Francesca Mataraga

Spaces for Leisure (Installation for AirSpace Projects)

 6 – 21 June 2014

Spaces for Leisure explores the idea that the gallery or exhibition space can be transformed into a space where visitors can recreate passively. It combines elements of design, installation and drawing. The first incarnation of this project is the installation for AirSpace Projects which focuses on the table-structure as a sculptural and visual object.

The aim of the table is to promote a communal experience – visitors can sit at the table and enjoy a cup of tea provided by the artist. Here the table is an improvised structure made from floorboards deliberately left ragged and unfinished on the edges and configured on top of trestle legs. Its unfinished state deliberately undermines the expectation that a table be a well-designed and therefore well finished object or a substantial piece of furniture. The unfinished state also implies that the structure could be dismantled and reassembled at any time – that the table and therefore the communal experience it promotes is temporary. The temporality of the communal table as structure mirrors other instances where such tables are used such as for fiestas or other communal celebrations, shared tables at cafes or libraries.

For the installation at AirSpace Projects the table-structure has been combined with a site responsive wall-drawing. The hexagonal shape used creates an open honeycomb structure that is spread across three of the gallery walls. The honeycomb shape and the gold and silver pen used to draw it alludes to the process of laboring as a mode of production for art making, as well as to the jewellery studios that adjoin the exhibition space.

Francesca Mataraga © 2014

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.