“People to People, Place to Place”

mixed media installation - showing until 29 March 2009

Match Box Projects is the work of Leanne and Naomi Shedlezki who, like SLOT, aim to place art outside the usual confines of the Art Gallery. But rather than a shop front, Match Box Projects has invented a portable alternative to the traditional white-box. Their portable gallery space is transparent, easily carried on public transport and becomes the focus conversations as it makes its way around the city, the country and the planet. Match Box Projects brings art to people and, by engaging them in a conversation about art, they create an intimate alternative to the conventional experience of Art that remains inside galleries and outside the "orbit" of many lives.

To date over 70 artists from Australia and Japan have collaborated with Match Box Projects. This exhibition is part of a larger project titled “Putting ARIs on the Map”, where the sisters have created a free map of the alternative art spaces of Sydney. Often termed "Artist run initiatives" or ARIs for short, these alternative spaces sit outside the commercial art gallery system and publicly funded museum style galleries. These spaces exist because individuals, often artists, invent them more or less out of nothing and in the process they begin to resemble art works themselves. SLOT looks like an art installation, Match Box Projects looks like an art performance and in many ways it is.

Match Box Projects excellent website – www.matchboxprojects.com  takes the visitor on a tour of past projects performed by Leanne and Naomi, a journey that began in January 2006 and continues under the theme, "People to People, Place to Place". This project will take another step connecting people when Leanne and Naomi will lead a walking tour on Saturday 21 March of the artists run spaces of our area, finishing up at SLOT at 4.30pm for a conversation about alternative spaces.

We are proud to present this small survey of the Match Box Projects because, like SLOT, they aim to cross the stereotypical stratifications of our visual experience by placing art within the public gaze.

Collect your copy of the map at any Avant Card outlet or ARI gallery. Register for the walking tours on their website or contact matchboxprojects@gmail.com The tours start at 2pm.