Description

Crackscape: Attending to the In-Between is a guided walking tour through Carlton that invites participants to slow down and notice the overlooked surfaces of the city—the cracks, joins, repairs, and thresholds that quietly shape everyday urban experience.

Led by artist and architect Elena Larriba, the walk draws on architectural observation and material practice to explore how cities age, adapt, and hold traces of care. Rather than focusing on landmark buildings, the tour centres attention on the ground plane and peripheral details, reading the city through its minor fractures and seams.

Participants will pause at selected sites to discuss material logic, construction histories, and the role of repair in public space. Small ceramic samples may be used as tactile prompts to support discussion, without permanent intervention in the environment.

The program offers an alternative way of engaging with Melbourne’s built environment, foregrounding attentiveness, material empathy, and the value of the in-between.

What's On

Join this 45–60 minute guided walking tour through Carlton, led by Elena Larriba. Moving between a small number of public sites, participants will pause to observe cracks, joints, and material transitions in the urban fabric.

Discussion will focus on how these minor conditions reveal construction processes, time, and repair. The walk is conversational rather than didactic, encouraging shared observation and questions. No specialist knowledge is required.

Children's Activities

This program is suitable for older children accompanied by adults, but is primarily designed for a general audience. There are no specific children’s activities.

In Collaboration With:

• 

  Elena Larriba Andaluz

  Elena Larriba is a Spanish-Australian artist and architect based in Melbourne. Her practice works across ceramics, drawing, and spatial interventions, exploring surface, repair, and the overlooked conditions of the built environment.
  
  With a background in architecture, Elena approaches clay as a way of thinking through material behaviour—compression, fracture, and join—often translating architectural ideas into small-scale, tactile forms. Her work is interested in the in-between: edges, seams, and moments of transition that shape how we experience space.
  
  Through projects such as Crackscape, she extends this approach into the public realm, inviting closer attention to the minor details of the city and the traces of care embedded within it.

• 

  Travis Bell

  Travis Bell is a Launceston-based artist and educator whose ceramics practice explores the intersection of function and sculpture. Through a disciplined approach to craft, his work examines balance, fragility, and the expectations placed on material and value.
  
  He completed a Bachelor of Contemporary Art with Honours at the University of Tasmania, during which he also studied at the University of Virginia (USA) and the Central University of Tibetan Studies (India).
  
  Travis currently teaches and coordinates ceramics at the University of Tasmania across Launceston and Hobart, and is represented by Stockton & Co (Launceston) and Handmark Gallery (Hobart).
  
  He has presented solo exhibitions at Sawtooth ARI and Devonport Regional Gallery, and a duo exhibition at Jim Mooney Gallery. His work has also been included in group exhibitions including RISE 2023 at QVMAG and Tas Makes at the Tasmanian Design Centre. Later this year, he will participate in his first international group exhibition, the Oita Asian Sculpture Exhibition in Japan.