Program Announcement: Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures Launched by SPACED

May 7

SPACED is excited to announce Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures, a series of socially-engaged residencies in metropolitan Perth over 2026–27.

Know Thy Neighbour is SPACED’s metro-focused residency program that commissions socially engaged, context-responsive art projects embedded in Perth’s neighbourhoods. Since 2015, the program has invited artists to reimagine the everyday and activate overlooked spaces as vital sites of cultural production. It is also a provocation: “know thy neighbour” challenges the familiarity of place. It asks communities and artists alike to step beyond habitual encounters with their surroundings—to explore scenarios that defamiliarise and recontextualise “the local.” In doing so, it poses a key question: how might we meaningfully engage in the making of our cities?

This fourth iteration, Know Thy Neighbour #4: Gestures, turns its attention to the small but powerful acts that connect people and place. This collaboration will see eight WA-based artists undergo residences in places both specific and widespread across metropolitan Perth, supported by local governments, arts organisations and community associations. The artists will research and create as socially engaged practitioners, engaging with local participants and communities to develop concepts and respond to the social, environmental and historical contexts they encounter.

SPACED is thrilled to announce the ten artists and their eight projects with project partners:

Blue Joy Theatre Company: Mohammed ‘Ayo Busari’, Shelby McKenzie & Ken Meyer with City of Belmont

Tom Campbell with City of Vincent

Makaela Rowe-Fox with City of Stirling

Eduardo Cossio with City of Swan

Cassandra Tytler with Town of Victoria Park

Zali Morgan with Centre for Stories

Cara Teusner-Gartland with Vessel Contemporary and Fremantle Buffalo Club

HEAVY DUTY: Jack Morellini with Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre and Western Australian Skateboarding Association

The program’s curatorial focus, Gestures, asks artists to transmit ideas grounded in physical environments, investigating acts of connection and reciprocity in their projects to uncover relational possibilities and mutual understanding. Gestures can be quiet or bold, habitual or improvised, yet they often carry deep social, cultural and historical weight. Whether physical or intangible, present or absent, explicit or implied, Gestures offer a generative space for artists to respond to the complexity of metropolitan Perth with attentiveness, curiosity, and care; embracing co-creation as a form of exchange, and artistic practice as a way of listening.

"Expanding out of the roots of three previous editions, Know Thy Neighbour sees SPACED uphold its commitment to commissioning collaborations that explore local histories, social dynamics, and shared spaces through embedded exploratory practice. Through these residencies, an exciting generation of socially-engaged, multidisciplinary makers based in Perth will extend their practice by examining the fabric of what connects each of us to place, resulting in projects that transform the day-to-day conventions of public interaction and infrastructure into a playground of participatory possibilities" – Know Thy Neighbour #4 Curator Rebecca Riggs-Bennett.

Read all of the details about our artists, their project ideas and our project partners here.

Design: Kalu Studio. Image: Boorloo Bidi, Zali Morgan, 2023, indigo and rust dyed calico, Sashiko thread, pine, 185cm x 165 cm; 215 x 180 cm; 190 x 170 cm. Photography by Rebecca Mansell.

SPACED is committed to facilitating the creation of innovative, context-responsive contemporary artworks by forging partnerships between artists and communities and will work to nurture artistic practice and community involvement as the projects emerge.

We will be sharing more information about the artists, project partners and Know Thy Neighbour #4 activities as they unfold. Please subscribe to SPACED’s monthly email newsletter, and follow SPACED on Facebook and Instagram.