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.