Interview with Curator Lucy Ainsworth
Unauthorised Access is part of the Shelter Union exhibition at UNSW Galleries. The installation is presented over two sites; the gallery and a public park in Millers Point, Sydney. I asked Lucy Ainsworth, curator of the exhibition, if there were any particular challenges involved in presenting the work.
“I don’t know if it was necessarily a challenge, but we did need to think more broadly about how to connect a “satellite” project with the main exhibition,” Lucy writes. She goes on to explain further about the placement and intent behind the artwork: “The offsite location the artists selected for the public installation was a small park which sits between Barangaroo and Millers Point. Although the park was not in a high traffic area, it was the most appropriate location in terms of the issues they were addressing. The gallery component of the work formed another outlet for discussion and for visitors to contribute their ideas.”
When seeing the artwork at the gallery, I was taken by the alterations of the familiar “warning signs” seen at construction sites. I wondered why the Lot had made the choice to do these alterations. Lucy says that “the installation was designed to resemble a construction site in which the signs are a prominent sight. The Lot wanted to “play” on the warning signs as a metaphor to draw attention to what public spaces we have a say in and not.”
And finally, since there is an interactive element to Unauthorised Access, I asked whether the audience had responded and if so, how? “Give people a forum and they will express their opinions! We have received a mixture of responses through the different outlets. Many visitors to the gallery have written a proposal, while others have responded via social media and also directly to the public installation. The different responses all expressed a real concern for the Barangaroo and Millers Point developments.”
Unauthorised Access by The Lot can be seen at Millers Point and at the UNSW Galleries until 15 August.
This interview was conducted via email.