Who's Afraid of Public Space?

Address
111 Sturt Street , Melbourne VIC 3006 Map
Hours
Tue–Fri 10 am–5 pm Sat–Sun 11 am–5 pm

Continuing ACCA’s series of Big Picture exhibitions, inaugurated with Sovereignty in 2016–17 and followed by Unfinished Business: Perspectives on art and feminism in 2017–18, ACCA is developing Who’s Afraid of Public Space?, a major exhibition and research project exploring the role of public culture, the contested nature of public space, and the character and composition of public life itself.

Developed over a two-year period in the lead up to ACCA’s summer season of 2021–2022, Who’s Afraid of Public Space? will engage contemporary art and cultural practices to consider critical ideas as to what constitutes public culture and to ask, and who might it be for? The project will explore and animate recent global debates and phenomena including the increasing incursion of private interests into public culture; the dynamic relations between urban design, surveillance, regulation and gentrification; as well as related unsanctioned counter-positions, improvisation and play. It will explore ideas of community, collectivity and the commons; the cultivation of fear in media and urban space; ongoing debates related to the freedom of speech, assembly and censorship; and the public broadcasting of private lives. It will also explore the ways in which technology, knowledge and mobility impact upon and transform our understanding of public space, culture and its values. In the wake of the coronavirus, and the rapidly changing pandemic landscape which we are currently negotiating, the project will also consider the radical shift from the civic space of the public square to the virtual space of the digital commons.