MU Student Union Online

Lucas Ihlein
28 July–7 August

Opening night: Wednesday 29 July, 5–7pm

During April and May 2006, Lucas Ihlein made a vow to remain entirely within the boundaries of his own neighbourhood (Sydney’s inner-western suburb of Petersham, a.k.a. ‘The Sham’) for a period of two months. He wrote a blog about everything that happened in his everyday life during this period. Now, after the project has come to an end, Ihlein presents an installation in which you can take home your very own copy of the blog, as a book (a ‘blook’). But there’s a catch! You must compile and bind it yourself…

http://thesham.info

In conjunction with this exhibition, Lucas will present a free illustrated lecture
7.30pm Tuesday 4 August, Institute of Postcolonial Studies
78-80 Curzon Street, North Melbourne. Tel: 03 9329 6381

The Sham, Lucas Ilhein and Suburbia

Review by Anna Claire Hyland

In 2006, Lucas Ihlein vowed not to leave Petersham—a suburb in Sydney’s inner west for two months. He wrote a daily blog about what happened. For The Sham (at George Paton Gallery until this Friday) Ihlein transformed his blog into a book, which viewers can collate, bind and take home.

‘When it comes to art in galleries, I like having things which are not too precious,’ he explains. ‘Something you can participate in, you can touch and you get to take away.’

Ihlein’s work is mainly about spaces outside the gallery. In 2005, Ihlein undertook an artist-in-residence in Kellerberrin, Western Australia. He recorded what his new neighbours told him about the politics and social life of this tiny town. Returning home, he questioned why geographical separation was necessary for such a project.

‘I was really struck by the contrast between how much I had absorbed into the life of Kellerberrin and how little I was absorbed into the life of my own neighbourhood,’ he recalls. “‘And I thought, ‘This is a bit silly. Why should I have to travel 2000km away to have engagement with neighbours?’”

While imprisoned in Petersham, Ihlein began noticing—and recording—what was special about his suburb.

‘It has this real sense of charged intensity about it. So, while at the same time, you’re just going to the shops and buying milk or whatever, it also has this really strong feeling of awareness or attentiveness to what is going on around you. And this is what I was interested in achieving.’

Ihlein’s blog records his daily explorations in Petersham and his everyday reflections on, for instance, gift-giving, walking dogs, jelly wrestling and hard rubbish collections. His observations build an incremental portrait of Petersham. For readers outside the inner west of Sydney, they invoke a growing concern about connecting with our local neighbourhoods.

Not merely a record of his discoveries, Ihlein found that the blog generated new encounters in the ‘real world’. ‘It wasn’t just taking information from one group and passing it to another group,’ he reflects. ‘The blog is a whole world in itself as well. There are a whole lot of interactions there that are its own kind of space or site.’

In order to bring the project into the Gallery, Ihlein devised a ‘blook’, based on the content of the original blog. ‘I thought about how to give people an experience which is sort of a dramatisation of the kind of thing that I went through,’ he explains. Visitors make their way along a bench shaped like the border of Petersham.

They can assemble their own copy of the blook to take home, to read between lectures or on public transport. The Sham is an engaging project revealing curious insights into space, belonging and suburbs. It’s imbued with a welcoming sense of generosity, down to a bowl of Minties to sustain the intrepid visitor. ‘I always keep my grandmother as a kind of litmus test,’ says Ihlein. ‘She’s my ideal viewer. If she could come in feel there’s space for her—that’s good.’