While shelter has historically been defined as a transient concept, it seems clear that there is a hybridized understanding emerging and growing more typical across cultures—a permanent state of shelter. No longer simply a literal form of protection, shelter reflects the multiple mechanisms through which we confront and engage with the contemporary world. In this 21st century culture of in-between spaces, determined by increasingly typical experiences of movement, disorientation, and hyper-mediation, has shelter become an attitude, a movable state-of-mind? Is shelter a concrete place, or a less tangible notion of connected experiences and relationships—the sum of one’s lived experience carried within? How much do our cultural narratives form our ideas of shelter? Who has access to shelter, who does not? When is shelter life-affirming and when does it become a form of constraint?
THE SHELTER PROJECT examines these and other questions from multiple perspectives through related projects that manifest art’s relationship to that which is both personal and political. A provocative theme that positions itself at the center of debates about of privacy vs. security, displacement, racism, sexism, xenophobia, identity, and sense of place—shelter runs through almost every social dialogue, sometimes transparently, at other times explicitly, playing out in ways that affect daily life in both overt and subtle ways.
Investigating these increasingly critical issues, SHELTER unpacks this contemporary, universal preoccupation—which is itself located beyond constructed boundaries of nationality, race, gender, and age. Just how do we perceive of shelter in a world defined by constant change and increasing instability? Divergent interpretations and positions regarding the theme emerge in this exhibition and the accompanying performances and talks—responses that are sometimes direct, often oblique, more figurative than literal and generally quite surprising. The common thread is the shared humanity coursing through all the works. Rather than presenting statements that can be perceived as being right or wrong, THE SHELTER PROJECT offers an extension of its own definition—a psychological, political, philosophical, and cultural exploration of an extremely personal topic and the forces that shape our individual relationships with it.
Our concept of shelter is evolving; SHELTER offers a diverse collection of perspectives on the theme. Through an open exchange of ideas and artwork made for the occasion, the interrelated events will examine how our collective experiences of shelter are—or are not—reconcilable with traditional concepts of place and identity, suggesting new questions and ideas about the increasingly important short- and long-term ramifications of living together in the world.
—Victoria Hindley
