Redfern Biennale 2015

Overview

You don't have to travel to Venice for a kickass biennale, or wait for the annual Biennale of Sydney to roll around. There's a more localised, outdoor version happening right in your own urban backyard this weekend — the 2015 Redfern Biennale. There's no Council approval, all works are by local artists from Redfern's NSW Housing Commission and entry is free; so expect anything and everything.

After a successful year in 2014, with over 50 local artists showing their installations, paintings, sculptures and performances, Redfern Biennale is back as part of this year's Art Month. Like last year, all works are by local artists from Redfern's housing commission, and if 2014's result is anything to go by, expect works to be destroyed, thrown in bins and all-round applauded by visitors and residents alike. It's the nature of the anarchic biennale game.

Expect nihilistic readymades and found object art around corners, new sculpture in the streets, multimedia, new media and painting on the fences, footpaths and facades of Walker Street, bound by Cooper and Redfern Streets. With no Council approval for the show, local artists are just invited to place artworks on the streets for the seven hours of Biennale time. Badass.

"In its democratising gesture of a free-for-all pile of stuff on stuff, Redfern Biennale is a shot across the bow of government sanctioned social sculpture for the greater good," said contemporary curator Yellan Nre of the 2014 Redfern Biennale. "It places public art back in the hands of the public, where they are free to ‘engage’ with it as they wish."

The whole Biennale was inspired by the now-closed Damien Minton Gallery's social media chronicling of Redfern's under-appreciated 'readymades', objects and clusters left on the streets to be picked up by the gallery's blog and glorified online. Taking this idea to an entire, democratic exhibition is a whole next level, and one you should clear your calendar for.

There's plenty more Art Month adventuring where that came from. Check our list of the ten best things to see at Art Month 2015.

Images: Damien Minton Gallery.