2007

For three weeks in 2007, Bondi hosted ‘21 beach cells’, an immersive walk in-walk out installation by controversial German artist Gregor Schneider.

Twenty-one interlinking 4m x 4m x 2.5m cages made of galvanised steel pipe and wire fencing mesh were equipped with a blue inflatable air mattress, a white canvas beach umbrella and a black loosely tied plastic garbage bag with unknown content. The cells were freely accessible, inviting ‘voluntary detainees’ to inspect and interact with the installation, which was replicated in Israel on Acadia Beach, near Tel Aviv, in 2009.

The Bondi project was John Kaldor’s 16th Public Art Project. Others have included Jeff Koon’s 1996 'Puppy’, a 12.4m tall, ornamental floral/wire West Highland Terrier in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. The stark juxtaposition of an iconic beach (symbol of freedom and egalitarian leisure) and a formal grid of wire mesh cages (with associations of segregation, control and powerlessness) had a multitude of context-specific interpretations. The installation linked the ongoing discourse about Australia’s uncompromising border security and asylum seeker policies with wider questions about freedom and security. Schneider got beachgoers to inhabit the installation to create awareness of the way space and power relations interact. Journalists who entered the beach cells described the slow build-up of anxiety on discovering that not all doors in the cell maze allowed entry (the closed doors mimic an absent power) and finding themselves confronted with navigating a way out. Another described the disruptive visual experience of looking through wire mesh, which allows a false sense of transparency while fragmenting the view, producing a heightened sense of visibility and being on display. Another described the experience as one of total isolation in the middle of a crowd.

Images courtesy Kaldor Public Art Projects and Grego Schneider.