About

We are an independent, Melbourne-based studio dedicated to the development of artistic practice, to the provocation of professional development and arts research, and the presentation of new, interdisciplinary and performance-based works.

The Public Studio is founded on the principles of:

- Exploration: the development of works, and research into practice across an interdisciplinary terrain; pushing formalistic boundaries, while excavating and engaging in rich, universal story.

- Professional Practice: creating space and opportunity for artists to continue training and practice at all stages in their career, as well as engage in real-world professional and business skills development, crucial to the longevity of creative practice.

- Diversity and Discussion: a constantly evolving, and self-interrogating model that actively nurtures, develops and encourages arts practice, audience, engagement and administration by, for and with culturally and linguistically diverse and female practitioners.

The Public Studio was co-founded & is co-directed by Ming-Zhu Hii & Nicholas Coghlan. She is a theatremaker-auteur, actor, writer & ass-frontways entrepreneur. He is an actor, writer and mofo-teacherman. She studied acting at the VCA & has worked professionally as an actor for over ten years. He went to the NIDA in 2002 & has been acting in things ever since. She has run a series of successful online & bricks-&-mortar businesses & is the events curator for a major independent magazine. He is a highly sort after acting & specialist performance coach. She loves cats. He prefers dogs.

One day these two decided to build a place where artists could learn, experiment, develop, cross-pollinate, practice and create. They both believed in the power of Samuel Beckett, Pina Bausch, John Cage and vegetable soup to reintroduce one’s soul to oneself. They dreamed of a dedicated space for the creation of new works & for artistic innovation. A place where artists from a wealth of disciplines could meet & share insights, knowledge, discoveries, ideas & inspiration with one another and with their audience. The Public Studio is that space.

If this sounds like somewhere you might belong, we’d love you to join us. It’s a big adventure, there might be heffalumps, but we’re not scared.

“Why do we sacrifice so much energy to our art?

Not in order to teach others but to learn with them what our existence, our organism, our personal and unrepeatable experience have to give us; to learn to break down the barriers which surround us and to free ourselves from the breaks which hold us back, from the lies about ourselves that we manufacture daily for ourselves and for others; to destroy the limitations caused by our ignorance and lack of courage; in short, to fill the emptiness in us: to fulfill ourselves.

Art is neither a state of the soul (in the sense of some extraordinary, unpredictable moment of inspiration) nor a state of man (in the sense of a profession or social function).

Art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light.”

from Jerzy Gratowski‘s Statement of Principles