental projects.
Below are links to some of these projects:
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Message in a Cup
Messages and stories of learning in Footscray are collected and then written onto the insides of one hundred handmade blue cups. The cups are placed in Footscray during BluScray events to be found by people and taken home. The project gives voice to peoples experiences and understandings of learning and shares these ideas with others in the city of Footscray.
http://messageinacup.blogspot.com.au/
Message in a Cup is part of BluScray, a program of blue-themed arts and cultural events held throughout 2016 to celebrate Victoria University’s Centenary in collaboration with Maribyrnong City Council for the Footscray University Town initiative.
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The circle book of childhood stories
is a large circular book, three metres in diameter, in which to write, read or illustrate childhood stories. The book travels to different community groups, schools and places in Melbourne’s West,
And invites children and adults to: read what others have written, illustrate the stories of others, or write their own story into the book
The book will gradually grow larger and more detailed, carrying a broad range of stories about childhood, which will enable people to write their own memories, but also be a book to read and provide insight into the experiences of others.
http://thecirclebookofchildhoodstories.blogspot.com.au/
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Drawing the library
Between May and September 2015 I visited the Sunshine Library at its temporary location of McCracken Street to make a series of drawing & text based “Observations” on recycled papers found in the library. Visitors to the library and local school children were also involved in drawing the library.
The Observations were blogged, published into a book and displayed within the library to coincide with the Brimbank Writers and Readers Festival.
This project has been supported by the Brimbank City Council and Sunshine Art Spaces activation partnership funding.
above: drawing from the series : Drawing the library.
for more details go to the site: http://drawingthelibrary.blogspot.com.au/
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Sages of Sunshine
The Sages of Sunshine was an art project where portraits and the sage wisdom of locals were rendered onto ceramic tiles and displayed in the Arts Precinct of City Place and Sun Avenue.
This project has been supported by a Sunshine Art Spaces Seeding Grant.Sunshine Art Spaces is a Brimbank City Council initiative.
https://sagesofsunshine.wordpress.com/
The clothesline Timeline
Melton turned 150 years old and the clothesline timeline celebrated this with clothes ranging from 1862 – 2012. At the Djerriwarrh Festival, people were invited to make writing on the clothes about who they were and where they come from.
The clothes were made prior to the event by Debbie, from recycled plastic, acrylic paint, sheer fabrics and tape.
Thanks to Nick Hackett who helped me with the clothesline and Mary Hackett who was my workshop assistant for today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IvK1lMC_n4
Sunshine Babel Onion
As you enter Sunshine Art Spaces you will be invited by the artist to make a text to add to the artwork. The text is taped to the clear plastic curtains which hang around you in layers. You can also illustrate your text using paint. You can see through the illustrations and between the letters of the text to read other layers of text and illustrations.
What you see depends on where you stand, looking on, or moving between. Over days the surfaces become more layered and the work becomes the result of the collaboration, writing and illustration of numerous people. It grows organically, in layers and complexity.
Debbie Harman’s Sunshine Babel Onion is a participatory process that explores ways of involving local people in making collaborative art. Perhaps the final artwork will represent some of the layers of the people who have entered and participated in the artwork. Perhaps it will just be a cacophony of different voices.
https://sunshinebabelonion.wordpress.com/
Exquisite Me
ct that explored the collective experiences, stories and representations of identities of young people in Sunshine and Brimbank. These experiences, stories and representations will be explored during various art and writing workshops run by community artist Debbie Qadri. The artwork was displayed as collaborative artworks, in a number of venues in Sunshine, including Gallery Sunshine Everywhere.Ardeer: My stories, my Suburb
My Suburb, My Stories‘, was an Artist in Residence Project at Mother of God School and Ardeer Primary School with the artist Debbie Qadri.
In term 3 and 4 of 2013 both schools collected stories of the suburb of Ardeer and made artworks about them that were placed back into the suburb.
This project is supported by an Arts Victoria, Artist in Schools Grant.
https://ardeermysuburbmystories.wordpress.com/about/
The Moonambel Poets
A workshop was held inviting locals to come and make ceramic poetry. The poetry was fired and then installed at the Moonambel Common.
https://moonambelpoets.wordpress.com/
debbie harman qadri 