JUl - OCT 2025 - for the 4th consecutive year!

WUNDER GYM X MELBOURNE FRINGE FESTIVAL

‘transcriptions’ PROGRAM & EXHIBITION

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH WYNDHAM CITY X Hobson's Bay

Expressions of interest now open - close 9 JULY, 2025

Now in its fourth iteration, this bold and timely community arts program invites 24 emerging creatives to take part in Transcriptions, a unique project responding to this year’s theme of personal truth and collective storytelling.

Mentored by acclaimed artist James Nguyen, Transcriptions will delve into how memory, migration, and identity are shaped by the stories we inherit and those we’re never told. Through family records, forgotten archives, official documents, and whispered histories, participants will explore how art can recover, remix, and reframe the narratives that shape us.

Together, we’ll uncover what lies between the lines, what is redacted, mistranslated, or deliberately erased and create new artworks that give voice to silence and space to untold stories.

As part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, the program will culminate in a compelling multi-site public exhibition, transforming spaces across Hobsons Bay and Wyndham City into sites of personal transcription. Locations to be announced soon.

This is your chance to be part of a boundary-pushing project that challenges how we see ourselves and others through humour, performance, language, and imagination.

Apply now to be part of Transcriptions and contribute to a deeply moving, highly original exploration of identity and memory.

program theme - Transcription

How do we inherit stories that were never meant to be passed down? What remains in the gaps between testimony and silence, footage and recollection, nation and subject?

This project draws on the practice of artists like James Nguyen, who employs collaboration, performance, family archives, and redacted documentation to explore the contested space between official histories and lived experience. TRANSCRIPTIONS asks artists to consider the material and immaterial fragments that make up personal and collective memory what is redacted, reframed, mistranslated, withheld, or mythologised.

Participants are invited to explore the bureaucratic, familial, and cultural “documents” of your life birth certificates, video calls, medical scans, family stories, folktales, consent forms, erased emails, or oral traditions and use them as raw material for transformation.

Program Outcomes

This is a milestone multi-site exhibition opportunity for artists of ALL stages. Participants will generate an artwork that will be exhibited at a Gallery and projection window, and will be considered for selection and installation in a billboard outcome. This program will also include a live event with mentor and participants will host with the public.

program mentor - James Nguyen

Drawing out conversations with family, friends and strangers through poetry, sculpture, film, music, and other shared experiences, James tries to understand the profound creativity and humour of migrants and our relationships.

Nguyen has a PhD from the University of NSW, and trained at the Sydney College of Arts, the National Art School, and UnionDocs Centre for Documentary Arts (NYC). He has exhibited at the National 2019, Next Wave Festival and ACE Open in Australia and has commissions from the Sydney Opera House, the Australian War Memorial and support from the Anne and Gordan Samstag Fellowship, Millumbuk Arts, the Clithroe Foundation, the Australian Council for the Arts, Create NSW, and Creative Victoria.

Key program dates that all participants must be available to attend

The program is designed to encourage and support individuals own artistic practice and aid in developing access to broader support networks and audiences.  

21 July 7 - 8 pm Program On-Boarding – via Zoom

2 August 2 – 4:30pm IRL session in Werribee

25 August  7- 8pm Program check-in – via Zoom

6 September 2 – 4:30pm IRL session in Werribee

20 September 10am – 2pm Artworks to be delivered to Louis Joel Gallery – Altona

25 September 5:30pm – 7pm Mentor session and exhibition opening

4 October 2:30pm – 5:30 pm Wyndham Mentor-Led IRL Participant and Community Event

Benefits of Program to artists

The program is designed to encourage and support individuals own artistic practice and aid in developing access to broader support networks and audiences.  

On completion of the program, individuals will benefit from completing the program will:  

-       Generate an artwork to nurture creative confidence 

-       Meet peer and establish stronger bonds with community artists across municipalities  

-       Meet an established artist mentor and can grow from 1on1 coaching experience 

-       Have artwork included in group exhibition 

-       Have artwork documented for personal use and promotional use 

-       Potential for artwork to be included in a later exhibition outcomes 

-       Individuals will benefit larger cross-community shared knowledge

-       Build creative confidence for future community collective activities and exhibitions of their own 

-       Participants will benefit from peers promoting the exhibition and events, supporting each other

Explore the previous WGxMFF held in 2022, 2023 and 2024 to find out more about the Wunder Gym art programs!

Still have questions? READ THE FAQs BELOW:

  • Yes, the program is free, but you must be able to commit to the above key program dates over the 12 weeks from July to October.

  • You will need to supply the following through the Smart Grants portal.

    -       Address

    -       Contact Email

    -       Contact Phone Number

    -       Short artist statement – no more than 150 words (this may be used in promotion and  marketing) .Please include your artist name if different to your application name.

    -       A one-page Artist CV

    -       A website or social links (this may be used in promotion and marketing)

  • All applicants will be notified by the 11 of July.

  • Priority will be given to artists who live or work in Wyndham and Hobson Bay areas. We do encourage artists to apply outside these areas as your expression of interest will be considered.

  • -       Artist who reside in the western regions of Melbourne,  however priority will be given to Hobson Bay and Wyndham based artists.

    -       Participants must be over the age of 18 years.

    -       Applicants must agree to commit to all program dates listed above.

    -       To ensure accessibility and diversity, previous participants who have engaged in the program three times are not eligible.

  • Yes, you will need to fund the materials for the artwork presented as part of the exhibition at Louis Joel Gallery.

    The Wunder Gym program will be able to suggest suppliers. Photographs of your artwork from the exhibition and fabrication of photographs for the billboards will be funded by the program.  

    You will be supplied photographs of your artwork in the gallery for your use to promote your work as an artist.

  • We welcome artists that practice in all mediums, painting, printmaking, textile, ceramic, photography, sculpture or multimedia.

    This is a chance for the artist to explore new mediums or build on their existing medium.

    All artworks must be no larger than A1 in size to be included the exhibition. Sculptures need to be able to fit on a small plinth or free standing.

    Further guidelines will be shared throughout the program. These guidelines are not to inhibit your artwork, but to ensure that as part of a group exhibition, the curation accommodates ALL artwork.

  • One artwork per participant.

    This is a group exhibition and outcome and participants are required to generate one artwork only each.

    If this program inspires you to generate further artworks on the theme, then you will be able to build a body of work that you can then submit or propose to Wyndham City and Hobson Bay for future solo exhibition opportunities.

    Reiterating, this program can only accommodate one artwork each.

You will not regret this experience to explore and support your creative practice that has always taken a back seat to everything else in life!

EOI Application Form