Bundoora Homestead Exhibition Opening

Next date: Saturday, 11 October 2025 | 04:00 PM to 06:30 PM

Join us to celebrate the opening of our new season of exhibitions:

Rest time | Curated by Laura Couttie

Female Trouble | Pia de Bruyn delivered as a part of Midsumma Festival

Arranging by chance | Abbra Kotlarczyk & Briony Galligan

jpg Fossils | Corinna Berndt

Free to attend, all welcome

Register here

This Spring, enjoy the blossoming gardens of Bundoora Homestead along with the opening of four intriguing and immersive new exhibitions. The launch will feature two activations from the artists of Rest time, curated by Laura Couttie. Experience Dhana Merritt's SOAK, a communal magnesium foot soak and conversation: part artwork, part health retreat, and fully participatory. Meditate on Jingwei Bu’s performance Pouring Tea until it is all evaporated, a repetitive and methodical series of gestures, the residue of which will remain as part of the artwork for the duration of the exhibition.

About the exhibitions:

Rest time | Curated by Laura Couttie.

Featuring artists: Jingwei Bu, Emma Buswell, Kate Just, Shannon Lyons and Dhana Merritt

What happens when we reject grind culture and ‘fill our cup’ instead? How can slow art – grounded in mindfulness, collaboration and exchange – help us imagine new ways of living, working and creating? Rest time offers an invitation to all visitors to rest, reflect and reconnect.

Female Trouble | Pia de Bruyn

Taking its title from John Waters’ cult classic, Female Trouble explores archetypal femininity through the lens of cinema. Historically, film has portrayed women as damaged, deranged, or dangerous — Female Trouble invites audiences into a cinematic universe where female identity takes centre stage, camp aesthetics reign supreme, and the stereotypical portrayal of women in film is radically upended.

Award-winning artist Pia de Bruyn brings this work to life as winner of the Bundoora Homestead Art Prize at the 2025 Midsumma and Australia Post Art Award.

Arranging by chance | Abbra Kotlarczyk & Briony Galligan

Arranging by chance is a collaborative exhibition that builds on the artists’ research into family trees, queerness, toxicity and healing. It considers the family tree as a symbolic and botanical form, positioning it in relation to ‘pharmakon’—the idea that a poison is also a remedy. The exhibition will incorporate new and existing works spanning drawing, installation, photography, audio and written texts.

jpg Fossils | Corinna Berndt

jpg Fossils is a science-fiction inspired video installation by Corinna Berndt that poetically connects fragments from the artist's digital archive. The exhibition envisions the digital realm as a kind of external collective memory, reminding us that growing digital systems need natural resources to keep running. jpg Fossils re-imagines these systems for storing our personal data in the future.

About the activations:

SOAK - Dhana Merritt | 4pm- 6:30pm

SOAK is a communal magnesium foot soak: part artwork, part health retreat, and fully participatory. To experience the work, visitors are invited to pause, sit with the artist, and immerse their feet in a rejuvenating infusion of magnesium and lemon balm (harvested from the artist’s medicinal herb garden). The SOAK activation offers a participatory space where the proven benefits of hydrotherapy are interwoven with moments of exchange, reflection, and the gentle restoration of both body and community. This activation is a part of Rest Time, showing at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre until Sat 17 February 2026.

Bookings are not required. Visitors are welcome to drop in and out during the activation. Children under 12 years must be accompanied by a guardian.

 

Pouring Tea Until It Is All Evaporated - Jingwei Bu | 5pm- 5:30pm

As part of Rest Time, artist Jingwei Bu will give a durational performance in which tea is poured as a single repetitive action until the tea has evaporated. For Bu, the methodical process of a repetitious action echoes the meditative state of Chan Buddhism – centralising one’s attention to process and in turn finding inner peace. The residue of the performance (stacks of tea-stained paper and teacups) will remain in the exhibition.

Free to attend, all welcome. Bookings are not required. Visitors are welcome to drop in and out during the activation.

This public program is proudly supported by the City of Darebin's Community Grants Program

Getting here

To plan your visit click here

Please note: general photography and short videos (for social media) will be recorded at this event for promotional use only and to document this event internally. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let a member of staff know once you arrive.

 

Image credits: 1. Bundoora Homestead Opening Event. Image courtesy Darebin Council

2. Jingwei Bu. Pouring Tea Until It Is All Evaporated 2023. Photo: Havård Sagen. 2025. Image courtesy of the artist

3. Dhana Merritt. SOAK 2025. Image courtesy of the artist.

When

Location

Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, 7 Prospect Hill Dr, Bundoora, 3083, View Map