VIGIL – Film Installation
Outer Urban Projects
Presented by Arts House
Thursday 9 April – Friday 1 May 2026
Open Mon – Fri, 10am – 4pm
Tickets
Free — no bookings required
Duration
Exhibition open daily (approx. 20-30 minutes viewing time)
Warnings
Suitable for ages 15+
This video work contains themes of violence, trauma and gender-based harm. It includes projected imagery and sound composition exploring personal and collective grief.
Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St
North Melbourne
Assistance Animal
Aural Rating 100%
Quiet Space Available
Visual Rating 100%
Wheelchair Accessible
Audio descriptionThe award-winning short film VIGIL, directed by Pippa Samaya and Tara Jade Samaya – the Samaya Wives – is an intimate reflection on the ripple effects of gender-based violence, an embodied devotion about the power of the collective, a congregation, a vigil. VIGIL unpacks the layers of trauma of an abusive relationship or violent event.
Arts House presents the VIGIL installation as part of Outer Urban Projects Multi-disciplinary VIGIL project that brings together an exceptional creative team to examine the intersection of public and private with race, gender, and terror. The VIGIL growing body of work spans film, dance, and large-scale live performance. Elements of the film’s choreography and score will re-emerge in the major performance premiere of VIGIL at Arts House, Season 1 2026.
Audiences are invited to step behind the film’s surface, viewing and experiencing fragments of the creative process and seeing how experimentation evolves into the finished artwork.
WINNER – Best Experimental Film – London Greek Film Festival (UK)
WINNER – Best Composer – Toronto International Women’s Film Festival (Canada)
WINNER – Best Experimental Film – Onrios Film Festival – (New York, USA)
WINNER – Best Experimental – WRPN Women’s International Film Festival (Delaware, USA)
About the artists
Outer Urban Projects, founded in 2012, is a vital player in the Australian community arts and cultural development and performing arts sectors. We have forged a dynamic intergenerational performing arts company that collaborates with emerging artists and their communities in the “hardcore” outer northern suburbs of Melbourne. We deliver an artistic program that is ambitious in reach. Our work reflects the complex face of contemporary Australia and challenges the architecture of access in the Australian arts industry.
Artist statement
-Pippa Samaya and Tara Jade Samaya | VIGIL film Directors and Performers
“A series of acts of violence, corresponding protests and vigils provided the impetus to create VIGIL and to ask the question: how safe is our city and for whom?
As Outer Urban Projects was about to embark on a dance creative development for VIGIL with Tara Jade Samaya as choreographer, the pandemic stopped us in our tracks. Tara was in Berlin and Melbourne was in lockdown. Rather than cancel the development, why not, we thought, make a film instead, given Tara’s collaborator and the filmmaker Pippa Samaya was also in Berlin. We put it to them to make a film, provided them with a series of provocations, conversations and research from which their project could grow into a film that would feed into the larger work and on its own terms."
— Irine Vela, Concept | Director VIGIL live work and film composer - Outer Urban Projects.
Artistic credits
Performers: Tara Jade Samaya, Pippa Samaya and Ivy-Victoria Otradovec
Original Music and Sound Designer: Irine Vela
Producers: Irine Vela and Kate Gillick
Cinematographer: Pippa Samaya
Editor: Pippa Samaya
Movement Director: Tara Jade Samaya
Photographer: Pippa Samaya
VIGIL Project Director and Originator: Irine Vela
Production Manager: Ivy-Victoria Otradovec
Mixing and Mastering: Trevor Carter and Evripides Evripidou
Details
Presented by Arts House
Thursday 9 April – Friday 1 May 2026
Open Mon – Fri, 10am – 4pm
Tickets
Free — no bookings required
Duration
Exhibition open daily (approx. 20-30 minutes viewing time)
Warnings
Suitable for ages 15+
This video work contains themes of violence, trauma and gender-based harm. It includes projected imagery and sound composition exploring personal and collective grief.
Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St
North Melbourne
Assistance Animal Aural Rating 100% Quiet Space Available Visual Rating 100% Wheelchair Accessible Audio descriptionSupported by:
The VIGIL short film has been developed with the support from the Australian Government through Creative Australia and its arts, funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, Reve Fund, Webster Fund, sub-funds of Australian Communities Foundation, Besen Family Foundation, Inner North Community Foundation and Merri-bek City Council.
Image credit: Courtesy of Outer Urban Projects
Image description: Still from VIGIL showing a person surrounded by trees, hands clasped to their chest, eyes closed, hair over their face.
