Welcome to our final Lost and Found volume 2 snapshot. Next, prepare your inbox for the launch of a sparkling new volume. Towards the end of May, expect full-length editions with more insider knowledge, underbelly happenings and intimate understanding brought to you by the creative people who know best.

This snapshot’s guest editor is Conor O’Brien – a super-collectible, Sydney-based artist photographer. He has recently exhibited work at the Australian Centre for Photography (ACP), Sydney’s Monster Children Gallery, and has a solo show coming up at Melbourne’s Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) in May. You can find his photographs published in book form by Serps Press. Originally from Perth (though sun-smart due to having red hair), Conor has also lived, worked and skateboarded extensively in Melbourne. Wherever he is, he likes friends, roadtrips, and things that happen outside (and sunscreen).

Conor O’Brien

Right now I’m getting ready for a new show at CCP in May. It’s called There Stands the Glass. The photos are a second body of work from in and around Melbourne, following on from Hold On To Each Other, which I showed at ACP last year.

I still feel attached to Melbourne. Actually I have storage space – so I am currently renting 2 x 1.5 x 2.5 metres of Melbourne. Before moving to Sydney we lived in Fitzroy for three years. We hung out at home a lot but often went to The Napier. Their tofu burgers are so insane – they use that thick Turkish bread and two tofu steaks, marinated in Mexican sauce with guacamole and cornchips. It’s about $12 and you can only eat half, so it’s good value to share.

On weekends we often went camping in Daylesford, which is beautiful. And we would always stay at the Jubilee Lake Caravan Park.

One of my favourite galleries in Melbourne is Utopian Slumps. That’s where Westside was exhibited, and I was part of a show there recently called Do You Remember What It Was?. It’s quite unique as far as artist-run spaces go because Melissa Loughnan curates it herself (rather than it being run by a panel). In spite of being hard to find it’s turned into something great. I also love CCP. They moved to their current site a few years ago and Sean Godsell did the renovation.

I’ve worked a lot with Tom from Serps Press, an independent publisher based in Melbourne. I have two new, small books due to come out with them this year. If you’re looking for their books they’re stocked at Metropolis and Brunswick Street Bookstore, which are both great for browsing anyway. Another good place is the bookshop at NGV Australia. I have found a lot there over the years; it’s one of the best state galleries too. For clothes, I think Someday is a great store. It stocks books and things too, and is owned by Shauna and Misha from P.A.M. (They also make Pambooks, which rule.)

2008 Next Wave Festival

It would come in handy for people with a hectic exhibition launch diary (especially on Thursday nights in Melbourne), but if you had such a thing as an art barometer you’d know only this: the 2008 Next Wave Festival is rolling in like a perfect storm. Held biennially in Melbourne, Next Wave is an acclaimed, curated festival for young Australian artists, renowned for commissioning genre-busting work and doing it in unexpected places. This year, the Membrane project will uncover never-before-seen parts of Federation Square. Like the 20-metre-long underground vault that will house a project by Hobart’s Six_a collective: 250 kilos of potatoes altered to form rudimentary battery cells that will power a hovering installation. The festival theme is ‘Closer Together’. If you see one thing, make it Everybody’s Free – a live installation at Billboard Nightclub, where you might just ask yourself, ‘how close is too close?’

2008 Next Wave Festival, 15–31 May, Federation Square and citywide.
Federation Square, corner Russell and Flinders streets, Melbourne
Billboard Nightclub, 170 Russell Street, Melbourne, tel: 03 9639 4000

Palmz and the Carlton Hotel Gallery

People say a lot of things about Melbourne’s weather, not all of them printable. But our schizophrenic pressure patterns do more than ruin wedding plans and necessitate motorised roofs on our sports stadiums. They have made us flexible, especially when it comes to nightlife. For example, we can sit, as somebody said recently, ‘in a hole drinking chardonnay,’ but when it’s thirty degrees, Melbourne is ready. And never more so than now, thanks to Palmz at The Carlton Hotel. Adding a touch of Gold Coast flair to the roof of one of Melbourne’s most famous drinking establishments, Palmz is a diamante stud in the city’s bikini. With bamboo trim, bougainvillea and a straw-thatched roof on the bar, it’s like a little holiday five floors up. Raining? Never mind, there’s probably an art launch in the gallery downstairs – plenty of chardonnay and dark corners for everyone.

Palmz, The Carlton Hotel, 193 Bourke Street, Melbourne, tel: 03 9663 3216

Glitzern and the Von Haus Gallery

‘Gothic’ is an easy way to describe the range at Glitzern – it’s shiny, ornate and, in many cases, black. It has the whimsical spirit of earlier revivals of the gothic aesthetic in the decorative arts. The name is German for ‘glitter’, so it references the extinct, East Germanic language of the Goths. Really, though, there’s so much jewellery in one tiny room (a former storage cupboard) that no single aesthetic prevails. Says co-owner Moi Rodgers, ‘It’s less about “this is so me” than “this is the mood I’m in right now”.’ It’s about dressing up. Drawn from designers here and overseas, Glitzern’s range has a cult appeal – from pod purses and Cleopatra neckpieces by Melbourne’s House of Baulch to the tribal, pop culture adornments of US label Mended Veil. Newly opened upstairs, you’ll find the raw-but-stately exhibition space Von Haus Gallery. Watch out for Glitzern’s curated group show, Jungle Fever, launching in June.

Glitzern, 1A Crossley Street, Melbourne, tel: 03 9663 7921