Sylvia Schwenk: They paved paradise, put up a parking lot | 24 Mar - 18 Apr

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The Blue Oyster Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition They paved paradise, put up a parking lot by Australian artist Sylvia Schwenk. The exhibition is a performance, photographic and installation based body of work showing off the latest footwear and fashion needed for global warming. A performance of Boots for Rising Waters, will see women modelling gumboots with black stilt-like fixtures on their base, on the opening night of the exhibition; Tuesday 24 March at 5.30pm. The exhibition runs from Tues 24 March to Sat 18 April at the Blue Oyster Gallery 24b Moray Pl, Dunedin - Free Entry.

Schwenk's work is generally socially based interventions performed in the urban landscape, and she looks to reconnect art and life through performance. She uses fashion, life between buildings, the human body and performance to create awareness, discussion and engagement of issues, through participation.  Schwenk’s performances are based on a platform of fun and lightheartedness, which engenders positive experiences for the performers and passers-by, who become actors in the shared public space of the intervention. See www.schwenk.com.au for more details.

As a part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival, Schwenk will choreograph and direct local participants to form giant and individual Xs with their bodies in and around the Octagon. X Performance Dunedin will be performed on Friday 27 March at 1pm. Schwenk says she "uses the city as a canvas because it is such an essential space for interaction, for exchange and social activity across people of all different demographics."  X Performance Dunedin will look at various issues including community and freedom of expression. - Free

The Blue Oyster Gallery will also be hosting two other Fringe Festival performances: Wish - About Spaces by Irvine and Sarah Forgan on 4 April at 1pm and Devolution #1 & "Thus I spoke Silence" by Sudhir Duppati on 27 March at 5.30pm, check out www.dunedinfringe.org.nz for more info. Traces of the performances will inhabit Blue Oyster gallery spaces from Tues 24 to Sat 18 March. - Free