Lines of site

BACKGROUND: 'Lines of site' was a commissioned review of an exhibition 'Sitelines' at Heide Museum of Modern Art. Natasha Johns-Messenger, an Australian artist based in New York, was commissioned to produce a site-specific installation for the galleries of Heide. She was in Australia 6 months to the prepare the exhibition. CONTRIBUTION: This review is the fourth in a series Attiwill has published with Architecture Media. In each, she focuses on exhibitions by internationally renowned Australian artists and considers how their work relates to her own research on interior design/interiority as a practice of making relations between people and environment, subjectivities and space. The previous three reviews were: 'Inside Anne Zahalka's Hall of Mirrors', Artichoke 19 December 2007, pp. 74-79; 'Murmur. Installation by Rosslynd Piggott', Artichoke 2013, pp. 84-88 and 'Anne Zahalka's portrait of a building', Architecture Australia 2014, pp. 26-28. Attiwill draws on her research into conditions of interior and interiority to critically engage with the work of these artists. Her writing re-thinks and re-poses interior design within the context of the profession itself, i.e. with the context of a professional magazine. In the editorial for this issue, editorial director Cameron Bruhn writes: 'Suzie brings her assiduous engagement with interiors and interiority to the critique.' (p.12) These magazines are read by designers and architects rather than artists so Attiwill's critical writing brings these artists' works into the context of interior design in a way that enables different ways of thinking about this practice. SIGNIFICANCE: This review was commissioned by 'Architecture Australia', the magazine for the Australian Institute of Architects. 'Architecture Australia' published quarterly by Architecture Media, is Australia's most respected architecture and design magazine and it has a wide trade, profession and general readership.