MAL Reading List / dylan marelić

Melbourne Art Library (MAL) is a not-for-profit lending library that collects specialised art and design texts. MAL is proudly independent and are curious about what being a 'library' means. Blindside is partnering with MAL to facilitate our artists to present curated reading lists from MAL's collection, to coincide with Blindside programming.

Reading list texts are available for browsing and borrowing at Melbourne Art Library. Melbourne Art Library is located at Testing Grounds Emporium, 438 Queen St, Naarm/Melbourne, and is open 12—5pm Thursday—Sunday.

To further explore the themes addressed in the exhibition, dylan marelić suggests the following texts:

Muratore, Tom. The Politics of Public Space - Volume Three. United Kingdom: Antenne Books Limited, 2020.

Woods, Lebbeus. Slow Manifesto: Lebbeus Woods Blog. United States: Princeton Architectural Press, 2015.

Nicholson, Tom. Monument for the Flooding of Royal Park. Australia: Schwartz Publishing Pty, Limited, 2009.

Trading Between Architecture and Art: Strategies and Practices of Exchange. Netherlands: Valiz, 2019.

Open Spatial Workshop: Converging in Time. Australia: Monash University Museum of Art, 2017.

What If It Won’t Stop Here?: What Art Can Do Now to Face Up to the Bleak Mood and Still Speak Through Media, Data, and the Body. Archive books, 2018.

Statement by dylan marelić:

As part of my installation at Blindside, I have curated a selection of resources at the Melbourne Art Library that resonate with the themes explored in my work. For me this installation invokes the complex nature of public spaces, particularly the stark contrasts between waste, nature, and infrastructure. These texts discuss related themes and have been influential for me when working through this exhibition.

The first text is The Politics of Public Space, particularly Tony Birch’s lecture, which reflects on the colonial planning narratives embedded in Melbourne’s development and the valorization of war through monuments occupying many of the city’s primary public gathering spaces.

Next is Lebbeus Woods’ Slow Manifesto, where Woods presents harrowing yet hopeful concepts for rebuilding in the aftermath of the Genocide in Sarajevo. He advocates for constructing new elements from the rubble of war, emphasising reuse over starting from scratch.

Monument for the Flooding of Royal Park incorporates stills from Tom Nicholson’s video of the same title, conveying a foreboding tale about the disregard for Indigenous knowledge and the resulting demise of non-Indigenous settlers. Despite its bleak beginning, the work ends on a hopeful note, suggesting the potential for growth after death.

In Trading Between Architecture and Art, in particular the essay on relational art which critiques contemporary installations. This essay has prompted me to consider installations as a form of “anti-architecture,” exploring how they can “defunctionalize” spaces rather than simulate architectural environments.

Converging in Time, an exhibition at Monash University Museum of Art with an accompanying publication by Open Spatial Workshop, examines resource extraction and the anthropogenic issues arising from colonial interventions in Sydney and Melbourne.

Finally, What If It Won’t Stop Here? features essays by fellows from Universität der Künste Berlin, who propose reasons to continue navigating an art practice in an increasingly bleak world. The book addresses topics such as environmental destruction, the genocide in Palestine, and the impacts of late capitalism.These texts are available at the Melbourne Art Library and are free to borrow and read.

To learn more about MAL click here.