Gallery Precinct, 2021
IAI’s Gallery Precinct staged a data-driven intervention in Trumper Park, Paddington—a lush, pond-centered oasis adjacent to Sydney’s dense cluster of commercial galleries. The exhibition featured corflute signs displaying census data for the Woollahra Council area: twice the national average income, 80% white population, and a workforce dominated by banking and finance. Installed along park pathways, these blunt infographics collided with the tranquil setting, framing a question: Who is this art precinct really for?
The work weaponized bureaucratic statistics to confront the exclusivity of Sydney’s gallery district. By situating demographic facts in a public park frequented by both wealthy locals and casual visitors, IAI exposed the stark disconnect between art’s utopian rhetoric and its reality as a luxury service for elites. The intervention channeled Hans Haacke’s institutional audits, but pivoted to Sydney’s hyper-gentrified east—where galleries mirror the demographics of their postcode: wealthy, white, and finance-adjacent.
As park-goers passed signs declaring Median Weekly Income: $1,463 (versus Australia’s $805), the work asked whether art can transcend its role as a class signifier when its institutions cluster in enclaves of privilege. Gallery Precinct refused decorative subtlety, using the visual language of municipal signage to reframe the gallery strip as a monument to inequality—a “precinct” where access depends on wealth and whiteness.
IAI Institute 