Open Studios at Yarra Youth Centre
156 Napier Street, Fitzroy VIC 3065
As part of our artist residency at the Yarra Youth Centre, we’re running a FREE 10-week creative program for young people aged 15–25 who want to make art, meet new people, and try something new. Led by professional practicing artists 2 Halves as A Whole (that's us!), the program offers a supportive, welcoming space to build your skills, experiment with different ideas and materials, collaborate with other young artists, and create work that matters to you. Sessions will run every Thursday afternoon during Term 2, from the week beginning Monday 20 April to the week beginning Monday 22 June.
Whether you make art all the time or have never considered yourself “creative,” this is a chance to explore, have fun, and make something meaningful together. Check out a week-by-week lesson breakdown and sign up below!
Meet Paige & Ali
Before we were 2 Halves as A Whole, we were two Fine Arts students who spent way too much time talking in class. Those endless conversations quickly turned into a friendship, built on a shared love of maximalist aesthetics, internet space junk, and Gen Z humour. In 2023, we held our first exhibition together under the name 2 Halves as A Whole and realised we make our best work when we’re making it together.
Since then, we’ve continued to present solo exhibitions across Melbourne, build collaborative projects, and work with local artists and musicians including The Vovos. Between the two of us, we have approximately 700 tabs open at all times, and somewhere between the glitter, Google Docs, and mildly chaotic brainstorming sessions, our ideas come to life.
The Program
Week 1 - Who Are You?
Whether you paint, write, perform, make playlists, doomscroll, sew, take photos or don’t think of yourself as “creative” at all, you already have a practice. This workshop is about figuring out what that is. Through playful exercises and self-portrait making, you’ll explore identity, habits, and values, connect with like-minded people, and leave with a self-portrait that defines you as an artist.
Week 2 - Art-block Antidote
Explore how research fuels creativity in this hands-on workshop. You’ll dissect artists’ works, remix and appropriate ideas using your own materials, and map out inspiration visually. By the end, you’ll create an original artwork informed by research, discover new ways to generate ideas, and develop your own artistic approach.
Week 3 - Writing and Poetry
Develop your skills and explore writing as a medium in this multidisciplinary poetry workshop. Through visual making and timed writing exercises, you’ll play with words, build confidence in experimental poetic techniques, and leave with original pieces of writing inspired by both your own ideas and the work of others.
Week 4 - Place and Space
Explore how the places and communities around you shape the way you make. In this workshop, you’ll reflect on where you live, the spaces you move through, and the people you connect with, then turn those experiences into art. Through discussion, mind-mapping and making, you’ll create a work inspired by your own sense of place, identity and community.
Week 5 - Form and Materiality
Explore how the materials and forms you choose can completely change the meaning of an artwork. In this workshop, you’ll experiment with turning one idea into multiple artworks using different mediums, then reflect on why each choice matters. You’ll leave with a deeper understanding of how artists use form and materiality to communicate ideas with intention.
Week 6 - Collaborative Art
Discover what happens when creativity becomes a group effort. In this workshop, you’ll experiment with making alongside others, explore the strengths and skills each person brings, and create collaborative artworks that couldn’t be made alone. Through shared drawing, discussion and large-scale making, you’ll learn how collaboration can build stronger ideas, connections and communities.
Week 7 - Passion and Politics
Explore how your passions can become a form of political expression. In this workshop, you’ll begin with something you care deeply about and uncover the wider social issues, values and ideas connected to it. Looking at artists who use their work to challenge, question and create change, you’ll create an artwork that transforms personal passion into something powerful.
Week 8 - Performance Art
Expand your idea of what art can be in this workshop with guest artist --. Exploring practice beyond the visual, this theatre-focused session will use performance, writing, sound and sensory exercises to express emotion, memory and feeling. You’ll discover new ways of creating and leave with a broader understanding of your own artistic practice.
Week 9 - Cost-Free Making
Creativity doesn’t have to come with a price tag. In this workshop, you’ll experiment with found, unconventional, or entirely free materials, making art with what’s around you and your own skills. You’ll see how artists turn resourcefulness into meaningful work and learn to create powerful art without spending a cent.
Week 10 - Excursion
Join us for a relaxed excursion where we come together as a community of practice. Over shared food and conversation, you’ll connect with fellow creatives, reflect on your experiences, and recognise the importance of making, learning, and sharing together outside the studio.
