On the Problem of Positioning my Home Renovation Project as an Art Project
I have been preparing a house for sale for the past few months – putting in a new kitchen, sanding and polishing the floors, replacing guttering, painting the whole place inside and out, etc. All of this involves an endless series of tedious tasks, demanding endless visits to Bunnings, as well as endless close encounters with an endless series of vile substances – bleach, vinegar, paint, asbestos, epoxy fillers, metal shards, real estate agents, etc. None of this seems to bear any relation to any of the things I would ostensibly like to be doing, and yet, if I am honest, my current practice is indeed home renovation. So why not consider its problematic status as a form of practice – one that in this case miraculously produces a saleable work? Here then my aim is to pose a question about the relation between art and other spheres of activity; and in response to conceive something like a cosmology of the renovation of a 70s fibro home – specifying the primary elements, the fundamental devices and the procedural-narrative scenarios that are characteristic of this process.
two dumb boxes radiating towards one another