Better Together: Stories of Contemporary Documents

(30 April – 22 May 2020) MADA Gallery, Monash University

A project by Guillermo Fernández-Abascal, Kate Finning and Urtzi Grau with Anna Tonkin, Jack Cooper, Charles Choi and SPGD

Contribution by Simon Pendal Architect - Galvanised column with banding

Curatorial Statement: Recent exhibitions of architecture depict a discipline in a battle between escapist claims for autonomy and approaches to research that are removed from the discipline entirely. The exhibition label is the arena, the artefacts on display are the evidence. The description-less label provokes the viewer to attempt to understand the artifact alone, whereas the lengthy essay-like description suggests the document on display acts as nothing more than a prop. Better Together: Stories of Contemporary Documents emerges at the intersection of this battle. Its collection of documents and stories re-evaluates the construction of this dichotomy. The exhibition presents thirty three documents of contemporary Australian architecture and the associated stories. The definition of architectural documents is expansive, encompassing working drawings, correspondence, mockups and contracts; formats that expose the unique processes of contemporary architectural production. We suggest that the ability of architecture to have effect in the world resides in these very specific documents that allude to the modes through which contemporary architecture circulates but also suggest how architecture is produced today.  Each architectural document is coupled with a story. The stories redefine the function of traditional museum labels, questioning how the curators choose to speak on behalf of the artefacts on display, inert by-products of material culture and the natural world. From literary representations, to visual descriptions, the object’s accompanying text mediates the visitor experience, providing context or meaning, often acting as fictions that contribute to the work. Once on display, the text and the object work together to provoke a discourse on what it means to exhibit architecture today. The couples serve to question the possibility of architecture to exist as its own form of communication.  Located at the centre of this discussion, MADA Gallery is the site not only for the show - it is also the host of current debates around curation, museology, exhibition design, and the position of architecture exhibitions in cultural production.