Imagine a world without advertising, 2007

On Friday the 25th of May 2007, twenty-four advertisements, on the bus shelters at Wynyard in Sydney’s CBD, were covered with sheets of brown recycled paper, in an effort to create, if just for a moment, a space where we can imagine a world without advertising. Shadows from the surrounding environment appeared on the brown paper. These are at other times lost on the reflective glass surface.

As the second last poster was put in place the general manager of JCDecaux, the company responsible for the bus shelter advertising, arrived and suddenly a conversation took place between this man and myself. Initially hostile our conversation developed into a genuine dialogue where two differing points of view took time to listen to the other.

This work has been installed a number of times with over one hundred brown paper scrolls given freely to audience members. Labels document the work through images, descriptions of the event, and directions on how individuals can install the brown paper themselves. A line of brown paper clothes was also made for exhibition and positioned on the shop front of Don’t Look Experimental New Media Gallery in Dulwich Hill . All clothes were uniform in style but with differing prices.