A creative way for community members to make, display and exchange art, inspired by fond memories of the Bundaberg CBD, has opened at Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery.
Swap Shop, devised by community artist Sue Loveday, is an interactive art installation in the Imaginarts space that invites visitors to contribute wares to a colourful ‘main street’ styled on shops from Bundaberg’s CBD.
Having grown up in Mundubbera, Sue said she was inspired by memories of shopping in Bundaberg as a child and a recent visit to the region where she noted changes in the way people shop.
“It was nice to be really looking, I spent about three days just drawing, people watching in the main street, noticing the beautiful heritage buildings, and the collage and diversity of people that visit Bundy,” Sue said.
This visit also got Sue thinking about how the way people shop is changing.
“Apart from the beauty of the historical buildings, I noticed there’s a lot of shops for lease, and it really got me thinking about how shopping is changing.
“[It] is an indication that we are doing more shopping online, and it got me to thinking about where we’re going with shopping and what it’s going to look like in the future.”
Sue said Swap Shop was not about money, but about making art and what goods shoppers might want to see in shops.
“I also noticed an absence of young people in the main street, and I thought I’d ask the young people what would they like to see in the shops?
“What’s the future of the shops in Bundaberg for them?
“And if they come and make art about it, they can exhibit it here in our gallery, in our shop.
“They leave it on the shelves and then you can choose to take someone else’s art home, if you put a piece of art on the shelf yourself.”
Central to the exhibition is a large colourful construction which references local shops that have inspired Sue, shelves for displaying the visitors’ creations, and passageways for participants to crawl through and explore further.
There is a variety of art making materials for contributors to craft their creations, and visitors can even compose and program the music playing in the space.
“I make a lot of installations that ask people or invite people to interact creatively and have an influence on what the space looks like,” Sue said.
“My projects all involve people in some way. It’s the people that complete the artwork.”
Swap Shop is on display from Saturday 26 October until 9 February, at Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery.
