Exploring Melbourne's Art Trams

Updated - Friday 1 November.

Yarra Trams is proud to join the Melbourne Festival and Arts Victoria to reintroduce 'Art Trams' to Melbourne's world famous tram network.

The first tram was revealed on Monday 30 September, and seven more will be launched over the next two weeks. Keep checking this page for updated images as the tram designs are completed and begin running around the network.

One tram will operate from each Yarra Trams depot, allowing Melburnians to see these moving masterpieces on most tram routes.

The best way to find an individual tram is to use the onboard/myTRAM feature on iPhone or Android tramTRACKER. Simply input the number of the tram and if it's on the network making a scheduled trip tramTRACKER will tell you where it is. The onboard/myTRAM is not available for City Circle trams.

tramTRACKER is available as a free download from the App Store and the Google Play store.

Congratulations to the Joining Forces collective for winning the Melbourne Festival Art Trams People's Choice Award!

News

"Melbourne Festival: Trams become moving pictures" - The Weekly Review, 17 October 2013.

"Art collective on roll as commuters give tram creatures thumbs up" - The Age, 1 November 2013.

Tram 182 - 'Going Somewhere' by Freya Pitt

"A loose, personal mapping of Melbourne, Going Somewhere combines sketches drawn while on trams with streetscapes from around the city. The time in between things - on the way to somewhere and from something - has become an important space in my life where I can just think and sketch.

Sitting on a tram, with streetscapes rumbling past and a constant flux as people get on and off, one glimpses a multitude of narratives being lived around you. In Going Somewhere I set out to explore the sense of possibilities and unknown eventualities held within this communal space" - Freya Pitt

Art tram launched: 11 October 2013

Routes: 3/3a, 64, 67, 78/79

Tram 3509 by Brook Andrew

"The inspiration for this artwork is driven by a contemporary rendering of a Wiradjuri design found traditionally on tree dendroglyphs and shield design - though similar designs are used across Australia from the western Desert to Victoria. These designs are an important marker for public and private ceremony, and to mark place. To place a pattern on a tram for Melbourne is an exciting proposal that continues to recognise not only an engagement with tradition but as a camouflage and trompe l'oeil effect of the tram disappearing in and out of the city scape; creating an optical illusion." - Brook Andrew

Art tram launched: 9 October 2013

Routes: 5, 6, 8, 16 and 72

Tram 151 by Rose Nolan

"It's Ok to Be Alright - as a message - is fundamental, constant and gently motivational. The sense of circularity and rhythm from the space of being 'okay' to the space of being 'alright' and back again replicates, in som eway, the movement and rhythm of this tram as it winds its way across the city.

Encountered in a new location and at different times - the It's Okay to Be Alright tram allows for a mobility and extension of readings and possibility of a new consideration of one's own personal context" - Rose Nolan (photo by Eddie Morton)

Art tram launched: 8 October 2013

Routes: 1, 8 and 19

Tram 2002 by David Wadelton

"I have a great interest in the social history and the appearance of our suburbs. This has manifested itself in many ways, beginning in the 1970s, when I began prolifically photographing my local area of Northcote, as well as other inner suburbs.

I continue this practice to this day, and take special delight in the apparently mundane aspects of our everyday world. It's all interesting to me. One manifestation of this has been a commitment to photograph every house in Northcote, which has an eclectic mixture of houses, built on all budgets and in all era. I've used my photo archive of over 700 images to create wallpaper with which to wrap a tram. The tram will thus become a mechanical embodiment of suburban Melbourne!" - David Wadelton

Art tram launched: 5 October 2013

Routes: 86 and 112

Tram 209 by Luke Cornish (E.L.K)

"Thanks to the imagination of the creative marketing team from Yarra Trams, the iconic Melbourne tram has become synonymouse with a rhinocerous on a skateboard. So coming up with a concept for this fantastic project was a total no brainer.

It's a far stretch from my usual arts practice of stencilled soldiers and scantily clad women, but an amazing opportunity to create a community-friendly and engaging artwork, something that will hopefully make people, young and old, turn their heads and smile.

I'd like to thank the staff at Werribee Zoo for allowing me to photography Umgana, the Rhino in the picture." - Luke Cornish

Art tram launched: 4 October 2013

Routes: 55, 57, 59 and 82

Tram 3008 by Bindi Cole

"Lakorra is the Wathaurung word for sky. Once upon a time, Melbourne city would have been an open expanse with a generous view of the sky, offering a reminder that it's not all about self. Today' the city is densely populated with skyscrapers and billboards dominating the landscape, full of consumerism with a constant focus on the self.

Lakorra brings a bit of that sky and open expanse back into the streetscape. It reminds everyone of a time before the city stood in its place and of a people who walked those streets long before they were streets." - Bindi Cole

Art tram launched: 3 October 2013

Routes: 31, 48, and 109

Tram 259 by Joining Forces

"You are now sitting inside a giant orange transportation device, covered in floating moon babies, space weasels and crusty old slug men. How did it come to this? Joining Forces is a collective of six Melbourne-based artists who combine wildly diverse styles to make imaginative art.

The members of the collective are Zahra Zainal, Jeffrey Phillips, Gemma Flack, Rhiannon Thomas, Brendan Ninness and Sebastian Berto. The tram artwork is based on a 5 metre long hand-painted canvas, which was created through a process of drawing over and around each other's work. The collective's work focuses on collaboration, experimentation and community" - Joining Forces

Art tram launched: 1 October 2013

Routes: 70 and 75

Tram 925 - 'Backyard' by Jon Campbell

"The backyard design for my tram is based on the backyard that I grew up in, in Altona. It's a stylised pop version of that backyard. The backyard was a site of influential activity in my upbringing, cricket matches with my brothers and our mates and neighbours, family BBQs and 18th and 21st birthdays to name a few.

The backyard seems to have an important place in our psyche but hasn't beeen articulated much in art. I've always liked the social aspect backyards bring to our lives" - Jon Campbell

Art tram launched: 30 September 2013

Route: City Circle