FREE FALL: Michaela Gleave-Ten Hour Balloon Work,June 24&25 2011

Free Fall Oxford Art Factory Cube is curated by John A Douglas.Friday and Saturday nights from 8pm, Free entry via the Gallery bar, Oxford Art Factory, 38 oxford St Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia. Join the FaceBook Page:  / freefall.oafcube   For ten hours over two consecutive evenings Michaela Gleave re-staged Balloon Work, a performance originally streamed live to the Oxford Art Factory from Berlin in July 2010. Involving the artist, a tennis umpire's chair and a stash of 1500 balloons, this performance brings into real space an action that occurred initially only via the camera. Conceived as a means of mediating space, volume, time and distance, using the media and materials accessible to a newly immigrant artist, 10 Hour Balloon Work re-enacts this action in it's original environment, pumping up the volume and doubling the output. Over ten hours Michaela will gradually fill The Cube at the Oxford Art Factory, obscuring vision between the two sides of the venue as she slowly buries herself in her own actions. Michaela Gleave is a visual artist based in Sydney. Working primarily in sculpture, performance and installation Michaela's practice centers on the physicality of sensory perception and the ways in which we understand and interact with the world around us. Executed as a series of experiments, her often-temporal installations question our relationship to matter, space and time, involving natural phenomena and tricks of perception within the context of the systems and structures that shape contemporary existence. Michaela holds a MFA in Sculpture, Performance and Installation from the College of Fine Arts, UNSW, and a BFA (Honours 1st Class) from the School of Art, Hobart, UTAS. In 2010 Michaela undertook a program of residencies in Germany, Iceland and Central Australia with the assistance of a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship, and is currently a resident artist at Artspace, Sydney. Michaela's recent exhibitions include: 'A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes (White)' at the Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; 'Persistent Optimism' (solo) at Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne; 'Rules of Play' at Bell Street Project Space, Vienna, Austria; 'Wall Work' as part of the 2010 Next Wave Festival, Melbourne; and 'Primavera 09' at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. She is represented by Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne. '7 Stunden Ballonarbiet/7 Hour Balloon Work' was originally performed as part of 'Choose Your Own Adventure' curated by Amelia Groom on the 10th of July, 2010, streamed live from her studio in Friedrichshain, Berlin.