Micro Galleries is an art project which reclaims disused and forgotten spaces, reactivating them as tiny galleries – free and accessible to local communities. 

In May, Micro Galleries will emerge throughout the Nowra CBD with areas featuring the works of more than 15 international artists and 20 Shoalhaven artists, including Bonnie and Suzi.

Bonnie is a collagist and mother of twin girls who lives in North Nowra.

She recreates landscapes, both urban and natural, and developed her work for Langa by “walking” up and down a street on Google Maps.

“I came up with the idea to use the internet, and its wonderful applications like Google Maps and ‘walked’ using street view along the length of Rubusana Avenue, where the project will be set up. I looked at colours and shapes of all the houses along the avenue and constructed eight collages based on those colours and houses, yards, fences and gates,” Bonnie said.

The collages have been made out of Bonnie’s “extensive catalogue of papers collected over the last 15 or 20 years”.

“They are constructed from found paper and made paper – it might be labels from objects, sandpaper found on the floor of a shed, or old packaging.”

The collages travelled to South Africa in digital form, where they will be printed and pasted on walls along the avenue.

Bonnie was the first Shoalhaven artist to be invited to take part in Micro Galleries Nowra, and is now also its artistic producer.

Suzi, from Budgong, is well-known for her role as a guide and in customer service at Meroogal House.

She attended the National Art School and Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education and regularly takes part in local group exhibitions.

Multiple copies of her work, Heartless, a collage piece, will be reproduced for Langa.

“It’s about public life and heart,” Suzi said.

“It shows a businessman, he’s headless and has no heart. In a cage of wire, there is a heart which is not being utilised.

“It has lots of strokes; it’s a reductionist idea that people are just numbers – on any issue, like refugees. It’s my expression of what the trend is generally.”

Usually her works are more organic, featuring a lot of Australian nature; however Suzi felt this piece more appropriate for the South African psyche.

“I never would have thought in my wildest dreams I’d have work in the back laneways of Cape Town,” she said.

“[Micro Galleries] is so good to be involved with and it’s just dawning on me what it means. As it’s a lot of street art, you don’t have to go [overseas to exhibit].”

The Langa Micro Galleries event will be co-curated with US artist Chuck Scalin and Langa artist Thamisanqa, facilitated by VeryHK – an arts program in Hong Kong and supported by Open Streets – a citizen-driven initiative working to change how streets are used, perceived and experienced.

See www.microgalleries.org/ events/nowra-australia-baby/ for more information about the upcoming Micro Galleries in Nowra from May 8-24.