"Bunker Down: survival of the fittest" by Sally Kidall
This is a site-responsive virtual art installation created for Sculpture by the Sea 2022. It is conceived by Sally Kidall, a sculptor and environmental artist. The work creates a surreal narrative reflecting on the ever-increasing symptoms of fear, dispossession and humanity’s desire to escape the impacts of our changing world. This interactive work aims to engage the viewer through their imagination to recreate this subterraneous project within their minds eye using the clues offered on site. This disconcerting stage set offers a platform for reflection, evoking a sense of unease, raising thoughts and questions. The large graphic FOR SALE sign offers property details, layout + images of this imaginary security bunker buried deep below the site. The bunker’s entrance is through the rusty maintenance panels attached to the existing brick stormwater towers. The entrance and emergency exit points are highlighted for the property sale using shinny transparent fabric jackets.
This is a site-responsive virtual art installation created for Sculpture by the Sea 2022. It is conceived by Sally Kidall, a sculptor and environmental artist. The work creates a surreal narrative reflecting on the ever-increasing symptoms of fear, dispossession and humanity’s desire to escape the impacts of our changing world. This interactive work aims to engage the viewer through their imagination to recreate this subterraneous project within their minds eye using the clues offered on site. This disconcerting stage set offers a platform for reflection, evoking a sense of unease, raising thoughts and questions. The large graphic FOR SALE sign offers property details, layout + images of this imaginary security bunker buried deep below the site. The bunker’s entrance is through the rusty maintenance panels attached to the existing brick stormwater towers. The entrance and emergency exit points are highlighted for the property sale using shinny transparent fabric jackets.
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Sally Kidall: Project Artist
Project Artist
Sally Kidall is a site-responsive environmental artist, she travels internationally creating her vast interventions within challenging locations beyond the restraints of the gallery. Her background is in sculpture and interior design with an MA at Portsmouth Uni, UK and over 35 years of making her site-responsive art practise. She has exhibited through out the UK & Australia, India, Spain, USA, Ukraine, South Korea, France, New Zealand, Netherlands, Andorra, Germany, Italy, Senegal.
Recent shows include DakarOFF 2022, Senegal, RespirArt 2022, Pampeago, Italy, International Forest Art 2022, Darmstadt, Germany, Site-Responsive Biennale 2019_ I-Park, Connecticut, USA. L’ANDART’19 International Biennial of Andorra, GroundSpeak_LandArt 2019 & 2021 _Schokland Island Museum, NETHERLANDS, regularly showing at Sculpture by the Sea_Bondi. sallykidall.com |
Sally designed this underground building and proposed her controversial idea to Sculpture by the Sea. By offering this virtual property FOR SALE her intention was to challenge the audience and raise awareness of the growing subterranean accommodation industry designed to service the growing fears and anxieties within our communities.
Sally was inspired by a radio interview with the international urban explorer Dr Bradley Garrett. He was discussing the growth of international communities of 'Preppers' who are preparing for an imminent apocalypse. His book: Bunker, Building for the end of time, (2020) was published at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Bradley accept a commission from Sally to write an essay for this project and he generously shared his knowledge and ideas. Bradley is responsible for inventing the fictitious Dirk Talbot as the CEO of Bunker Down Subterranean Property Consultants, the press release and many of the technical solutions for the building's design, he has been an invaluable consultant for this project.
Artist's Statement
Through site-responsive environmental installations I seek to challenge the predictability of expectations & ‘cultural homogeneity’. My practice aims to create experiential encounters with site through conceptual listening, interaction and engagement with place, while exploring metaphorical spaces/environments that express the anxieties and insecurities of our contemporary society.
My art practice is inspired by the complexities, equilibrium and fragility of the natural environment and by the ways in which our human-made systems work within, or in opposition to, these natural systems. The focus of my practice is the concept of transition, including notions of unpredictability, vulnerability and ephemerality. It is informed by issues relating to ecology, cultural displacement, consumption, materialism and changing climates.
‘Now more than ever we need to understand the underland…it is vital to the material structures of contemporary existence, as well as to our memories, myths and metaphors.’ Underland A Deep Time Journey, Robert Macfarlane (2019)
Sally was inspired by a radio interview with the international urban explorer Dr Bradley Garrett. He was discussing the growth of international communities of 'Preppers' who are preparing for an imminent apocalypse. His book: Bunker, Building for the end of time, (2020) was published at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Bradley accept a commission from Sally to write an essay for this project and he generously shared his knowledge and ideas. Bradley is responsible for inventing the fictitious Dirk Talbot as the CEO of Bunker Down Subterranean Property Consultants, the press release and many of the technical solutions for the building's design, he has been an invaluable consultant for this project.
Artist's Statement
Through site-responsive environmental installations I seek to challenge the predictability of expectations & ‘cultural homogeneity’. My practice aims to create experiential encounters with site through conceptual listening, interaction and engagement with place, while exploring metaphorical spaces/environments that express the anxieties and insecurities of our contemporary society.
My art practice is inspired by the complexities, equilibrium and fragility of the natural environment and by the ways in which our human-made systems work within, or in opposition to, these natural systems. The focus of my practice is the concept of transition, including notions of unpredictability, vulnerability and ephemerality. It is informed by issues relating to ecology, cultural displacement, consumption, materialism and changing climates.
‘Now more than ever we need to understand the underland…it is vital to the material structures of contemporary existence, as well as to our memories, myths and metaphors.’ Underland A Deep Time Journey, Robert Macfarlane (2019)
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Dr Bradley GarrettProject Consultant
Dr Bradley Garrett is a social geographer, explorer and photographer. His work has been widely published in academic journals and book chapters. He also writes for numerous publications including: The Atlantic, Vox, GQ, the Daily Beast, and The Guardian and his urban landscape photography is highly renowned. Dr Garrett's book Subterranean London: Cracking the Capital (2015) reveals extraordinary images of subterranean London layer by layer. In 2016 Garrett published London Rising: Illicit Photos from the City’s Heights, which documents the social, infrastructural and corporate verticalities of the city. His fifth book, published during the COVID pandemic in 2020, Bunker: Building for the End Times documents ‘prepper’ communities across four continents and their preparations for the impeding apocalypse.
bradleygarrett.com |
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@ Bunker Down 2022
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