Rain, For Babies and Their Carers is a collaboration between Drop Bear Theatre, The SEAM, and cellist Edwina Cordingley, with lighting design by Sophie Kurylowicz, and live performance by Zoë Barry. Rain has been created especially for babies and their carers. 

Audiences are invited to experience the wonder and generosity of rain, and explore together water’s elemental connection between parent and child. Carers and their littlest ones are immersed in an intimate, mindful installation space full of surprise, delight and opportunities for connection through sound, touch and performance. 

Rain is currently preparing for our premiere U.S. season at Lincoln Center, NY, and has just returned from a wonderful 2 week season at the Hong Kong International Arts Carnival. In 2017, Rain enjoyed touring seasons with the Macao Cultural Centre and the DreamBIG Festival at The Adelaide Festival Centre. Previous seasons include those at Arts Centre Melbourne and the Out of the Box Festival at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane in 2016; The Castlemaine State Festival, Sydney's Casula Powerhouse for the Way Out West Festival, The State Theatre WA for the Awesome Arts Festival, and a special showing at the Reggio Emilia Australia Conference, Melbourne Exhibition Centre in 2015. Our original workshops and performances at ArtPlay, Melbourne in 2013 were made possible through the generous support of City of Melbourne and the ArtPlay New Ideas Lab.

The short film of Rain was created by the wonderful Clare Gorman.

Bodies At Rest, for Open Spaces 2015, is the second iteration in a series of site-responsive works at The Abbotsford Convent.

Following on from the four-day inquiry of Classical Mechanics, we spent the day responding to the sublime space of Dorm 1 in the Rosina Building. We experimented with amplified sound, movement and projections. We traced lines through the light, captured their echoes and layered the imagery of our repeated motions across the walls.

Over and over we stretched the black rope, loosened the knots we made together and revealed what we found to those that came by. 

All Photos by Beth Wilkinson, 2015.

Inspired by the history of women's labour in lace-making and laundry services at The Abbotsford Convent, Classical Mechanics explores physical drawing on a gigantic scale. Making sheets into rope and tools from found materials, this site-responsive work was created over four days for the Spiritous program, as an exploration of process, momentum and companionship within the walls of the Sacred Heart Courtyard.

Supported by the Abbotsford Convent Foundation. All Photos by Beth Wilkinson, 2015.

Traverse brings together two physical processes integral to the group’s practice; collage and experiencing. Documentation from an expedition to remote NSW, as well as the experience of making work in the studio, inform imagery suggestive of enduring figures, mirage-like landscapes and undeterminable activity.

St Heliers Street Gallery, Abbotsford Convent, Feb 2015

In November 2013, The SEAM participated in a week-long artist residency, at Artback, NSW. This time enabled us to reflect on recent projects, deepen our collaborative inquiry and begin explorations for new work. It was very windy at times, everything about the landscape was immense. We also decided we would like to move onto a houseboat and only ever work from the Darling River with the birds. Here is a taste of it. 

Our most recent exhibition Traverse was developed out of this time away together.

House Of Bricks, Melbourne, 2012

A net, woven together at night, hours stolen to trace lines with scraps and build together a cascading shape that is soft and may catch you. Casts shadows. Contains. Releases. The space between what is seen and grasped and what cannot be. From the ceiling to the floor. All the wool is tangled now. 

Egg Gallery, Melbourne, 2012

Each day unfolds from seemingly insignificant moments. Straight Lines Are So Good explores our relational art-making, the colours, forms and textures that emerge from being with these ordinary experiences. From one shared noticing, this site specific work saturates the viewer in the felt-sense of things known yet sometimes unfamiliar.