Invisible Cities

installation

8 Oct

Written By Alexander Hayes

‘Invisible Cities’ - Installation painting by Alexander Hayes, 2004

Title

Invisible Cities

Year

7th October 2014 - 14th October 2014

Location

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts

Artist Statement

This collaborative installation by artists Rob Muir, Alexander Hayes, Caspar Fairhall, and Paul Carstairs was based on the idea that a city comprises hidden histories, experiences, and markers embedded within its form and personality, that point towards myriad possible directions for its future. Traces of the hidden city surround its inhabitants. Our intention was to explore something of the hidden layers of our own city. The idea has been approached by a number of artists and writers throughout the last century – perhaps most notably by Italo Calvino in his novel Invisible Cities, from which we have derived our project’s name. We believed that our approach was a fresh one that took raw material as the thoughts, observations, and experiences of the people who live in and engage with the city. There were three components to the work: contributions from the general public (research phase); an installation at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) which a fully developed response to the research phase, and an online array of digital assets through a range of inter-related websites and online communities.