Driving You Mad, Driving You Crazy

28 Aug 2018

INTERVIEW: Melbourne artist Stephen Baker about his Art Tram project for the Melbourne International Arts Festival

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INTERVIEW: Melbourne artist Stephen Baker about his Art Tram project for the Melbourne International Arts Festival

David & Sue talk to Melbourne artist Stephen Baker about his art tram project for the this year’s Melbourne International Arts Festival. He was one of eight local artists to be asked to create art trams for this years festival which runs from 3-21 October 2018 all around Melbourne and , indeed, Stephen’s tram will be travelling all around Melbourne so watch out for it when you’re out and about during October. The first Melbourne Art Tram will be launched on Thu 4 October.

Below are Stephen’s comments on the Art Tram which he has created (from the Melbourne International Arts Festival website):

“Melbourne is certainly a site of change, with a constantly shifting cultural scene that is alive and exciting for both participant and onlooker. I sought to represent Melbourne’s cultural hub graphically as an ever-growing series of geometric shapes. Each shape representing a unique aspect of Melbourne’s rich and diverse culture that defines this city for both locals and visitors alike.

Exploring further with this idea I wanted to represent the mosaic as an evolving cultural form that changes and grows. This has been added using figurative elements to represent people contributing their own cultural individuality, their unique shape to Melbourne’s larger mosaic.”

And here is some info on this years Melbourne Art Trams from the Melbourne International Arts Festival website:

“From 1978 to 1993 the Transporting Art project saw local luminaries like Mirka Mora, Michael Leunig, Howard Arkley and Reg Mombassa making over Melbourne’s beloved W-Class trams with designs as distinctive as the city itself.

Melbourne Festival reignited this spark in 2013 and ever since the Melbourne Art Trams have been a visible reminder of the creative energies that drive this town.

Seven new tram transformations as imagined by Victorian artists will take to the tracks in October, including one that specifically responds to the artist’s interpretation of community.

This year Melbourne Art Trams also tips its hat to its origins, recreating the raucous, bold and mischievous work produced by the late David Larwill for the Transporting Art project in 1986. The tram was painted as part of the commemoration of the United Nations International Year of Peace, but has been in storage for more than 20 years. The design has been photographed and designed to be wrapped on a modern tram.

2018 Melbourne Art Trams artists

Hayley Millar-Baker
David Larwill
Stephen Baker
Valerie Tang
Oli Ruskidd
Troy Innocent
Oslo Davis
Nick Howson

Read more and see a preview of their designs → “