To cut, to paste, to play
NGV Creativity Club Presents
Zine Worlds with Gracia & Louise
Friday 10th of April, 2026
Paper Worlds with Gracia & Louise
Thursday 16th of April, 2026
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square
With the second of two school holiday workshops, torn and pasted, there is time to look back at what was. Presented by the NGV Creativity Club, the tables were layered with so many collage materials that they, too, almost became collages. We enjoyed seeing so many differing worlds unfurl before our eyes, and created at such a pace!
Thank-you to everyone who joined us for our Zine Worlds workshop for levels 9–10 and amazed us with their collage skills and enthusiasm. With paper for a wrap-around cover and double-page spreads, bookbinding thread for fastening a spine with a simple pamphlet stitch, collage material, and scissors, glue sticks and pens, with which to cut, adhere, and alter the surface, the results were inspiring, and as expansive as a universe fashioned from silver spheres, blue stars, and a crescent moon. Here’s to the artists’ books, zines, artworks, stories, and more that we hope you’ll continue to make.
Thank-you to everyone who joined us for our Paper Worlds workshop for levels 4–6. We had a wonderful time delving into the world of collage, with three projects, a collage from a single colour or similar palette, a photomontage or scene that played on juxtaposition, and, finally, altering, concealing, or creating a costume upon one of three different cabinet cards. We loved seeing a wilderness emerge from torn layers of blue, green, and yellow, and lamps made into hats for a Salvaged Relative. We delighted in seeing a tutu added, legs that disappeared into a pool of water, long, rubbery arms, or a flip top mask which concealed one’s inner thoughts from view.
Seeing a river made from different shards of blue, lemurs under pieces of yellow cellophane, and ladybirds with runaway dots. Seeing the different ways one prompt can be interpreted and played with, the workshops, both, did all but fly.
Thanks to the wonderful NGV staff for all their amazing work and assistance. Thanks for having us, @ngvmelbourne.
Looking back, now, not just a selection of days ago, but several years, alongside the workshop photos taken either in the quiet of the lunch break or (with permission) over the shoulder of the participants during the workshop, several postcard collages from 2009 can be gleaned, above and below. 55 postcard collages featured in Louise and my exhibition A key to help make your own world visible, at Craft Victoria (now Craft), in what feels, because it is, a lifetime ago. They were exhibited alongside 78 of Louise’s drawings and a sweep of unique-state artists’ books. Throughout the exhibition’s run, we would come in and turn the pages of the books resting in their cradles.
These collages also made their way into various zines, though being zines, and budget constraints, they were often printed in black and white, with only a handful of pages in full-bloom colour. As we continue working on a couple of new things, including a pocket-sized edition of Can we dream it?, for our forthcoming stall at the NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair, we are feeling both excited and quite ancient.
Time to fashion a crown of foil or make like a tiger pawing at the full moon. Time to see what’s around the corner.
Of collage and things coming up, the two of us will be talking about our commission, Specimen 1963, with Pippa Milne, as part of The Potter Museum of Art’s After Hours: A Velvet Ant & Untying Knots in the Sky on the 21st of May, 2026.
Creating Specimen 1963, and the research and problem-solving it entailed was a dream commission, so we are especially looking forward to chatting about this, and fielding any exciting questions, wasp-related or otherwise.
Specimen 1963
Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison’s work, commissioned for this exhibition, is dedicated to the velvet ants of Australia. A series of suspended folding screens compose a digital collage rooted in the artists’ long-standing practice with natural-history research, paper, print and collage. The format allows them to conceive a pedagogical, narrative work that integrates rare book natural history illustrations and science, while also reflecting on their ongoing engagement with nature and biodiversity. The format has a function: it becomes a handmade transmission machine. Fold by fold, panel by panel, Haby and Jennison tell and show moments in the history and behaviour of a given species — the velvet ant. Engagement, commitment, and the desire that all of us might participate more actively in the lives of animals and plants, animate a practice that insists on better, more attentive forms of coexistence.
— A Velvet ant, and a flower and a bird Commisssions
After Hours: A Velvet Ant & Untying Knots in the Sky
Join us for the May edition of After Hours, a new monthly event series inviting you to experience the gallery differently. As the doors stay open late, performances, conversations and creative encounters unfold across the spaces, offering new ways to connect with the ideas, artists and communities around the Potter.
Archie Barry and Aarti Jadu return for the second and final performance of Untying knots in the sky. This intimate sound performance invites us to witness what happens through the steady, insistent act of breathing together.
During the evening you can delve into nature and biodiversity with artists Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, as they elaborate on their newly commissioned work dedicated to the Velvet Ant or practice your skills of observation and reflection with Slow Down and Draw.
Food and Beverage
Join Residence at the Potter for the launch of their new bar menu with happy hour from 3pm–6pm weekdays. Try any item on the Residence bar menu with a glass of wine or beer for $25.
Bookings
After Hours is a free event, with open access to most activities. Please note that Archie Barry’s performance requires a booking due to limited capacity. There will also be an additional performance during our next After Hours in May.
Schedule
Floor Talk: Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison with Pippa Milne
6pm–6.30pm
Level 2
No bookings required
Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison’s work, newly commissioned for this exhibition, is dedicated to the velvet ants of Australia. A series of suspended folding screens compose a digital collage rooted in the artists’ long-standing practice with natural-history research, paper, print and collage. Join them for a floor talk lead by curator Pippa Milne, discussing how their work integrates rare book natural history illustrations and science, while also reflecting on their ongoing engagement with nature and biodiversity.
Performance: Untying knots in the sky
7pm–7.30pm
Primrose Potter Studio, Level 1
Booking required: RSVP here
Breathing with muscle and singing with blood flow, Untying knots in the sky arises through vocalisation, breathwork, meditation practice and the artists’ relationship. As Barry and Jadu attend to the vital bodily rhythms between them, the boundary between inner experience and outward expression begins to dissolve. Responding to growing division and political turbulence, the artists offer the practice of listening, and attending to diverging patterns while remaining in connection. Untying knots in the sky is an invitation to witness what happens through the steady, insistent act of breathing together.
Hands-On: Slow Down and Draw
5pm–8pm
Throughout the gallery
No bookings required
Designated vantage points throughout the gallery will offer moments of observation and reflection - using the materials supplied, we invite you to take a moment to create your own drawing inspired by the artworks around you. Portable stools and bench seating are available throughout the building, and you’re welcome to bring your own drawing materials if you prefer.
The Potter Museum of Art
Cnr of Swanston Street and Masson Road, Parkville
— The Potter Museum of Art
Image credit: Gracia Haby, I enjoy your company, 2012, postcard collage
In the business of looking back, the original postcard collage was exhibited as part of an installation of 443 postcard collages in Louise and my exhibition By This Unwinking Night, at Latrobe Regional Gallery, in 2012.
