Engages,
Kari Lee McInneny-McRae, Concentric Curriculum Squiggle Practice
Dates: Next date to be announced.
Squiggle Practice was a series of online workshops created and run by artist Kari Lee McInneny-McRae in collaboration with Bus Projects Concentric Curriculum Program.
The Squiggle Practice workshops took place across three sessions and were inspired by Donald Winnicott’s therapeutic consultations in child psychiatry. Winnicot created ‘The squiggle game’, using drawing as a tool to communicate with children’s thoughts and feelings.
The Squiggle Practice workshops aimed to feed inspiration and fuel a sense of community and connection for adults, whilst in isolation, and during Melbournes hard lockdown due to COVID19.
Kari used these workshops to research the role of drawing for adults as a tool for play.
Squiggle Practice participants completed experimental and playful drawings. The sessions highlighted the importance of ‘process play art’ as a source of enjoyment to fuel creative thinking. It also allowed grown ups to have an outlet for managing their own mental health.
You can read more about what was explored in each session here:
Session One
‘Something to hold onto’
In this session, a range of simple drawing and thinking exercises were explored in order to interact with an object around the home that held a specific memory for the participant.
This session was all about loosening up our thoughts and learning to play through a process-based practice that is not concerned with skill or outcome.
Session Two
‘Tracing our shadows’
In this session, participants were directed to trace the gestural squiggles of their own bodies from the shadow and shapes that their bodies made on the page in the evening light. The session also asked for participants to consider the home spaces their bodies were inhabiting. Participants were instructed to do rubbings of the surrounding surfaces, such as the wall, floor or furniture within the room. Through this process, each participant created drawings which gave them new and creative perspectives on spaces they had otherwise become too familiar with, due to Melbourne’s Covid19 Lockdowns.
Session Three
‘Drawing with words and symbols’
Session three was used to experiment with words and how they sound and look. From this session we built up a drawing in layers using a range of tracing and basic stenciling techniques. We created a visual mind map of our thoughts and feelings from that day.
Below are images of works created by the participants in these sessions.
Kari Lee McInneny-McRae is a genderfluid multi disciplinary artist, writer, curator and arts worker living and practicing on the stolen lands and waterways of the Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri) & Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. Their practice explores personal connections to materiality and place through lived experiences. They have shown and curated work extensively across multiple artist run and commercial galleries within Naarm/Melbourne.
Below are images of works created by the participants in these sessions.
Kari Lee McInneny-McRae is a Naarm / Melbourne based multi disciplinary artist, writer and arts worker in so~called~Australia. Their practice explores personal connections to materiality and place through process-based practices. They have been practicing and studying in the Visual Arts for over seven years. They have shown and curated work extensively in multiple artist run and commercial galleries within Naarm / Melbourne.
