Ker­rie Poliness
Par­lia­ment Steps Walk­ing Drawing

Par­lia­ment Steps Walk­ing Draw­ing con­tin­ues Ker­rie Poli­ness’ ongo­ing series Gen­er­a­tion Mesh, where large archi­tec­tur­al draw­ings are cre­at­ed in pub­lic by groups of peo­ple using coloured chalk. The series is char­ac­terised by geo­met­ric com­po­si­tions which ref­er­ence social, design and com­pu­ta­tion­al net­works and col­lab­o­ra­tive and adap­tive inter-rela­tion­ships between peo­ple and the world. Poli­ness invites diverse mem­bers of the pub­lic to work togeth­er to cre­ate a col­lec­tive draw­ing accord­ing to a com­po­si­tion­al tem­plate and instruc­tions, the results reveal­ing the inter­con­nec­tive process­es and pat­terns of nature and people.

For Par­lia­ment Steps Walk­ing Draw­ing, Poli­ness devised a geo­met­ric pat­tern that con­tracts and expands as it descends down the ter­races and steps of Par­lia­ment – a loca­tion select­ed for its clas­si­cal archi­tec­ture and sta­tus as a civic insti­tu­tion. The work is even­tu­al­ly erased by rain or foot traffic.

Par­lia­ment Steps Walk­ing Draw­ing was pre­sent­ed by ACCA in asso­ci­a­tion with UPTOWN an art exhi­bi­tion for our city, curat­ed by Robert Buck­ing­ham and Fiona Scan­lan, which trans­forms the top of Melbourne’s Bourke Street into an out­door art gallery over the sum­mer months. Par­lia­ment Steps Walk­ing Draw­ing was sup­port­ed by Cre­ative Vic­to­ria, the City of Mel­bourne and Par­lia­ment of Victoria.