Photo/Place/Method Exhibition  - Bondi Pavillion Gallery 1980
  Installation view - Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney  1980

Photo/Place/Method

Venue: Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney
Date: 1980

Two man exhibition with Dave Cubby (photo artist)

Overview

The length of the gallery wall and floor area formed the metaphorical littoral zone of Bondi Beach. The length of the beach was analysed according to the social economic and political (gender, gay, hetro etc) groupings of people. A panoramic indexical photo-map was constructed across the length of the gallery wall. Various characteristic, bizarre, pathetic, dramatic, tragic, comic and mundane activities were recorded and then pinned/pasted along this map where they occurred. Installations, beach “rituals” and performances were constructed and performed along the beach as well as in the gallery proper during the span of the exhibition. Free postcards were given out to all gallery visitors – “free postcard with every look!”

Aims

To foreground the highly constructed social, political and culture mythologies at work on the so called democratic free and open Australian beach. The aim was to show that Australian beaches are divided into separate zones – some marked out by flags (swimming between the flags which are life guard patrolled) while others are formed by choice (safety in being together) or by cultural exclusion.

Objectives

To encourage gallery viewers to question where they fit into this cultural beach map. Floor installations and wall images & text works are often comic in intent – playing with cultural habits such as rolling up and covering one’s possessions with sand.

The length of the Bondi Pavilion gallery wall and floor area formed the metaphorical littoral zone of Bondi Beach. The length of the beach was analysed according to the social economic and political (gender, gay, hetro etc) groupings of people. A panoramic indexical photo-map was constructed across the length of the gallery wall. Various characteristic, bizarre, pathetic, dramatic, tragic, comic and mundane activities were recorded and then pinned/pasted along this map where they occurred. Installations, beach rituals and performances were constructed and performed along the beach as well as in the gallery proper during the span of the exhibition. Free postcards were given out to all gallery visitors - a large banner hanging off the pavilion advertised a "free postcard with every look!"

A series of graffiti attacks and beach performance pieces were carried out to link inside of gallery with beach outside.