Random pairings produce artwork and friends

RANDOM Co-Lab is generating unusual artistic work by linking strangers together.

Created by musician, Mick Trembath during the COVID-19 lockdown, the initiative took off to encourage teamwork at time where many artists otherwise would have been working alone in isolation.

“I thought, it’s interesting that nobody can work together at the moment, but could we flip that so that everybody could work together in some way, because all bets were off and everything had changed,” he said.

“I put up a post on social media saying, I’m running a project called Random Co-Lab, all you do is put your name down, you’ll be randomly matched up to somebody else that wants to play, and you have seven days to create something and post evidence of its creation on the Co-Lab page.

“People that didn’t know each other could see there was somebody in the exact same situation as them, sitting in a studio, wondering what they were going to make today.”

As soon as artists volunteered, some “random and chaotic” connections were made, and in turn, new ideas.

“One of the terrific combinations we’ve had was between Melissa Jane Wilson and Steven J Nimmo,” Trembath said.

“Steven’s a graphic designer who works in China. He was coming over to visit his family at Christmas and got stuck in Australia, and Melissa was just getting back to some art practice after having kids.

“Both of them were a bit out of the loop, got together and did some extraordinary work, with one as a graphic artist and one as a creative.”

African harp and banjo players have connected, bread and furniture makers have made a “cosy COVID video,” guitarists have challenged each other to play without touching the strings, and photographers have worked together, apart, looking at the built and natural environment.

“There’s been come really interesting collabs where people have come into it really open-minded to see what happens next,” he said.

With photography skills in common, it was a coincidence that Lynden Nicholls was paired with Ros Pach.

“Ros had done double exposures before, and so I thought that made sense, as I’m in Ballarat and she’s in Thornbury,” Nicholls said.

“I took pictures of buildings up here, and she took pictures down there of the bush, because Thornbury is near the Darebin Creek Reserve. It was a city person taking bush pictures and a country person taking building pictures.

“Ros put them together. It’s a bit symbolic of nature taking over manmade structures. Our world might end up looking like that if we’re not careful.”

Nicholls said Random Co-Lab was a creative motivator, she had fun meeting someone new and finding an opportunity to communicate with another person about their respective artistic styles.

“With the restrictions, I was making excuses to not go out and take images, and then when this project came up, I had to because I was committed.

“This project got Ros out of her zone a bit, too. Ros and I think we might enjoy working together some time in the future,” she said.

For Trembath, the initiative has brought some faith back to the arts community in Ballarat, and further afield.

“Sometimes it can get a bit lonely, but the Random Co-Labs have allowed people to go back to the moment when they were a teenager at art school and anything was possible, you were open to all ideas and happy to meet and work with people,” he said.

“It’s let people come out of a bit of tunnel vision in their practice, and develop some friendships at a time in Australia where ‘the strange’ is frightening.

“Suddenly the blokes that play heavy metal are working with the nannas who knit.”