The Hobart Urban Illumination Project is a response to the physical and psychological geography of Mount Wellington. It plays with Hobart and its inhabitants in an examination of the effects of living in “The Mountain’s” shadow.
Embracing the theatricality of the monumental, the artist is cast as concerned public servant and mountain personified in a ridiculous narrative exploring Mount Wellington’s shadow nature. With residents “potentially” suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder or low self-esteem from the lifelong intimidation process of living beneath a monumental elephant, The Mountain, as both a character and idiomatic/metaphorical device, is used to ultimately explore relationships: with our selves, others, space and place. The Hobart Urban Illumination Project is an exercise in the temporal, of ‘barbed’ gifting, and spectacle.
With daily forays into four Hobart suburbs over separate distinct weeks, the Artist drives a specialised vehicle outfitted with floodlights to slowly trawl through Hobart, a hackneyed dawn simulation and bright light therapy that bathes resident’s houses in “full sun light” for a period of time, alleviating shadow conditions.
