Project Overview

The Metro Tunnel Creative Program is a program of temporary creative works that contribute to offsetting the disruption across Metro Tunnel Project worksites, ensuring Melbourne remains a vibrant and attractive destination as we build this city-shaping project.
The Huxleys are a dynamic duo of cataclysmic proportions who present a visual assault of sparkle, surrealism and the absurd. Working across visual art, performance and fashion, their luminescent art traverses the classifications of photography, costume and film. Saturating their practice with a glamorous, androgynous freedom they aim to bring some escapism and magic to everyday life.
The Metro Tunnel Creative Program collaborated with the Huxleys to help bring Christmas joy and cheer to the construction sites for the new Town Hall Station in Melbourne’s CBD.
The partnership resulted in a large 40-metre artwork covering the construction hoardings on City Square, which was covered with shimmer panels and neon flex. A sister work was installed on the hoardings in the laneway in Scott Alley. The Huxleys also created a video of themselves singing ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas’ that was played during November and December in Federation Square. A Christmas parade with The Huxleys and guest performers occurred in mid-December – starting at City Square, moving to Federation Square, travelling through Degraves St and finishing with ‘disco carols’ in Scott Alley.

Organisation

Cross Yarra Partnership with The Huxleys

Team

Mary Parker, Cross Yarra Partnership
Will Huxley
Garrett Huxley
Electric Confetti

Project Brief

Celebrating our local flora and faura, revelling in Christmas sparkle after another year of the pandemic and generally bringing well-needed joy and cheer – The Huxleys and the Metro Tunnel Creative Program ensured Melburnians returning to the city were greeted with colour and shine at the Town Hall Station construction site.

The Huxleys created characters based on Australian flora and fauna such as kangaroos, prawns, emus, gumnut creatures and more. After designing and fabricating the costumes, the couple art-directed photographs and a video featuring the new characters celebrating traditional Christmas activities such as eating, sharing crackers and opening presents.

The City Square and Scott Alley artworks were brought to life with designs from local company Electric Confetti who used shimmer panels and LED neon flex to amplify the design.

Federation Square also partnered with the program to share the Christmas video and hosted the Christmas parade, who danced and entertained children and families.

The whole ‘As Camp as Christmas’ project brought to life the Flinders Quarter precinct, adding a special element to local business campaigns. It was also a wonderful acknowledgement of Melbourne’s LGBTQI+ community.

Project Innovation/Need

While some other councils, cities and countries are moving to use temporary art and activations to revitalise construction sites and public spaces, there is no other project that has delivered quite like ‘As Camp as Christmas’. Installed at the end of two long years of restrictions created by the pandemic, ‘As Camp as Christmas’ was a quintessentially Melbourne way to use construction hoardings to deliver festive cheer.

Social media engagement confirmed this with comments such as:

‘So incredible. I can’t express enough the joy when I first saw last weekend. Thank you’

‘Sensational and exciting. Thanks for cheering me up. A very happy parade to Fed Square’.

‘It’s a pleasure to look at, across Flinders Lane from our shop windows. The serenading on Thursday was next level’.

Design Challenge

The design challenges of the Metro Tunnel Creative Program are plentiful, including:
• Providing uplift around construction sites while not increasing congestion
• Helping amplify major city events
• Providing business support to those impacted by construction
• Supporting Melbourne's creative industries
• Helping people easily navigate the sites
• Providing amenity where it has been temporarily removed due to construction.

All temporary activations require engagement with multiple stakeholders prior to delivery – including local governments, residents, traders, businesses, arts organisations and more.

‘As Camp as Christmas’ required consultation with the City of Melbourne, Federation Square and the traders around Flinders Quarter to ensure all were aligned with the artwork delivery and performance.

Sustainability

The costumes created by The Huxleys will be used by the duo in numerous future performances.

The vinyl banner will be recycled for agricultural use such as a dam liner. Where possible, the vinyl will be upcycled into bags or panniers and given away by the Metro Tunnel Creative Program.

The neon flex has been stored and it is likely, due to the popularity of the artwork, that it will be reinstalled for Christmas 2022.