Across August and September 2024, Penelope Bartlau was partnered with 썸머그린 (Summer Green) to collaborate on a new work for children and families in an online residency called Seedling Sessions. Across the residency, the pair created 상상의 집 Imagine House, an interactive, playful installation.
Children were greeted with a world of boxes, and walls of brown paper. The boxes were designed to be moved: stacked, lined up, crashed, crushed, crawled through and hidden in. The brown paper was to draw, dream, write and reflect. Sounds of the Australian bush - birds, cicadas, crickets and the environment, echoed across the installation, inspiring children to imagine a little bit of Australia into their adventure in 상상의 집 Imagine House.
The installation was inspired by 썸머그린 observation of children in Korea: they are not free. Parents/adults hover and (beyond helicoptering), control children's play, ideas, thought and imagination. 상상의 집 Imagine House was a great success with children and (interestingly) adults as well. Children romped through the installation inventing and reinventing, just as we had hoped.
ABOUT SEEDLING SESSIONS
Seedling Sessions is a five-year partnership between ArtPlay, the City of Melbourne’s creative hub for children and families, and South Korea’s Jeonju Cultural Foundation flourished in 2024.
Artists and children from Melbourne and Jeonju have created several joint productions since 2020, engaging diverse families and building cultural understanding across the world.
CLICK HERE to see a video of Seedling Sessions 2024
Penelope's contribution to this project was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples and the Gulidjan and Gadubanud peoplesof the Kulin Nation. I pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
Endling is an interactive installation-performance with puppetry offering hope through environmental regeneration.
Children dive into another world to discover Endling – the last living creature of her kind. Through interaction and play, families work together to create an ideal environment for Endling. Endling provides hope through giving children agency to reimagine and contribute to environmental regeneration.
‘I want to stay here and play with Endling forever’ – child at ArtPlay.
CLICK HERE to go to 1-minute excerpt on Vimeo
BARKING SPIDER CREATIVE ARTISTS
Penelope Bartlau - Artistic Director, puppeteer & puppet maker, animator.
Laura Aldous - Play designer and facilitator.
Justin Gardam - Sound Design & AV realisation.
Jason Lehane - Designer/lighting design.
Charlie Clark - Sound design assistant.
Tarkin Watt - ArtPlay facilitator
Photography: Tarkin Watt
Videography: Takeshi Kondo
Endling was developed and presented as part of ArtPlay’s 2024 New Ideas Lab, and premieres at ArtPlay in April 2025.
Endling was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
An interactive marine palaeontology shadow installation for families.
Imagine you could go back in time
Imagine you could not only see but hear the creaturesImagine you're the first person to discover a fossil from the sea A giant beast from the bay…
For Bayside Gallery, Brighton,Barking Spider Creative artists created an immersive and interactive silhouette installation for families. Families encountered an imagined underwater world from long ago, which Barking Spider Creative artists based on paleontological exhibition “Prehistoric Bayside”. Children created shadow and played puppets as part of the installation. Shadow Beasts of Bayside also included an art assemblage constructed from rubbish collected from Beaumaris Beach, to highlight the conservation and caretaking of our marine environment and bay.
CLICK HERE to visit the project on Vimeo
BARKING SPIDER CREATIVE ARTISTS
Penelope Bartlau - Artistic Director & Assemblage Artist
Jason Lehane -Installation Designer
Kyoko Imazu - Shadow Art Creator
Darius Kedros - Sound Designer
Klari Agar, Laura Aldous and Chloe Violette Smith – Play Experts.
Photography: Sarah Walker Videographer: Penelope Bartlau
This public program was developed and presented with “Prehistoric Bayside”, by City of Bayside. Huge thanks to commissioning agent Helen Berwick and marine paleontologist Ben Franceschelli.
This project took place on the lands of the Bunurong People of the Kulin Nation who are the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land. The project is supported by Bayside City Council.
A site-specific installation and performance Understory created a parallel between the kitchen of a grand estate with the understory of a forest: the upper stories of each grab our attention, but the understory of each is most often overlooked.
In the basement of Château d'Orquevaux, the original kitchen remained in disuse for many years. This kitchen was, and as a kitchen is in any home, a source of nourishment and of pleasure-making - off the back of intensive planning, preparation, skill, and hard work. In June 2023, Australian installation and performance artists Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane discovered that the kitchen is about to be renovated and requested to use this for their site-specific work. They hope that Understory created a fitting, poetic and political swansong to this beautiful space.
Using a high style of comedic theatre, to devise the work Understory employed techniques of Commedia Dell’Arte and Le Coq. Using comedy to poke fun at us (the audience) and reveal social injustice, Understory is a political comment on historic class constructs and modern-day privilege.
CLICK HERE for a detailed description of the installation and performance work.
INSTALLATION ARTISTS & PERFORMERS: Penelope Bartlau & Jason Lehane
Photos: Jason Lehane and Penelope Bartlau Video: Filmed by Ziggy Attias
Understory installation and performance are the outcome works of Barking Spider Creative’s Château d'Orquevaux 2023 Arts Residency.
Using a high style of comedic theatre, to devise the work Understory employed techniques of Commedia Dell’Arte and Le Coq.
SICK - A site-specific installation created in response to the 1852 Ticonderoga disaster: a reflection on the pandemic.
The installation was created for Strata Exhibition, part of DriFT Arts Festival 2023. SICK is an interpretation of the history of the Ticonderoga passage to Australia in 1852, and the illness and fatalities that took place during the voyage. While the passenger and crew experience of the Ticonderoga voyage has obvious distinctions to the pandemic, they are unified by the terror of infection and the obfuscation of the future.
Beyond survival, in the aftermath of each there has been significant social change, and with this, hope for a safer future.
CLICK HERE to see a short video of SICK
ARTISTS: Penelope Bartlau & Jason Lehane
Photos: Jason Lehane Video: Filmed & edited by Penelope Bartlau
A Barking Spider Creative production.
We acknowledge and pay respect to the Bunurong people, on whose lands we created SICK. The Bunurong people are the Traditional Custodians of these unceded lands and waters.
SICK - A site-specific installation created in response to the 1852 Ticonderoga disaster: a reflection on the pandemic.
Concerned with degradation of our natural world, this project explores cycles of decay, destruction and rebirth (birds) while looking at what lasts beyond the annihilation of climate-change (earth).
Using photography and video to document the process, artists Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane are developing locative installations at/for/with various sites.
In 2022, artists have attended international residencies at Cill Rialaig Arts Centre in Ballinskelligs, Ireland, The Museum of Loss and Renewal, Collemacchia, Italy, and at La Macina di San Cresci, Chianti, Italy.
In 2023 the project continues at Château d’Orquevaux, in Orquevaux, France.
This project was inspired by Gulidjan Country, Colac Otway Shire, where the artists work and live. We recognise the Gulidjan peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this land. We pay respect to, acknowledge and thank Gulidjan people for allowing this project to take place across their beautiful country.
ARTISTS
Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane
Photos are from Cill Rialaig, Ireland (First photo), and La Macina di San Cresci, Chianti, Italy (all other photos).
Feathers and Earth is a three-year investigation into the geographic features and bird life of three diverse sites. The sites are connected by an abundance of significant birdlife and unique geographic terrain.
Underneath our feet, trees are secretly talking, trading and sharing with one-another. They do this by using a network of fungi that grow around and inside their roots. This network is known as the “Wood Wide Web”.
As part of ArtPlay’s New ideas Lab, with children and families, Barking Spider Visual Theatre artists have created a large-scale installation, Wood Wide Web. Created for early learners (3-5 year olds) and families, Wood Wide Web is an underground world filled with tunnels, UV sensitive objects and patterns, exquisite sound and unexpected lighting design for children to explore. In this underground world, children are essential to the communication network of the trees. Kids are the active agents of transformation in this underground play-space environment.
The collaborative nature of trees is critical to their survival - a parallel to our human collaborative effort to work together to create a cleaner, greener planet. Wood Wide Web is a play-based metaphor for important human behaviour that will – especially in the hands of the upcoming generations – make a difference.
To have a look at a quick Vimeo clip please CLICK HERE
This work took place on the lands of the Wurundjeri people, the traditional custodians this land.
ArtPlay and City of Melbourne are the original supporters of Wood Wide Web. The project was seeded by City of Melbourne through ArtPlay’s New Ideas Lab.
ARTISTS
Penelope Bartlau - Artistic Director
Jason Lehane – Set Design and Construction
Georgie Wolfe – Lighting Design
Darius Kedros – Sound Design
Paul Lim – Arduino Design
Adele Cattenazzi – Set Design Assistant
Patrick Clements-Cramp – Design Intern
Ashleigh Basham - Design Intern
Laura Aldous - Installation Facilitator
Klari Agar, Loukia Vassiliades & Nicole Harvey - Design Support
Sarah Walker – Promotion Photography
Benji Groenewegen – Creative Development & Showing Photography
Theresa Harrison – Production photography
Alex Sibbison - Production videography
A huge thank you to Julie Wright, ArtPlay’s tireless Creative Producer, for her persistence and hard work across 2021, to help us realise Wood Wide Web through the pandemic.
WWW was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
Black Rock Phantasmagoria was a dreamlike, promenade-style visual installation series. The site-specific works were commissioned by City of Bayside in 2021. Artists developed the works during a 4-week residency at Billilla Mansion in Brighton. The installation artworks had design input from Black Rock Primary School students.
The Black Rock Phantasmagoria project was disrupted by the pandemic, but went ahead in March 2022 with the installation artworks displayed throughout the Black Rock Shopping precinct.
This project took place on the lands of the Bunurong People of the Kulin Nation who are the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land. The project is supported by Bayside City Council.
To see a short Vimeo clip of the artworks CLICK HERE
ARTISTS
Penelope Bartlau – Artistic Director
Nathan Burmeister – Designer
Georgie Wolfe – Lighting Design
Adele Cattennazi – Design Assistant
Matthew Harrod – Graphic Design
Emma Telford – Production Manager
Teaching Artists – Laura Aldous, Emma Telford and Callum Cheah.
A huge thank you to Helen Berwick from Bayside City Council for dogged persistence in the face of pandemic-induced adversity, clarity of vision and passion.
HIStory is written by the victors - what about HERstory?
SALT investigates and reimagines an invisible, forgotten and lost herstory.
SALT is a reimagined herstory where a woman is centre.
This is a woman’s story in harmony with the land.
SALT is a visual art installation addressing historical female representation in local history with a focus on the region’s salt lakes. This is explored through the Aboriginal Dreamtime story of the dancing Brolga. You can watch a clip about SALT here, and here.
SALT was created by regionally-based artists Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane. SALT was developed Barking Spider Visual Theatre’s studio at Red Barn Farm in Cundare North.
SALT was a partnership with WINDOWSPACE BEEAC, Skills-Connect Studio 92 Colac (engaging artists of diverse abilities across the Colac-Otway area), Colac-Otway Arts Trail and enLIGHTen Me festival, Birregurra.
Creative Team
Artistic director & co-designer: Penelope Bartlau
Lighting & co-designer: Jason Lehane
Shadow puppets: Kyoko Imazu
Sound design: Darius Kedros
Photos by Oleksandr Pogorilyi
This project was presented regionally, at WINDOWSPACE BEEAC, supported by Regional Arts Victoria, and had an outreach programme with a connected art installation at Studio 92 in Colac.
//SALT was created on the lannds of the Gulidjan and Gadubanud peoples. I acknowledge the Ancestors and Elders, past, present and future. The sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has never been ceded//
Delicious. Decadent. Divine, and Diminishing: OYSTER was an art installation about quantity and appetite
OYSTER - An installation of oyster, mussel and scallop shells displaying the decline and current restoration of oyster/shellfish populations in Port Philip Bay and New York City, over decades. Including a pop-up, one-night-only Oyster Bar event, OYSTER combined audience participatory ritual with gastronomic delight.
Commissioned by the NGV, OYSTER as a part of MEL&NYC festival in 2018, OYSTER was also remounted at Geelong After Dark, 2019
You can view footage of OYSTER here and here, and read more about it here.
Creative Team 2018
Installation Designer: Penelope Bartlau
Artistic collaborator: Rueben White
Artistic associate: Luna Mrozik Gawler
Photographers: Klari Agar & Fingle Sin
Creative Team 2019
Installation Designer: Penelope Bartlau
Lighting Design: Jason Lehane
Photos by Fingle Sin
OYSTER was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
Art installation reimagined and reinvented for Red Rock Regional Gallery and Theatre
Seamstress was first created as a response to the 2018 City of Glen Eira Gallery exhibition: The New Look: 1960’s fashion in Melbourne. For this installation Seamstress was created as an interpretation of clothing before it comes into being, and an observation of some of the under-recognised, yet essential “back-stage” objects that go into making fashion.
While still retaining this founding theme, Seamstress was re-interpreted and re-imagined for Red Rock Gallery and Theatre (RRRTAG). This 2019 installation was a response to this site and space.
Sewing patterns hang, like a theatrical curtain waiting to open. Behind the paper-pattern curtain, barely-visible gold foil ribbons flutter: these hint at a desire for drama. At the curtain’s base, footlights can be glimpsed.
The space is ready for spectacle.
Facing us, group of vintage dress maker’s dummies populate the space – they appear to be waiting. At the opposite end of the room, one dummy is dressed – unlike the others. She wears a handmade, fading-silk, rusted, and unkempt wedding dress. She stands on high, despite her waning glory. She faces the silent, peculiar population, and stares down the curtain and the stained-glass windows of the once-was church. She is perhaps an echo of the past, reflecting the building’s history as a place of worship and of community gathering for christenings, funerals and weddings.
As she Lords over a contemporary art installation, she bears witness to the church’s future-present, while being herself, a remnant reflection of the church’s past:
Perhaps she’s a ghost bride waiting to wed.
You can read the full artist statement here.
Creator: Penelope Bartlau
Thanks to: Jason Lehane for installation assistance
Photos by Jason Lehane.
This project was first created and presented on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation, and remounted on the lands of the Gulidjan and Gadubanud peoples. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
Led by Director Penelope Bartlau, House of Dreams was curated by Barking Spider Visual Theatre for The Johnston Collection in 2016. House of Dreams was a site-specific, art-based installation, taking over every room of the exhibition house, Fairhall. House of Dreams integrated new sound and lighting design, creative writing, paper-cutting and kinetic, performer-less shadow puppetry.
House of Dreams was inspired by Carl Jung’s dream theories, using the metaphors and symbols of dreams to convey stories exploring the history of William Johnston and his Fairhall home.
House of Dreams presented powerful and evocative dreamscapes – some enchanting and mysterious, and others uncanny and disturbing. This was one of the most highly imaginative interpretations of the museum collection to date.
From July to September 2016, the House of Dreams was installed at The Johnston Collection, exhibition-house.
Click here to see the 3D scanner tour.
Watch a video of the House of Dreams here and read more about the work here.
Reviews
“Extraordinarily imaginative and evocative creation”
Michael Brindley, Stage Whispers
“A highly evocative and imaginative environment to be experienced”
Creative Team
Penelope Bartlau – Director, co-designer and writer (poetry)
Jason Lehane – Lighting designer and co-designer
Kyoko Imazu – Visual artist and bookbinder
Darius Kedros – Sound designer and composer
Luc Favre – Design and installation assistant
Photos by Adam Luttick, Luts Photography
HOUSE OF DREAMS was created on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin. We pay respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
