Incinerator x MADA Talk Series: Grounds for Risky Play

Incinerator x MADA Talk Series: Grounds for Risky Play

Friday, 23 May, 4 to 7pm

Maribyrnong Park Bowls Club (195 Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds 3039, Victoria Australia), located across from Incinerator Gallery

FREE event - bookings required

Duration: 3 hours
Doors open 3.30pm for 4pm start
Light refreshments will be served

Incinerator x MADA Talk Series presents three free public events on 23 May, 4 July and 10 October with local and international artists, designers city planners and other experts, to investigate the role of suburban revitalisation, creative placemaking and community development.

The Playground Project Melbourne, curated by Gabriela Burkhalter, celebrates the history, imagination and possibility of playground design. On view at Incinerator Gallery from 28 June to 10 October 2025.

Grounds for Risky Play is produced with Monash Art, Design Architecture (MADA), Education Partner of The Playground Project Melbourne.

This event is presented in association with 2025 Melbourne Design Week.

Talk 1: Grounds for Risky Play

The Playground Project Melbourne, curated by Gabriela Burkhalter, presents four types of playground design during the past 100 years: Sculpture, Landscape, Adventure and Activism. This event explores seminal Melbourne-based examples with a mission to inspire bold and brilliant playground designs to come.

The Cubbies (Fitzroy Adventure Playground. Circa 1990, Courtesy The Cubbies (2)

The Cubbies (Fitzroy Adventure Playground), c. 1990. Courtesy The Cubbies.

SESSION 1: ADVENTURE PLAYGROUNDS
The Cubbies: Fitzroy Adventure Playground 4.05 to 4.15 pm

The Venny (Kensington). Courtesy The Venny (1)

The Venny (Kensington), c. 1989. Courtesy The Venny.

The Venny, Kensington 4.20 to 4.30 pm

The Venny is a supervised, free communal backyard and safe play space for 5 to 16 year-olds. It is intentionally designed to engage in risk-taking play, creativity and connectedness among young people. Established in 1981 and located in the JJ Holland Park in Kensington it is modelled on the original concept by Danish landscape architect, Carl Theodor Sørensen, who observed children preferred to play everywhere except the playgrounds that he designed and built. Sørensen imagined “a junkyard playground in which children could create and shape, dream and imagine a reality”. In 1942, set against the destruction of World War Two, Europe’s first adventure playground opened in Copenhagen under the title ‘Emdrup’ and features in The Playground Project Melbourne exhibition. The Venny also runs weekly pop-up play sessions at MVCC's Flemington Hub and North Melbourne public housing estates with their mobile Venny To You van.

Presented by David Kutcher

David has served as General Manager and Board Member at The Venny Inc. for 25 years. He has completed well over 10,000 hours of play work practice. He oversaw The Venny’s transition from a Co-operative to an Incorporated Association, obtaining full charitable and DGR status. David Kutcher is currently The Honorary Principal of The Venny and a board member at Play Australia, David has facilitated the expansion and reach of Playwork across other public housing towers in Melbourne. David has travelled extensively to study models of Play work in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. Importantly he has a proven track record of building children's play spaces and putting children and young people front and centre of decision making and play. David Kutcher is a Board Member at Play Australia.

Nature Play at Royal Park. Courtesy City of Melbourne.

SESSION 2: NATURE PLAY
Nature Play, Royal Park 4.35 to 4.45 pm

Nature Play at Royal Park is a collaborative project between the City of Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, and aims to restore parkland on the former Royal Children’s Hospital site.

Presented by Jeff Nelson, Design & Delivery Lead, Southbank Major Public Art Commission

Jeff Nelson is a landscape architect with extensive experience in public space and city shaping, and is passionate about spaces that bring people together to connect with place. Having worked on a broad range of small and large public realm projects for the City of Melbourne over 20 years, he brings a depth of experience and understanding of what it takes to make public spaces work and adapt to the needs of the community. Jeff has a particular passion for play space design, embedding early childhood development needs and playfulness into his design approach. He also has significant experience in integrated public art, working with a range of artists to deliver exciting and interactive works in the public realm.

Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens, 2018. Courtesy MamaKnowsSouth.

Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens 4.50 to 5 pm

The Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden, designed over three years and opened in 2004, was created to help children connect with nature through play and imagination. The garden features a variety of plant spaces, an education area, and a kitchen garden with edible plants, all designed to engage children from their perspective.

Presented by Andrew Laidlaw, Landscape Architect, Royal Botanic Gardens

Andrew is most widely known for his long-standing role as the landscape architect at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. In this position, he has designed and developed many projects including the Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden, Guilfoyle’s Volcano and the rejuvenation of the Fern Gully which includes three unique meditation gardens.

In 2020 he completed the current Master Plan that sets a vision for the RBG over the next 20 years, and in the following year finished the new Arid Garden (that won Victorian landscape of the year) the White Oak project and the Sensory Garden. His projects have won three gold medals at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show including two’ Best in Show’ awards, Landscape of the Year from the Landscape Industries Association of Victoria, and the Victoria Tourism Award for Best New Tourism Development. More recently he has worked with the Wurundjeri council to design and install two ‘Being on Country Gardens’ that have won acclaim within the industry.

Andrew has taught Landscape Design at the University of Melbourne’s Burnley campus (previously VCAH) for over thirty-five years, teaching many of Australia’s gardeners and designers. He was a regular presenter on ABC 774’s Saturday morning gardening program and is a regular guest on Gardening Australia. Andrew is one of the founding directors of Global Gardens of Peace: an organisation dedicated to building gardens for vulnerable communities around the world. GGoP has successfully completed several gardens around Melbourne and has been working on a children’s garden in the Gaza Strip.

Andrew’s love of plants and nature began in childhood and was inspired by his father and mothers love of gardens. His childhood memories of playing free in the bush and nurturing his own four children to connect with nature and has inspired Andrew's lifelong passion to not only work with nature, but to help others learn, enjoy and find their own connection with the natural world.

The Ringtails Playground, designed by BoardGrove Architects, (new commission). Incinerator Gallery, Aberfeldie (rendering), 2025.

The Ringtails Playground, Incinerator Gallery, Aberfeldie 5.00 to 5.10 pm

Commissioned by Incinerator Gallery for The Playground Project Melbourne, MVCC's newest, site-specific playground explores notions of nature play. It also pays tribute to the architecture of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin (designers of the original Incinerator), the nearby Maribyrnong River and the work of Aldo van Eyck - Amsterdam's city planner and mastermind of several visionary urban playgrounds showcased in the exhibition.

Presented by Holly Board, Principal, BoardGrove Architects

BoardGrove Architects is an award-winning Melbourne-based creative architecture and design studio established in 2016 by Holly Board and Peter Grove. Leading projects include NGV Triennial Outdoor Pavilions, MPavilion Stool Dolly (part of Powerhouse Museum’s Permanent Collection) and their recent appointment as part of the winning multidisciplinary design team of the new NGV Contemporary.

250512 Incinerator x MADA PR image 200dpi

SESSION 3: PLAY & MOBILITY
The Intergenerational Learning and Activity Playground, Frankston 5.15 to 5.25 pm

The Intergenerational Learning and Activity Playground

The Intergenerational Learning and Activity Playground, designed by Charity Edwards (MADA) in Frankston Victoria, is part of the National Centre for Healthy Ageing and promotes health and engagement across generations. Featuring a Seniors Exercise Park, an Indigenous yarning circle, and interactive elements, it supports both structured and unstructured play to improve outcomes for all ages. Researchers from Monash University, including Jason Crow and Charity Edwards, are exploring how Conceptual Playworld principles can enhance intergenerational learning.

Presented by Jason R. Crow and Charity Edwards, MADA

Jason R. Crow is a senior lecturer at Monash University and architect in Pennsylvania. His research focuses on how technological change affects material understanding and craft knowledge in architecture. He holds degrees in architecture from Clemson and Iowa State Universities and completed his PhD at McGill University, where he also co-founded the Facility for Architectural Research in Media and Mediation (FARMM). Crow has practiced architecture in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Quebec and held fellowships at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and McGill. His publications explore material culture and architectural history, including his recent monograph, A New Material Interpretation of Twelfth-Century Architecture (Amsterdam University Press, 2024), which re-examines Gothic architecture through theology, science, and craft.

Charity Edwards is a lecturer in Architecture at Monash University and a practicing architect, with 20 years of experience on projects in Australia and internationally. She continues to collaborate with artists, scientists, and communities to create spaces, landscapes, objects, and urban strategy. Charity’s research highlights the impacts of urbanisation in remote environments and through increasingly autonomous technologies. Charity is also a co-founder of The Afterlives of Cities research collective, which brings together expertise in architecture, astrophysics, and speculative fiction to recover futures through civic creative practice.

Incy Wincy Babies Program at Incinerator Gallery, Produced and Facilitated by Barking Spider Creative.

Learning To Play: From Infancy to Adulthood, 5.30 to 5.40 pm

Presented by Penelope Bartlau, Founder and Director, Barking Spider Creative

Barking Spider Creative (est. 2006) creates visual stories with the young and the elderly, from installation works to immersive theatre, puppetry, poetry, and performance. All projects focus on interpreting history and place, community and individual narratives via visual and theatre arts. BSC leads Incinerator Gallery’s monthly educational program for 0-to 24-month-olds and their carers, and together in 2024 launched Art Mondo, a community program for creative seniors experiencing early on-set dementia.

Penelope Bartlau’s PhD explores the role of play and risk-taking in the lives and art of adult practitioners.

Risky Playground by Mike Hewson (Southbank, City of Melbourne), 2022. Courtesy Artist.

SESSION 4: SCULPTURE PLAYGROUND
Keynote speaker - Mike Hewson 6.00 to 7.00pm

Rocks On Wheels (‘Risky Playground’), 2022 is Hewson’s critically acclaimed, large-scale public art playground. Located on Wurrundjeri Woi-wurrung land, it is part of the City of Melbourne’s largest open-space conversion in recent years. The project serves as an inclusive playground that challenges traditional play design, showcasing world-class excellence in play value, conceptual depth, and material durability.

Presented by Mike Hewson

Mike Hewson is a visual artist with a background in structural engineering and heavy-civil construction. His award-winning projects pioneer new ways to merge conceptual art projects into the public realm. Hewson works to prove we can, in fact, do things that are considered untenable in a public setting. Each project aims to catalyse fresh conversation about how the bureaucratic and managerial aspects of power are shaping our public lives, asking if we like that shape or if we’d like to consider other options.

Mike has completed five large-scale public art commissions in Australia, many of them are sculpture-park-cum-playgrounds. He received a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, in 2007 and a Master of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) from Columbia University, New York in 2016.

In conversation with Associate Professor Spiros Panigirakis, MADA (Head of Fine Arts)

Spiros Panigirakis is an artist, educator, curator and writer. He is Head of Fine Art within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University. He often works with groups in both a curatorial and collaborative capacity to address the social conditions of art. His current projects include 1964, 1969, 1977, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2025, a project co-curated with Helen Hughes at Gertrude Contemporary; and You Are Here Too at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, curated within the KINK collective. He was part of the founding committee of the artist-run initiative CLUBSproject and was chair of Un Projects, a national independent art publishing venture between 2018 - 2022. He is represented by Sarah Scout presents, Melbourne.

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