Representing Space and Place

One of my most memorable school trips was our Year 6 school visit to the City Gallery Wellington.  While most of my 10-year old class was not enthused, it was then and there that I discovered my love for art.

Wellington City Gallery during the 2009 Yakoi Kusama exhibition when I first visited it. 

When googling the City Gallery Wellington, the first thing that pops up is the place description and the review scores from both Google and Facebook. On google reviews, the gallery has an average of 4.2 out of 5 stars. Anybody is able to leave a google review and these reviews cannot be monitored by the gallery meaning that they allow the honesty of people who have visited. This allows the average person who has visited the gallery to share their opinion of the space for others to read which helps to define the space. While on Facebook the gallery has more control over what people see on their page, the ability to write a review still allows visitors to define the space.

What shows up when googling the Gallery. Shows the average review scores from both Google reviews and Facebook.

The City Gallery Facebook and Instagram pages allow the gallery owners the opportunity to define the space themselves. With control of all the content the post, they are able to define themselves in a way which they believe will be appealing to the people they are aiming to attract. Because both of the pages on these platforms are public, everyday people have the opportunity to tag the gallery and to comment on the content they post which gives visitors and regular people the chance to be an author of the space themselves.

The Gallery’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

Jason Farman reinforces the idea how we, as everyday users of technology and social media, have an impact in defining a space. “Here, we can intervene in the production of space using these devices. If there’s an intimate relationship between materiality, space, and digital media, then the ways that those technologies and spaces get produced offer modes of intervention. We are neither passive in how space is produced nor in how technology plays a vital role in such spatial productions.” This concept applies to City Gallery Wellington as anyone can utilize the tools of commenting, tagging, sharing, and reviewing to contribute to the definition of a space and how that space is perceived in digitally.