about the residency
The Puzzle Residency invited creatives from diverse fields to make the gallery space their studio over two consecutive days. Within this limited time frame, they created work based on a detail of Puzzle Gallery and its surrounding area. By bringing together artists, writers and animators, we wanted to produce an image of Puzzle and its neighbourhood as varied, surprising and playful as the gallery itself.The format of this residency was inspired by the concept of a game jam, where developers work to make a videogame from scratch in the space of a day or week. Time constraints are generative for artistic practice, enabling participants to experiment, explore an interesting concept, or create something short yet impactful. Responding to locality and duration, our participants were encouraged to produce a creative response that might be sketchy, imperfect or incomplete but always, nonetheless, compelling.
about the website
This website was built by the curators in the last two days of the two-week residency. Sam was responsible for design while Claire was responsible for coding the website. It was tidied up and completed outside of residency hours.In a nod to the residency's focus on Puzzle Gallery and the local area, the colour scheme was selected from an image taken of the doorway, where there's some chipped wood and uneven application of paint.
about the exhibition
On the 7th of May, Puzzle Gallery hosted a one-night-only exhibition of the works from the residency. It ran from 6pm to 9pm.At 7:30pm, Sophie Bagster read the text accompanying her work in an improvised performance.
about the curators
Sam Lawson (potensh.org)Sam (b. 2001) produces works based around writing and sound. His practice is based around the fleeting present, and makes an attempt to capture a sufficient-enough image of a moment in time. He publishes mostly through his own website.
Claire Osborn-Li (claireosbornli.click)
Claire is a writer (b. 1999) living on Gadigal land with an interest in art, videogames and digital culture. She received a BA Honours at the University of Melbourne in Art History and is currently studying a Master of Digital Communications and Culture at the University of Sydney.
Her work has appeared on the ACMI and NGA websites and in Cordite, ArtsHub, GamesHub and Memo Review. In 2024 she was a guest editor of Artlink's Warltati/Summer issue and a participant in the NGA's Young Writers Digital Residency. She recently completed an internship assisting with the production and delivery of Powerhouse's ALT: Games festival, and for a few years now she's been host of ACMI's Women, Trans, and Gender Diverse Gamers Club.
