Safe Workshop [2020–22]


The Safe Workshop was a collaborative, group-reading, research proposition initiated by Ruth Höflich for Bus Projects alongside fellow invited participants Erin Crouch, Georgie Flood, H.A. Halpert, Christiane Huber, Olivia Koh, Hen Vaughan, Pip Wallis and Briony Galligan. The programme centred around Todd Hayne’s 1995 film, Safe and accumulated in a series of works published within a single volume titled SAFE: Rearranging the Library. More details [busprojects.org.au]

[From the Bus Projects website]: “Throughout 2020 and 2021, ten group members from Australia, Germany and the United States met regularly via video to read, watch, discuss and share written, filmic, and spoken responses with each other. These contributions (included) scripts, essays, drawings, poems, film stills, illustrations, and notations … compiled and edited collaboratively, reflecting the fluid, discursive process and overlapping subject matter. The reading and viewing list of works studied by the group is included as an appendix. These films and texts served as subjects for reflections, critiques and dérives.”

[Contribution]: Alongside text and video contributions Michael also worked on the physical reproduction of the resulting publication which reflects tropes associated with script writing including typesetting, typeface design and the colour coding of pages and sections applied throughout. ¶ A series of supporting images were also produced prior to it’s launch as part of the Melbourne Art Book Fair in 2023 and for a group presentation at Bus projects.
Cover of ‘SAFE: Rearranging the Library’ mimicking the cover of an original version of the script from the 1995 Todd Hayne’s film, Safe.


Slides made to accompany Safe Workshop launch presentation at Bus Projects

Draft Research report for Safe Workshop project