Three wall hangings—all green with gold thread—line a shopping window in the suburb of Redfern, Sydney. The gold thread on the clear green felt suggests outlines that border on the abstract, but, there is still something recognizable in the shapes: The flag of the Aboriginal tent-embassy just a few blocks away, and the bookshelf in the high-end café just down the street. The wall-hangings and the shapes on them seems to want to remind you of the conflict that is happening right here, right now, occupying a commercial space to convey its message but denying the traditional reading of such a space.

    You type in the web-address for a sound file that is located on the door, thinking it might tell you why the conflict is addressed to you in this way, here, and now. A female voice with a clear Norwegian accent starts by saying «Fun in the Philippines starts now.» The line is the same one that you have seen, superimposed on a huge sign by the Sydney Airport. The female voice narrates a travel by bus and train from Sydney to Melbourne, and as she talks the shapes on the wall hangings become less abstract and more the shapes of fleeting memories from this travel. And perhaps you come to understand the conflict. The conflict of here and now, there and here. And, that the possibility to leave it all for the Philippines and all the fun in the sun is a luxury available to the very few.

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SLOT

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LUISA TRESCA