Flavours of Glenroy (2013-4) was an action research project where artists imagined mobile edible gardens as a way to connect and engage with locals through project presentation and execution. As a socially engaged art project, it focused on developing ways to connect the mobile, diverse and transforming community of Glenroy, Victoria, Australia. The transnational, Australian dream suburb, reflecting the fluid and globalizing conditions of our cities, was emphasized through the strategy of growing and distributing plants using a mobile system that aligned with the mobility and diversity of the suburb. The project emphasized how social relations, encouraged through art, has the capacity to transform public spaces, providing a platform to introduce new voices and narratives of a community and encourage inclusive participation in sustainable citizenship.Keywords: curating; socially engaged art; urban; public art; contemporary art; edible gardening Curating Inclusive Cities through Art and FoodThe love of growing, producing and consuming food is a common passion on an international scale, inspiring social, cultural and religious expressions in cities the world over. The rituals, habits and behaviors relating to food have also inspired many contemporary artists. There have been legendary projects such as FOOD [1] an artist-run restaurant in New York founded by artists Carol Goudden, Tina Girouard and Gordon Matta-Clark, which bought together artists and communities over meal sharing. In 1992 Thai-American artist Rirkrit Tiravanija's Untitled (Free) (1992) [2] famously turned 303 Gallery, New York into a kitchen and served up Thai vegetable curry and rice to audiences, inviting them to consider contemporary art practices from a more sociable and cross cultural perspective. Closer to home, Luxury with Leftovers (2013) [3] by Melbourne art collective, the Hotham Street Ladies, used cake decorating ingredients such as fondant, butter cream, royal icing, food coloring and gum paste to re-create the evidence of a share house dinner party, installed in the foyer of the National Gallery of Victoria for the exhibition Melbourne Now. The work was developed by a collaborative group of female artists and friends who shared a house at various times over a five year period; Cassandra Chilton, Molly O'Shaughnessy, Sarah Parkes, Caroline Price and Lyndal Walker. The work humorously celebrated their friendship through the communal act of cooking and eating, playfully re-imagining the domestic in relation to contemporary notions of the feminine.With this history of artists connecting communities through food, Flavours of Glenroy (FoG) (2013-4) was a public art research project implemented in the suburb of Glenroy, Victoria. The project considered how increased technological connection through social media and other networked platforms is having an impact on the decrease or altered experience in physical gathering and engagement of people in public urban spaces. The development of a temporary public art project was to social...

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Flavours of Glenroy (2013-4) was a socially engaged art research project focused on developing strategies to connect the diverse, mobile and transforming community of Glenroy through the theme of growing and distributing edible plants. The project was action research based, where artist researchers used creatively imagined mobile edible gardens to connect and engage with locals through project presentation and execution. The process of producing, presenting and conversing about edible gardening revealed Glenroy to be a transnational Australian dream suburb, reflecting the fluid globalising conditions of our cities. The project emphasized how social relations encouraged through art, has the capacity to transform social spaces, providing a platform to introduce new voices and narratives of a community and encourage inclusive participation in sustainable citizenship. Curating Inclusive Cities through Art and FoodThe love of growing, producing and consuming food is a common passion on an international scale, inspiring social, cultural and religious expressions in cities the world over. The rituals, habits and behaviours relating to food have also inspired contemporary artists with legendary projects including FOOD (1971-74) an artist-run restaurant in New York founded by artists Carol Goudden, Tina Girouard and Gordon Matta-Clark, which bought together artists and communities over meal sharing. In 1992 Thai-American artist Rirkrit Tiravanija's Untitled (Free) (1992) famously turned 303 Gallery, New York into a kitchen and served up Thai vegetable curry and rice to audiences, inviting them to consider contemporary art practices from a more sociable and cross cultural perspective. Closer to home, Luxury with Leftovers (2013) by Melbourne art collective, the Hotham Street Ladies, used cake decorating ingredients such as fondant, butter cream, royal icing, food colouring and gum paste to re-create the evidence of a share house dinner party, installed in the foyer of the National Gallery of Victoria for the exhibition Melbourne Now. The work was developed by a collaborative group of female artists and friends who shared a house at various times over a five year period; Cassandra Chilton, Molly O'Shaughnessy, Sarah Parkes, Caroline Price and Lyndal Walker. The work humorously celebrated their friendship through the communal act of cooking and eating, playfully reimagining the domestic in relation to contemporary notions of the feminine.Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 4

Contemporary mobile media affords new insights into social and creative practices while expanding our understanding of what kinds of public space matter. With the continual rise of the social in contemporary art which sees relationships as the medium, smartphones have become important devices for individual political expression, social exchange and now contemporary art. This article draws on media studies and contemporary art theories to discuss #unmaskedselfiesinsolidarity (2020), a socially engaged artwork engaging more than 300 contributors in a few short weeks within the online and physical spaces of RMIT University in the heart of Melbourne, Australia. This artwork was instigated during the initial February 2020 outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China in response to expressions of fear and isolation, travel bans, and growing racism targeting international students. It employed one of the most pervasive barometers of popular and public culture today, the selfie. Through its messages of care alongside signs of solidarity from Chinese students suffering anxiety and isolation, #unmaskedselfiesinsolidarity moved individual selfie expressions of identity into the realm of socially engaged arts and public space.