Open Spaces is one of Melbourne’s biggest multi-arts events. Through music, art, ideas, design and play, this year’s program celebrates multi-disciplinary arts, diverse cultures, collaboration and place. 
The Open Spaces Art Trail sees ten unique artworks come to life across the site, activating the Convent’s unique spaces and responding to the site’s historic and present-day communities and purpose.
Art Trail invites visitors to wander through the Convent’s hidden nooks, gardens, spaces and hallways, while enjoying a curated program of site-responsive, participatory and installation works.
Selected by an external panel of Melbourne’s preeminent artists, arts professionals and producers, works selected for Art Trail will connect, intrigue and challenge audiences.
'Sew your Own Adventure: Abbotsford Convent' by Tarli Bird
Tarli will invite visitors to collect a handmade artist map to take and retrace the paths they took throughout the day through the act of hand sewing. The maps come with a threaded needle to use and are designed to act as a reflective exercise which results in having a visual recording of a daily experience. Throughout the day Tarli will be creating a more traditional GPS tracking system where she will be tracking through hand sewing the steps that visitors take through the Abbotsford Convent onto one large screen printed map. By the end of the day the map will create a visual summary of paths taken throughout Open Spaces.
Tarli Bird (TBIRD) is an artist whose printmaking practice explores how we record time and experiences living in our current world. She gains inspiration through her daily life training as a long distance runner and the travels she takes with her sport. Her prints are currently stocked at Signed and Numbered stores in Melbourne.

The start of a Paris Map Edition with only 1 more print left in the New York Edition available at Signed and Numbered stores, Melbourne. 

SAM Local Spotlight 10 December 2016 to 15 January 2017
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce that it will be profiling the work of Tarli Bird as part of SAM Local Spotlight from 10 December 2016 to 15 January 2017.
Tarli will create an immersive sound-based experience for the viewer, based on the heart rate of local runners through the musical device of the metronome.
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Tarli commented:
‘I’m excited about exhibiting at SAM with a project that combines my passions in life: sport and art. As an elite distance runner I’m always fascinated when people regard sport and art as being polar opposites. I find athletes and artists contain very similar attributes that I’m looking forward to highlighting in my exhibition. 
I hope to break down the barrier between the sports field and art gallery through my exhibition and draw new viewers into the gallery. My exhibition will have the heart rates of local runners after a running race transferred onto individual music metronomes which will communicate their internal body clocks externally to be watched. The metronomes will continue to perform for the duration of the exhibition, providing a visual and audio representation of how the bodies’ experienced the race. The viewers can determine for themselves which individual has pushed their body to the furthest limit.’ 
Tarli will record the heart rates of Shepparton Park Run participants on Saturday 3 December at the Victoria Park Lake, Wyndham Street, Shepparton after they complete the 5km run.
Tarli is Echuca-based, and an art teacher at Echuca College.
Tarli’s SAM Local Spotlight exhibition is an expansion of a project she undertook as part of the 2010 Next Wave Festival.
Instagram: @tarlibird
SAM Local. Spotlight profiles the work of a local artist with a solo exhibition over December to January. This initiative encourages, stimulates and promotes local and regional cultural activities as part of SAM’s annual program. It enables artists to experience working in a professional museum context.

Excited to be one of the finalists in the 2016 Stencil Art Prize with a new print: 'Just Do It: Central Park' inspired by my obsession with maps, running and being introduced to the tv series 'Sex and the City.'
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http://www.stencilartprize.com

​This year the Stencil Art Prize will be featuring 84 stencil artists from 21 countries. The Stencil Art Prize is the world’s largest and longest running stencil event. The finalists and winning artwork will exhibit as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival from the 5 – 25 September 2016. All artworks will be for sale online and at the exhibition venue.

I have been selected to exhibit a solo exhibition at the Shepparton Art Museum in December 2016. My exhibition will be re-creating an installation: '800m' I created for the 2010 Next Wave Festival exploring themes of sport and recording achievements of sporting achievements. 

In my installation ‘800m’ I organised a series of 800m races, which used heart rates instead of time to communicate performance results. After finishing the race, runners transferred their heart rate beat per minute to their individual music metronome, which communicated their internal body pace externally to be watched.

The music metronomes performed continuously throughout the day according to the rate recorded. The six metronomes provide an explanation rather than an assumption of how the body has experienced the race. The ticking rhythm filled in and explained the exertion of the body during the event rather than measuring the rate of exertion with a number/time.  The ticking rhythm was similar to that of a clock. The out of sync rhythm also brought awareness to the individual time experienced rather than the collective.
The viewer could determine for themselves which athlete pushed their body the furthest during the race by looking at which metronome hand was moving the quickest. Viewers could watch the performing metronomes like a race. 

New prints based on the maps of New York City. They have been printed onto 250gsm Somerset paper using a combination of screen printing, drypoint etching, hand stamping and hand sewing. 

I was invited to create an interactive art installation at the 2014 Jam Grass Festival. Playing with the Dominos game I created a rock art installation that grew throughout the day.  Viewers were invited to join in by adding to the growing spiral of colour. They had to pick up a plain white rock. On one side they had to paint the colour of the end rock on the ground. They then painted the other side a colour of their own choice before adding their rock to the growing spiral on the ground.  Below is an image of the installation in progress.