Bomb da Site, Perth Cultural Centre, Western Australia
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Client: Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority
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Stakeholders and Partners: Department of Culture and the Arts
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Role of Artsource: Curator/Art consultants
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Artists: Matthew Hunt
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Outcome: Temporary signage intervention
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Artwork budget: $12,800
Bomb da Site peppered the Perth Cultural Centre with artworks over a period of almost three months. From a series of banners, to a run of posters pasted up sequentially, and finishing with a mirror vinyl text piece – the work launched a silent invasion of the space.
Hunt’s text work finds its origins on the street and in popular culture; fragments of signs, number plates, popular speech, writing on walls – words that are at times misread or half-remembered. The artist’s collection of words is re-worked into texts that are open-ended and ambiguous.
The project saw Hunt test varied approaches to the site, trying out different texts and applications, working off responses from audiences, teasing reactions out of the passer-by. The work tested expectations and threw up a series of questions on the placement of text in public spaces and how we absorb it, who places it there and how it mediates our experience of the world.
