The Final Hurrah

Set with the challenge to create a Situation, a one-night pop up gallery in Foley St, this subject challenged us to create an interactive piece creating a social disturbance in an urban laneway. Entering this subject at the beginning of this semester, it seemed as though there was such a long time to design, develop and create a piece for the exhibition. Weeks seemed to slip away and the semester was over in a flash. The constant work week to week enabled us to create a piece that reflects everything we found captured the life and essence of Darlinghurst.

Put in a group with four Visual Communication students and one Fashion Student (Matt Bannister, Megan Manning, Lara Drew, and Annie Everingham) we decided we wanted to do something that wasn’t directed towards visual communication. We wanted to create something tactile and interactive that both drew on and challenged our skills. In the first weeks went on countless site visits, recording every observation we made and mapping the area in an attempt to garner inspiration for the exhibition. Our concept for our piece was inspired by an encounter made on the way to one of our morning visits. Waiting to the cross the road we witnessed an older man struggling to open the lid of a bottle in a brown paper bag. After many failed attempts he leant across the bench to a teenager sitting on the other side. After agreeing to open the bottle for him, the two then proceeded to have a conversation sharing the bottle between them. This led us to the concept of creating an installation that commented on the array of characters in Darlinghurst and the common thing that ties them together.

Our piece comments on the vast array of characters that gather in the one place to fulfil their desires. It explores the unique cultural melting pot of Darlinghurst and how these people are drawn together. Through the process of the derive, we discovered that the societal structure of Darlinghurst was reflected through the bottles found scattered throughout the streets. Representing the bar culture, party life and underbelly of Darlinghurst, the accumulation of bottles depicted the variety of individuals that make up the colourful community of Darlinghurst. By using bottles and transforming them into art pieces we are commenting on the drinking culture of the area and with each bottle representing a different demographic. It is turning something otherwise forgotten into an art piece, encouraging those that live in the bubble of Darlinghurst to discover what makes it tick.

In our preliminary stages we collected bottles, initially deciding to collect 10-15 each. As the weeks went on and we realised the scale of the event this increased to minimum 30. We were each designated a colour, inspired by colours of buildings on the street. We decided on a pastel colour palette, to create a soft aesthetic and to compliment the surrounding colours of the environment. Each bottle had to sprayed at least 3 times so this proved to be quite a lengthy process. Additional ‘safety bottles’ (in case something went wrong on the day) were being sprayed right up until the weekend before.

One of the challenges we faced was getting the bottles noticed amongst the other large-scale installations. We were relying on the numbers of bottles to create a trail through the street that people would slowly notice throughout the night. We decided to place a plinth at the entrance to the street, drawing on the idea that we were taking art out of a gallery space. This served as a means to create immediate impact and awareness of our piece. We also decided to light up selected bottles to create impact when the sun went down. We ordered LEDs from Asia to place in some bottles, treating them as individual light sources. We were also lucky enough to have a connection to lighting technician, Moses Fotifilli who has worked on many alcohol advertisements lighting up bottles. He fixed our group up with LEDs and solar lights for the night, teaching us how to use them to have the best effect on the night. This proved to an incredible connection, as no one in the group had much knowledge about lighting and we struggled in the first few weeks working out how it would be possible.

As a promotional exercise in the weeks before the exhibition we printed 500 business cards outlining our concept and left them in bottles around the area. We also set up a blog on which people could follow our progress throughout the semester. The business cards were also used on the night, further reiterating our concept.

We were extremely lucky in the fact that our group worked really well together. Everyone put in so much effort and time to create a successful installation. Everyone stepped into their own roles and helped out in any way they could.

Each of the pieces on the night commented on the area Darlinghurst in some way, yet were all completely different. This enforced the idea the Darlinghurst is a cultural hub made up of different societal groups, individuals and characters who all bring their own personality to the area.

On Tuesday the 8^th of November everyone arrived to a beautiful sunny morning on Foley St. Setting up for hours on a cloudless day, the street began to take shape. Shady Pines set up a bar on the st, with a signature Foley St Pop up Bar sign proudly displayed above. Everyone pieces looked amazing and the street was truly transformed. Chipman chips lined the bar, and Boca Lupo drinks filled buckets dotted throughout the street. Everyone was in high spirits until 15 minutes before the exhibition started when the heavens decided to open. Running our works into the deserted Doctor Pongs was no mean feat, and we ended with a spread of works in the bar and spilling onto the street. The exhibition went on successfully with many people braving the weather to see what all our hard work this semester had resulted in.  Despite the weather it was a successful evening with all the exhibition pieces looking incredible, and our class becoming as close as we had ever been helping out groups who were struggling in the rain.

This subject has been hugely rewarding and has taught me many things about dealing with unexpected obstacles and finding different paths to reach a goal. It taught me invaluable lessons about working with people and compromising ideas to create something meaningful and unique that could be enjoyed by family, friends and passers by.