Experimental

Solace: The Sensory Experience

Find Solace in this new digital, sensory experience at State Library Victoria.

  • Dates In person: 11 Oct - 22 Oct, Digital: 10 Oct - 22 Oct
  • Time In Person - 10:00am - 6:00pm, Digital - Available On Demand (Come and go as you please)
  • Venues State Library Victoria, Digital Fringe
FREE EVENT
Sessions & Tickets View Comments
A person in headphones holds a mobile phone in front of them. They have their camera open on their phone. In front of them are yellow benches, green lamps and white walls.
Past Event

Image Credit: Pia Johnson

  • Created by: Melinda Hetzel & Co./Steph O'Hara/Pia Johnson

  • Presented by: State Library Victoria

  • Commissioned by: State Library Victoria as part of the Alchemy program.

Inspired by State Library Victoria’s contemplative spaces, Solace is a mini-library of interactive, sensory artworks created by artists, for you to choose from and immerse yourself within. Listen to whale song at the Redmond Barry Reading Room, follow the white rabbit through bookshelves and squeaking chairs in the iconic Dome, and carve out moments of respite, comfort and imagination.

Solace is free to stream on your device at the Library. Stay for a moment or for a while, return as often as you like.

As public space has begun to shrink and widen, libraries remain one of the few spaces where strangers can be alone together, connected through study, curiosity or conversation. Solace offers a break, a time-out, a choose-your-own-adventure through art and imagination within the Library’s rooms, corridors and quiet corners.

Commissioned as part of State Library Victoria’s Alchemy program, Solace is a brand new work by Melinda Hetzel & Co, an artist-led collective, known for creating deeply evocative, immersive experiences within public space.

Solace was co-created by:

Melinda Hetzel (artistic direction)
Steph O'Hara (software/sound design)
Pia Johnson (videography)

in collaboration with:

Nick Barlow (performer/collaborator), Samuel Gaskin (performer), Wen-Juenn Lee (associate writer), Aaron Moodie (Digital/UX design), Hannah Murphy (associate producer), Matt O'Hara (voice artist), Sunday Smith (camera assistant, Kate Sulan (dramaturgy), Lenka Vanderboom (consultant/collaborator).

in consultation with:

Aunty Diane Kerr OAM (Welcome to Country), Aunty Julianne Axford, Aunty Gail Smith, Charley Woolmore (Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation).

Supported by City of Melbourne Arts Grants.

This project received Cash to Create and Cash for Equity through the Fringe Fund, as part of Radical Access, with thanks to the Pulse Giving Circle.

Solace will be available to stream free to your device for 12 months from the launch.

About Melinda Hetzel & Co.

Melinda Hetzel & Co. collaborate to create extraordinary site-responsive and participatory artworks, which invite audiences to experience and participate in art in new ways.

Melinda Hetzel and collaborators are known for creating deeply evocative, visually stunning performance experiences and can be found working at the edges of our respective forms. A multi-talented group of artists, we persist in raising questions about the complex and evolving relationships between the human animal and the natural and human-built worlds, evoking collective memories of grief, loss, longing and transformation. Collaboration and meaningful audience connection are at the heart of our work. We specialise in creating intimate art experiences within public space, which simultaneously form a spectacle for passersby, creating room for unexpected discovery and possibility. Based in Naarm (Melbourne), we pursue a fascination with how live arts, in combination with new technologies, can affirm threads of interconnectedness between human beings and the rapidly changing world in which we live.

Since 2013 this artist-led collective has created a diverse suite of works including - participatory performance-installation, Urban Cocoon, augmented reality experience, Fly By Night, live fortune-telling machine, Madame Tulalah's Magnificent Box, interactive, musical tree-installation, Between the Trees, durational, live and live-streamed performance-installation, Conservatory, and photographic pavement exhibition, Here We Walk. This body of work builds on Hetzel's decade as artistic director of visual theatre company Peepshow Inc.

slv.vic.gov.au

  • Duration: Come and go as you please

  • Event Accessibility: Blind or Low Vision Rating: Partially Accessible, Deaf or Hard of Hearing Rating: Partially Accessible

  • Age suitability: G

  • Event warnings: High Level Of Audience Participation.

Audience need to bring a charged mobile device and headphones to be able to experience the work. There is free wifi available at the venue. They will need to provide their email and postcode via the State Library Victoria website to be able to access the experience.

  • Free Event

*Prices are subject to change without notice. Standard terms and conditions apply.

Sponsors

Sessions: In Person Events

Date Time Venue

Wednesday, 11 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Thursday, 12 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Friday, 13 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Saturday, 14 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Sunday, 15 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Sold Out
 Past Event

Monday, 16 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Tuesday, 17 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Wednesday, 18 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Thursday, 19 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Friday, 20 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Saturday, 21 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Free

Sunday, 22 October 2023

10:00am

State Library Victoria

Sold Out
 Past Event

Sessions: Digital Events

Date Time Venue

Tuesday, 10 October 2023 -
Sunday, 22 October 2023

On Demand

Digital Fringe

 Get Tickets

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