Arts Centre Melbourne Presents HOME: An Interactive Community Arts Pproject

7000 colourful wooden houses are set to pop up across Melbourne in January 2015 as part of Arts Centre Melbourne's huge interactive community arts project Home. The project follows the hugely successfully free music installation Play Me, I'm Yours, which saw 24 colourful, decorated pianos placed throughout the city to inspire spontaneous recitals by approximately 100,000 people over 18 days.

Devised by Melbourne artist and designer Darryl Cordell and Arts Centre Melbourne, Home explores and celebrates the idea of 'home' and what it means to individuals, families and communities. From October to December Cordell and Arts Centre Melbourne will conduct a series of workshops with more than 60 groups including community arts organisations, councils, schools, The Royal Children's Hospital, immigration detention centres, disability service providers and transitional housing groups that ask participants the question, "what does home mean to you?" The results will inspire the decoration of 7000 small, wooden houses.

'Home' means many things and raises many emotions to different people - it may not be the place you are born but the place you become yourself, not the place you sleep but the place you stand. It may symbolise happiness, sadness, grief, loss or anger which all contribute to who we are and our place in the world.

Arts Centre Melbourne will collect and display all the decorated houses in the Big House, a huge replica of the small houses built on the Arts Centre Melbourne Main Lawn for a large free public exhibition and celebration on January 10. At the end of the opening celebration members of the public will be asked to take a house, place it in a public space, photograph it in the new location, upload the image to the Arts Centre Melbourne website and share it via social media. The public are encouraged to move the house around and share stories, photos through the website and via social media. This will be a gorgeous celebration of Victoria's community, both in real life and online. After opening, the Big House will also host a music, performance and workshop program from 11 -26 January 2015.

Home is the second of four large-scale public participation events produced by Arts Centre Melbourne as part of the Betty Amsden Participation Program, a four year creative program supported by a $1 million grant which seeks to celebrate the inherent creativity in all Melburnians.

Home was developed from a concept by artist by Darryl Cordell in 2001. The idea of decorating and sharing small houses sparked some big ideas that have led to this huge project! Cordell's theatre work has been presented by Ilbijerri Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Theatre Cooperative, The Malthouse Theatre, Black Swan, St. Martins, Handspan, Vitalstatistix, La Mama, Melbourne Workers' Theatre, Red Stitch, The Torch Project, Terrapin Puppet Theatre and Polyglot Puppet Theatre.