Open Practice Studio

Open Practice Studio (OPS) is an advisory and consultancy practice that works collaboratively with artists, curators, and organisations. It supports projects, processes, and frameworks for performative, processual, and time-based artistic practice and curation. OPS approaches each collaboration or project responsively — attending to the combined conceptual and practical work at hand.

OPS is committed to the complexities and nuances of contemporary practice, and currently collaborates with choreographers, artists, curators, composers, sound art organisations, contemporary art spaces, and performance preservation initiatives.

APPROACH

Open Practice Studio began as an extension of Helen Grogan’s artistic and curatorial work — a means of offering focused support to colleagues, peers, and students through Grogan’s capacity to identify and analyse the operations of others’ practices As Open Practice Studio, Helen Grogan takes on a range of roles in the staging and stewarding of performative, processual, and time-based work, using practice-responsive methods.

When working with artists, support often involves responsive advice, research, or dramaturgy designed to advance a particular project while addressing practical, conceptual, or ethical challenges along the way. With this approach, integrated developments in practice, such as new methods or conceptual frameworks, often emerge, along with fresh professional opportunities.

At other times, OPS establishes tailored systems for documenting, archiving, or presenting practice — delivering both short- and long-term initiatives that recognise the enduring significance of these forms of artistic practice within broader artistic, cultural, and political discourses.

FOCUSED ACTIVITES

Recent projects encompass:

Adaptable documentation strategies for specific practices and contexts, such as project-specific installation and acquisition documentation.

Critical stewardship methods and archive development initiatives that accommodate the ephemeral, relational, and contextual aspects of practices and their living histories.

Dramaturgy and conceptual advice for performance, installation, exhibition, and online outcomes.

Concept development and project scaffolding for individual professional artists.

Arts writing and other curatorial communication tasks, such as selecting and collating visual materials.

Administrative and operational support to deliver experimental or time-based projects within gallery, library, archive, or museum (GLAM) contexts.

CROSS-CONTEXTUAL KNOWLEDGE

Open Practice Studio's expertise lies in the processes, production, and documentation of performance, dance, installation, live and sonic arts. It draws on 20 years of experience spanning Australia, Europe and the USA, within the visual art and performing art sectors.

Currently based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia, OPS works internationally, in-person and online, and is experienced in adapting methods to meet diverse access requirements, including neurodiversity, and cultural protocols.

ACTIVITIES + NETWORKS

Open Practice Studio draws on a network of individuals with specialised knowledge, skills and techniques, facilitated by Helen Grogan.

Helen Grogan holds formal qualifications in dance, philosophy, and visual art. She is an alumnus of the University of Melbourne, the Amsterdam University of the Arts, the City University of New York, and Deakin University.

Her experience in performance archives, exhibition archives and time-based art documentation includes work with The Kitchen (New York City), De Appel (Amsterdam), West Space (Naarm/Mebourne), Specific In-Between at Australian Center for Contemporary Art (Naarm/Melbourne), Liquid Architecture (Naarm/Melbourne), Performance Review (Naarm/Melbourne), Performance Space New York (New York City), Gertrude Contemporary (Naarm/Melbourne), c3 Contemporary Art Space (Naarm/Melbourne), Movement Research (New York City), Open Archive (Naarm/Melbourne) co-directed by Jared Davis & Helen Grogan, and Hannah Mathews’ exhibition project Action/Response (Naarm/ Melbourne).

As a practicing artist, Grogan’s performance situations and installations have been exhibited in Australia, Japan, Mexico, USA, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Sweden and online with institutions including: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (Naarm/Melbourne), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Gallerie Stadtpark (Vienna), Rijksakaemie (Amsterdam), National Gallery of Victoria (Naarm/Melbourne), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Eora/Sydney), Samstag Museum (Tarntanya/Adelaide), Omniversal Hum (Naarm/Melbourne), Kontext Festival (Berlin), Chunky Move (Naarm/Melbourne), Ian Potter Museum of Art (Naarm/Melbourne), KNULP (Eora/Sydney).

Grogan is an experienced University Lecturer and practice-led research supervisor. In 2019 her practice-based research was awarded the Jennifer Bowskill Photography Award. In 2024 she was awarded a Samstag International Visual Art Scholarship for 2025-2026.

STEWARDING INTANGIBLE CULTURE

OPS can also provide support for heritage materials that are ephemeral, audio-visual, variable, complex and community-focused. In this capacity, OPS extends its services to any collection or community seeking solutions for variable heritage materials.

OPEN PRACTICE STUDIO