House shows: Reflections on space and interaction
House shows often raise questions about their legitimacy. Without the polish of institutional galleries or the sales-driven focus of commercial spaces, they are sometimes perceived as unprofessional. This perception stems in part from their intimate nature. House shows often attract audiences composed largely of friends, family, and peers, making them feel insular or inaccessible to the broader public.
The case for house shows: challenging hierarchies
House shows’ value lies in their ability to break away from conventional hierarchies, allowing artists to take control of how their work is shared and experienced.
Two Hobart artists worked on a project funded by Creative Australia (Australia Council), and the event showcased its outcome. Rather than using a gallery, they transformed their apartment into an exhibition space. The event was only the opening, attracting the usual crowd found at contemporary art events. It sparked criticism, with some arguing it was elitist because it wasn’t accessible to the public. The artists countered that the same group of people would have attended even if the show had been held in a publicly funded gallery.
This tension highlights a broader issue: professionalism in the art world is often tied to institutional frameworks and systems, which house shows deliberately challenge.
While they may lack the formal presentation and reach of traditional venues, house shows offer unique opportunities for experimentation and personal connection for artists.
A residency, exhibition, and workspace—space department, Nara, Japan
There was a moment during my time at the Space Department residency in Nara, Japan, when someone asked me, “Is the Space Department an artist’s residency, an exhibition space, or a workspace?” I replied, “Actually, it’s all of these things.” The space didn’t fit neatly into one category—it was adaptable, multifunctional, and shaped by the activities happening within it. It has been used for performances a number of times.
People often talk about how space is used differently in Japan compared to other parts of the world. This difference stems from the interplay between the landscape and the practicalities of life. Japan’s volcanic activity has created steep, towering mountains and limited flat land. The flat areas are prime real estate for rice paddies, farms, houses, towns, and cities.
The adaptable design of traditional Japanese houses
This scarcity and value of flat land have influenced the design of traditional Japanese houses. Rooms in traditional houses are often multipurpose—the same room is used for eating during the day and sleeping at night. The Machiya house is a classic example of this adaptability. The front of the house is for commercial or public activities—a shop, a workshop, or a space to interact with the community—while the back serves as the family’s private living area.
During our time at the Space Department residency, the first floor served as our private space, while the ground floor functioned as a more communal environment. Workshops on the ground floor throughout the week brought a sense of activity and openness to the space.
Kirsty Sharp (my partner) set up her jewelry workspace in the semi-outdoor area that opened onto the street. At one point, a passerby wandered in to see what she was working on, creating a spontaneous connection between the house and the street, between creator and community.
However, the wind made the semi-outdoor space challenging for Kirsty to work in. She later moved her workspace to a window at the front of the building, where her process became more visible to people passing by.
As real estate becomes increasingly expensive, creative spaces are evolving to merge and function in new ways. A good example is Funaki Gallery, a contemporary jewelry gallery now located in an apartment in Melbourne. Previously housed in a small retail space of about 20 square metres, the gallery has shifted its operations to an apartment behind locked doors. This move has provided more space and encouraged a different kind of relationship with visitors. Entering this apartment feels more personal and intimate compared to the straightforward, transactional nature of a retail shop.
Blurring boundaries between living and creating: the Tokonoma
This idea of blending art and life is also reflected in the tokonoma. A tokonoma is a small, elevated alcove used to display seasonal flowers and carefully chosen artworks, serving as a curated focal point for the room. Its contents are thoughtfully selected to reflect the passing seasons and the homeowner’s aesthetic sensibilities. In a way, the tokonoma turns every house into a gallery and its owner into a curator, merging daily life with artistic expression.
We're currently working on a project in our own home in Hobart—repurposing an old open fireplace into a kind of tokonoma. The aim is to create a space for displaying small artworks. We’re also considering extending this idea outward by designing a tokonoma-like box as part of the fence that faces the street. It’s a way of blending the private and the public, sharing what we’re working on or have recently finished.
Like many artist residencies, the Space Department came with an expectation to share some of what we were working on, whether through shows, workshops, or talks. I’m used to creating works for neutral environments—white cube galleries or black box spaces. These spaces are designed to be blank canvases that place all the focus on the artwork itself.
But the Space Department was entirely different. It’s a renovated 90-year-old traditional Japanese wooden house. It wasn’t a blank canvas. Its unique features and quirks meant I couldn’t simply impose ideas onto the space—I had to work with it, respond to it, and let it shape the way I thought about my work.
During the early days of the residency, I created a video where I walked through the space, reflecting on the possibilities it held. This process was vastly different from the usual approach of designing a piece for a neutral gallery space. Instead of starting with an abstract concept, I thought about how people might move through space, how they would naturally interact with it, and how the environment could guide their engagement.
One idea that stood out involved the front passageway, or engawa. In traditional Japanese architecture, the engawa acts as a transitional space, blending the interior and exterior of the house. For this reason, it felt like an ideal location to explore distance as interaction, something I’ve worked with in several past projects.
The layout of the engawa naturally guided movement through the space, creating an interaction shaped by the environment rather than being imposed upon it. This approach felt entirely different from imagining work in a gallery setting, where the space is static and neutral. The building itself became an active collaborator in shaping how it was experienced.
Garden shows: spaces shaped by nature
As you’re reading this, you might think I’m leading toward advocating for house shows. Actually, not quite. What I’ve been thinking about more recently is garden shows—creating spaces and places outside that are shaped by the natural environment. I imagine spots around the garden, at its edges or tucked into unexpected corners, that could be used for projections or installations.
There’s a stream at the bottom of our yard that has been diverted into an underground pipe. I’d love to use a projection onto the ground to resurface that water visually, to reveal what’s hidden and reimagine how it flows through the landscape. Ideas like this highlight something fundamental to installation practice: it always has a relationship to the space. The space isn’t just a backdrop—it’s an active participant that shapes how the work is experienced.
Conclusion: art beyond the gallery
My experiences at the Space Department have shifted the way I think about spaces for art. They’ve pushed me to consider spaces outside of traditional public venues—spaces that are non-traditional, site-specific, and embedded in their environment. These kinds of spaces provide a different way of engaging with people, offering a more personal and intimate connection. They also give artists a new kind of control—not just over the work itself, but how it interacts with its surroundings and how audiences experience it.