Contested Spaces was an exhibition of six original video projections installed in the great
hall of Union Station by Public Access. The artists involved took the opportunity to produce
works which both make use of and engage with developments in advertising, propaganda and
information technology. Because of the geography of the installation, the artists’ audience
extended beyond that of gallery goers to the commuters, travelers and business people that pass
through the station.
Like former Public Access projects, Contested Spaces involved an investigation of how
art constructs its public, which invariably meant some consideration of the ways in which
aestheticized forms of production both differentiate themselves from and find themselves
in complicity with commodity culture. In particular, Contested Spaces sought to test the
critical limits of a public sphere which continues, despite its increasing privatization and
commodification, to represent itself as providing spaces for rational deliberation and debate.
Central concern was also placed on the role played by new technologies in altering the terms of
this struggle over public space.
Artists