The Northern Rivers is home to a multitude of wonderful houses designed, made and lived in by people who have chosen to live outside the square. This exhibition studies this phenomenon and tracks the influence of an owner builder culture that emerged in the region after the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin. The exhibition will display ephemeral material relating to this story; commissioned photographs; and a documentary film.
Scheduled to coincide with 40th anniversary celebrations of the Aquarius Festival, this is an exciting local project that involves extensive community consultation which will assist focused research around a particular aspect of local culture and history in the Northern Rivers. Recognising the impact that architecture students from Sydney University had on the Aquarius Festival, and in subsequent years, this exhibition will travel to the Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University in late 2013.
Not Quite Square features newly commissioned photographs by Tim Hixson, which will also become part of Lismore Regional Gallery collection. Additionally, the project includes a newly commissioned filmby Byron Bay based filmmaker Sharon Shostak. Shostak, who grew up in a house of this vernacular outside Mullumbimby in the 1970s, is a past winner in the New York Short Film Festival with her film The Deep Pool (2004). She also wrote, directed and edited a documentary feature, The Echo Doco – Born To Be Trouble (2011), about people involved with Byron’s much loved community rag. Other objects and ephemeral material completes exhibition.
