Artists’ engagement with tourism has been under-examined. Within this exhibition it is discussed in relation to artistic strategies of institutional critique and the critique of these power structures in art practice. The abstract environment and its lack of universality is a point of opposition. The artistic, touristic subject can neither ‘perform’ nor intervene within that with which they are implicit without questioning that self-same knowledge construction. They can re-examine the power constructs of their discourse, and within the abstract space of the mediated touristic environment find a means to share the possibility of dissent. Material action crosses the barrier of perception to find a place of transition and transmission. A liminal site of exchange, knowledge and deconstruction, a critical moment on the threshold of experience purveying open-ended practice and participation. Documentation or archiving these actions furthers the dialogue and continues the discussion and the process. The artists’ actions and processes will be documented in video, photomedia, installations and websites within the gallery, and extending out from it.
Tourism discourse is a particular discipline within travel’s domain. Post-tourist concentrates on this field of knowledge and creates a decontructed archive of institutional exploration and open-ended process. The exhibition references the prospect of interaction and difference via the post-tourist experience as explored within the work of Louise Bennett, Charlie Donaldson, Victoria Lawson, Provoked, Kat Sawyer with Paul Soulellis and Vincent Wozniak-O’Connor. Post-tourist creates an awareness of a discipline and provides a moment of acknowledgement and affect, and an acknowledgement of mobility, its history and discourse. This moment transmits the potential for self-reflexive, embodied action and response by both the viewer and the artist.