MERRYN HULL

MERRYN HULL

AIR Space Projects Inc
AIR Space

Gallery distancing – interventions and dislocations

Gallery distancing: dislocations and interventions explores how the transformation of elements within existing architecture can create new and critical experiences for the viewer. The exhibition uses subtle rearrangements within the AIRspace gallery to express the sense of dislocation that we are currently experiencing due to Covid-19. 

Originally I had planned a quite different June exhibition at AIRspace and had gone there earlier in the year to familiarise myself with the gallery. I took a lot of photos. I found the empty gallery intoxicating and after a while stopped taking the photos I needed and started taking photos of the gallery itself. They were simple black and white shots of doors, openings, and changes of level. I propped the garage doors open and watched the sun come through, intrigued by the way the gallery transformed. 

I have always been interested in ways that artists work with architecture to create new experiences either through interventions (such as opening walls or slicing through buildings) or through rearrangements and alterations of existing architecture. Artists like the American conceptual minimalist Michael Asher (1943-2012) changed buildings in particular ways to explore complex social issues. 

As my June AIRspace exhibition approached I realised that my photographic documentation was now more interesting to me than the work I planned to show. I recognised that the gallery photographs that I had taken could be placed in strategic locations throughout the gallery to evoke the sense of disorientation resulting from Covid-19. The AIRspace committee supported my changed plans and I applied to CreateNSW for funding to further develop these ideas. 

The result is an exhibition that focuses on the altered gallery. Rather than placing objects within the gallery, I use photographic images of recognisable views – doorways, stairs, openings etc – placed in unexpected locations to change the gallery. These transformed views simultaneously provide both shock and familiarity, reinforcing our sense of disorientation in our disrupted world.