The Shorelines Project offered a great opportunity to show work internationally. My intention with du littoral was to create work that could enter into some kind of dialogue with the architecture of the space where it is installed. As is my usual (not intentionally, honest!), I made a piece that would be forever in-progress with no “final” version being given an authoritative voice.
Grenfell Campus Art Gallery – This was the first showing. Everything had been divided up into more or less individual spaces for this show. I chose the most open space that acted more or less like a conduit between the other artists’ work. That was my intention anyway. I like the iteration, but ended up finding that is was too closed in terms of a visual system; I made a note of that for the next show.
The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery – The gallery space was completely segregated for this version of the Shorelines show. Each artist had a fairly contained space to set-up their work. Except when it came to lighting, the space was divided with walls only going up a part of the way to the ceiling and light bled everywhere. It was a problem for those using media since they required a less light, I needed to respond to the idea that I would need to subdue the lights a little, that was interesting. I did concentrate on opening the piece up and the higher ceilings and increased linear space gave me a chance to push that aspect.
Mermaid Arts Centre – This is without any doubt the strangest installation I have ever had to deal with, and fun. The show previous to ours was an architecture group and they built a frame structure throughout the gallery space. Having cost a great deal of money, the director hoped we could use the space without taking this stuff down. It was a very challenging experience for the group but in the end we had a really nice show here. I actually quite like this iteration, but it does not translate well to photographs; it is much more experiential in nature.
Burnie Regional Art Gallery – This was the final showing of the Shorelines Project. We were invited to participate in the Ten Days on the Island festival in Tasmania. This is the iteration of my work that I am most pleased with. Walls between artists were made of curtains and this allowed the pieces to interact in a way that had not happened yet. It is here that I felt the connective tissue in my work was most active. It was a hectic install, the crates with our work were held up with brokers and shippers and though they were in Tasmania, they could not be removed from customs until the panoply of documents were sent, signed, resent etc etc.
