For those of you who have not yet visited the Blue Oyster Gallery in Moray Place, Life, the Universe and the 420 Centre is a project which involves and celebrates the diversity of Dunedin's thriving arts community. Curated by local artist and 420 Centre Art Coordinator Adam Douglass, the project has been developed over a three year period and has now come together in the form of an installation made up of approximately 1500 350mm. plywood panels by over 200 participants which in effect immerses the viewer in the work which has become the walss and ceilings of the Blue Oyster Gallery.

Douglass has been involved in collaborative practices previously- the project being inspired by early experiments with collaborative drawing. Collaborative drawing practices such as these tend to remove elements of power or authority over the work and expose all contributors to the potential that this lack of control allows for.

In an interesting play on words, the title of the exhibition Life, the Universe and the 420 Centre references the science fiction series The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Life, the Universe and Everything (1982) is the third book in the five volume series, the title of which refers to the answer of life. The answer to this question of life, the universe and everything is produced using the hyper-computer Deep Thought after an extensive computation period of 7.5 million years. The answer is 42. As the title of the exhibition suggests this is a particularly large and ambitious project but unlike the book it refers to, this show is less about seeking answers than providing a forum for discussion.

 

The 420 Centre provides activity based services for people recovering from mental illness- an environment where members of the community can gather, talk and through art making practices create a wider dialogue in which open participation and communication are encouraged, Participants in the project have elected the way in which they will engage- many have spent time creating works at the 420 Centre where they were able to view, add to and respond to the developing dialogue unfolding on the walls of the centre. Others have chosen to work offsite and respond to the project utilising their own individual visual language.

 

Life, the Universe and the 420 Centre is a collaborative project seeking to project a collective voice. Identity and individual expression although present in each panel are represented only in equal importance to surrounding works. The nature of the work as collaborative and evolving lends itself to comparison with the surge of graffiti, poster and sticker art occurring around the streets and alley ways of Dunedin city. Such works often occur in alternative public spaces and are subject to constant change as contributors add to and therefore change the reading of the initial work. Here growth and evolution of the work throughout the exhibition period is facilitated by weekly sessions where 420 centre patrons, members of the public and exhibition visitors can take part by creating a panel on site which will be added to the overall work.

 

It is intended that the work move on and be exhibited in a number of other spaces, including educational and health sector institutions therefore breaking free from the confines of the gallery or project space which carries its own issues of authority and accessibility. A variety of spaces assures a level of accessibility to the wider community rather than attempting inclusion exclusively from within the arts community. The traditional concept of a complete or final work is deliberately resisted as the work's intention as an ongoing and shifting conversation is asserted.

Here the notion of the individual maker/ author is subverted in favour of a multiplicity of meaning. Foucalt's well known text 'What is an Author?' discusses the 'author-function' described as a function which implies ownership and fixed meaning.

 

The Author allows a limitation of the cancerous and dangerous proliferation of significations within a world where one is thrifty not only with one's resources and riches, but also with one's discourses and their significations. The author is the principle of thrift in the proliferation of meaning.1

 

Life, the Universe and the 420 Centre presents the viewer with no ackowledgement of ownership but rather encourages ideas and concepts to blend and clash, discouraging limits and the deciphering of narrative. It is interesting to note that in his text 'The Death of the Author' Roland Barthes aligns the author with the critic who attempts to develop a process of deciphering / fixing meaning.

 

Each panel is an equally proportioned square positioned in the format of the grid which projects a feelig of structure, of strength and direction - of an institutional framework partial to constraint, organisation and the following of correct and controlled lines of vision. The works within these lines however do not necessarily follow suit. There is some presence and consideration given to order and cohesion but little evidence of heirachy as established artists' works are placed randomly and anonymously.

The notion of the artist as a unique individual working on the fringes of society is deferred by anonymity and therefore the economic and authenticated value traditionally assigned to the artist's work as an individual genius or recluse is lost. The stigma of mental illness may be seen to be commonly aligned with the notion of artistic ability and with the notion of otherness. Here, a community of diverse voices stands united, seemingly unconcerned with attribution, acknowleedgement, value and power but more with a desire to be heard as part of an ongoing, dynamic and critical dialogue on Life, the Universe and the 420 Centre.