Project Toria

Urban Rhythms

Urban Rhythms: a data-driven exploration of Melbourne's pulse.

Unit 1 aims to enrich and expand the existing simulation by incorporating new and more advanced data layers. The focus will be on a human-centric design approach to extract more nuanced insights and trends from the material. By integrating diverse datasets and enhancing their methodologies, Unit 1 will strive to create a more detailed and comprehensive model of Melbourne CBD.

The Laboratory Garden

Not Quite Nature The concept of wilderness—a terrain that is absent of human touch—is a narrative that has pervaded the Australian story. A new form of nature emerges—a dynamic interplay between landscape, frame of view, time span, and memory. Over the past two years Unit 2 has been exploring various Victorian landscapes. They have unravelled layers of cultural history and built an archive of first hand observations.

The subject of oversations this year will be site-specific artworks that each correspond to a different Victorian landscape. Students of this Unit will learn how to classify all of these materials, before curating them into a story for an exhibition. In designing this exhibition you will be grappling with your own role as the storyteller yourself.

Forest Signals

Unit 4 creates speculative worlds that explore Victoria's relationship with her arboreal residents. This unit will investigate the history, significance, and prospective futures of these landscapes, speaking with experts and spending a day amidst the mountain ash rainforests, logging sites and plantations of Toolangi state forest.

Working through Unreal Engine and narrative writing, students will create artifacts that immerse audiences in a specific moment of our forests' pasts or futures. These will be rendered works of speculative fiction that aim to lay bare the roots of our society's present-day and potential relationships with forest ecosystems.

Future Fashion Systems

Set against the backdrop of Victoria’s rich cultural diversity, localised production methods, and vibrant independent design scene, Future Fashion Systems offers a forward-thinking exploration into a future where the contrasting realms of “fast” and “slow” fashion coexist within Victoria.

Unit 3 addresses two critical aspects of the fashion industry: the urgent need to slow down to address increasingly mounting environmental and social challenges, and the necessity for fashion to evolve to reflect our everchanging individual and cultural identities. As fashion practitioners, you’ll tackle the challenges posed by climate change and resource scarcity. You’ll push the boundaries of creativity to foster innovative, locally rooted fashion practices.

Too Many Cooks

Unit 5 will explore the idea of food and power, and how various sensory tactics are used to build a new culture and society from the ground up. Looking at all aspects of the food production chain, culminating in a communal dining experience. The final presentation will be an immersive dinner style activation, where we will put into practice the learnings on food and control.

Using theatrical techniques of sounds, light, scent, and food and drink we will take guests on a journey through food production, cooking and preparation to consuming. By delving into rituals of consumption, we will take guests on a deep journey into how power and control can be exhibited through food and drink.