A shoestring budget, a bit of Kiwi ingenuity and Weta Workshop memorabilia are helping a pair of Auckland lesbians in their quest to get to an international competition for a unique and hybrid art showcase. Multi-award winning artists Magdelena O’Connor and Amelia Hitchcock have teamed up as MADesigns to compete for the World Body Art Champion title in Austria from July 2 - 8. The pair, who are also a couple, travel to Europe in late June and plan to couch surf for accommodation during the competition and adjoining festival. It’s been a hectic few months for the duo who are working on three top –secret designs ahead of the competition, while also trying to fundraise $17,000 to support their bid for the world crown. The categories they are entering are special effects and UV illusions with the themes of Inner fears: battling the invisible for the heats, and Avante Garde: innovation provocation for the finals. Model, dancer and good friend Georgie Goater will be joining them for the trip to showcase the art form which is best portrayed through performance and movement. An example of their stunning work “It is only in recent history the humans have so rejected the naked form as something disgraceful and dirty,” O’Connor says. “We wish to change this conception and celebrate all forms of the body again through our art. “When you take colour, texture and design representing the imaginations of talented artists and place them on living canvases, sculpturally perfect in its variation something truly magical happens.” Their bid to take on the world of the unusual and beautiful art for follows a successful year with back-to-back awards in New Zealand. O’Connor won both the Waituhi Festival and the New Zealand Body Art Awards supreme awards in 2011, as well as coming first in fluorescent illusion category in the New Zealand championship. Her model Goater won the supreme performance award at both these events. Another body art piece the pair has produced Hitchcock, meanwhile, is a multimedia artist with a Masters in Fine Arts from Elam and multiple contemporary art awards to her name. She is relatively new to body painting but in her first national competition, won the Supreme award at the Waituhi Body Painting Festival in January 2012. As part of their fundraising efforts MADesigns have been donated a signed, limited edition collectable Superman Returns statue by Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop. They are auctioning it on Trade Me. They also have a gofundme page and are holding a Modern Jive Party on June 8 to raise money for the trip. MADesigns need to secure a further $3500 of donations in order to make competing at the festival financially viable. They have been fundraising since January. GayNZ.com - 3rd June 2012