Visiting the National Gallery of Victoria during Melbourne Design Week and the NGV Triennial of Art and Design last month, I was struck by the investment in design, architecture and art that is currently ongoing at the NGV, and the NGV Architecture Commission, now in its third year, is a case in point.
Designed by Retallack Thompson and Other Architects, this year’s installation / architectural insertion is called “Garden Wall” and features a simple white fence that runs 250 metres and divides the garden into a series of “rooms” – each rectangular and permeable due to the perpendicular, semi-transparent character of its mesh walls.
The meaning behind the work is at once simplistic and thought-provoking, functional and also aesthetically harmonious. On a walk-through during the one-day symposium “Design Effects”, Grace Mortlock and David Neustein described it as an experiential space: “As soon as you are aware of it, you are inside it,” they explain. The work is about how it changes the garden and the sculptures within it – like all acts of architecture it is about carving up space and changing our relationship to it.
The other reference in the work (that especially was discussed in reference to the design activism theme of the “Design Effects” symposium) is that of walls and borders, calling to mind Australia’s record on refugee centres and harsh border security measures – and that other famous wall, Trump’s wall between the US and Mexico. While perhaps not as boldly political as it could have been, Mortlock and Neustein discussed this theme in the work during their talk, describing “Garden Wall” as: “useful in creating conversation as a departure point around borders.”
As an ongoing support of experimental architecture, the NGV Architecture Commission is commendable, especially when viewed alongside the sizeable investment that the NGV is making in design and contemporary art. Some other highlights of the NGV Triennial are below.
More on Garden Wall (on until 20 May) and NGV
