Project Website Link: https://www.bunkerdown.info/sculpture-by-the-sea-2022.html
Commissioned by SCULPTURE BY THE SEA, Bondi 2022, Australia.
Project Concept & Description
Virtual project with various parts: property 'for sale' sign, website link, bunker doors attached to the site.
Artist Statement; Through site-responsive interventions, both virtual and physical, I seek to challenge the predictability of expectations and ‘cultural homogeneity’ by creating metaphorical spaces and environments that explore the anxieties and insecurities of the Anthropocene Era.
This site-responsive stage-set suggests a surreal narrative reflecting on the evolving symptoms of fear and dispossession as humanity struggles with our planet's volatile trajectory.
This interactive work aims to engage the viewer through their imagination to recreate this subterraneous project within their mind's eye using the clues offered on-site. This disconcerting stage set offers a platform for reflection, evoking a sense of unease, raising thoughts and questions. The large graphic FOR SALE sign offers property details, layout + images of this imaginary security bunker buried deep below the site. The fictitious bunker’s entrance is indicated with constructed rusty maintenance panels attached to the existing brick stormwater towers. These entrances were temporarily highlighted for the property sale using shiny transparent fabric jackets. The sign offers a website link to the fictional property consultant: BUNKER DOWN, with additional details about the property’s key security features. It also offers an insight into the growing movement of survivalists and doomsday prepper’s as apocalyptic anxieties are fed by the perceived threats of cataclysmic social and climate change as they prepare for our planet's volatile trajectory. (I will be collaborating with researchers to develop this content)
This conceptually multi-layered intervention continues my long-term research into community displacement and the value of home. Focussing recently on the social and environmental impacts of excessive urban development and resource mining. Combined with my long-term fascination for decommissioned underground structures: cold-war, WW II bunkers/air raid shelters, train tunnels, mines and quarries.
Project Outcome
Surprisingly a majority of visitors really believed in the existence of this bunker, even with a clear explanation that it was an art intervention. The work demonstrated how vulnerable and gullible our communities are to misleading information, conspiracy theories etc. Bunker Down II is under construction in New Zealand as I write my Bunker Down project continues to develop.
