write/here

During early 2007, as part of the biennial Ten Days on the Island Festival, James Newitt and Justy Phillips staged the exhibition component of their three-year project write/here. For ten days the artists occupied every advertising billboard space in Hobart – replacing existing advertisements with text phrases.

Each billboard revealed a single narrative text – a personal response to life in Hobart written by the public of Hobart, such as: students from Iran, Sudan and Sierra Leone; female inmates at Risdon Prison; clients at old-age nursing homes; college students; Aboriginal Elders; and anonymous submissions from general public through a number of writing workshops and a web forum.

write/here was published as a temporary public exhibition and through a project book. The intervention incorporated documentary strategies to create an artwork which is part community event, part temporary public art project and part media intervention. This paper will discuss the intentions, outcomes and processes behind the project and specifically reflect on the importance of its temporary nature within city.