The Framing Workshop presents Open to View, a new installation by artist Barbara Smith. Open to View follows on from her project A Diverse Cast, exhibited at The Blue Oyster Art Space in Dunedin during March of this year. In this project, Smith based her installation on George Perec's 1978 novel Life: A User's Manual in which he removes the facade of a ten storey building in Paris and proceeds to describe the apartments and stories of the inhabitants within the building. In response, Smith constructed five units of work, representing individual apartments, to suggest and reflect upon the characters and their daily lives.
Open to View presents a single unit; a metal construction with perspex and resin components. There are allusions, problems and formulae. Many aspects of life are represented here: the wonder, the sadness, the bizarre, the unlikely and above all a small projection of humanity.
