Wow! What a week it was last week here at Object, starting with our new exhibition, Life In Your Hands: art from solastalgia, opening last Friday night; and then fronting up Monday and Tuesday for our first ever Working Together Workshop for CUSP: Designing for the Next Decade national touring partners and Object staff. Representatives attended from Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery in Launceston, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, JamFactory in Adelaide, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and the State Library of Queensland, with a phone-in from the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo.

In my 8 years here at Object I have never known quite an event to happen where we bring representatives from the touring venues for a major national exhibition together to brainstorm and share knowledge about their venues, their touring programs, public programs and what they would like from incoming touring exhibitions. Another WOW! That in itself is pretty radical, but I must say that everyone there was soon saying ‘why hadn’t this happened before now?’

I must admit, as the Touring Coordinator here at Object I had already heard a lot that was said by the venues to me as I visited them over the years. But the difference here was that they were sharing their ideas and comments, not only with us here at Object, but also with their fellow touring venues. This was coooooool.

A great presentation of the 12 designers by Danielle Robson, the producer of the project; a knock the socks off Design Emergency workshop by Annette Mauer, Head of Learning and Annalyse McLeod, Head of Strategy and Engagement, were great, but I think the most fun of the 2 days was the ‘let it all loose’ game of pat-a-cake, where we were all encouraged to free our minds with crazy knee slapping and one-on-one arm waving competitions. It brought loads of laughter and some fierce competition between two Object managers.

CUSP is going to be awesome both at our Sydney venue, Casula Powerhouse, and during its two year tour around the country, where it will have an active life at each venue that will supplement the exhibition and public programs as CUSP carries onto the next venues.

Editor’s Note: What Sandra is neglecting to mention is that she also baked an enormous number of goodies for all to consume over the two days, including the cupcakes pictured in the image gallery. And, believe it or not, they contain neither gluten nor dairy, yet are incredibly delicious.

This post originally appeared here on Object Eye.