By Nick Galvin
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Perched high on the cliff above Tamarama beach is a new home that claims to take “ocean-front designer living to the next level”.
“Form and function meet as one”, boasts the breathless marketing spiel, while “minimalism is totally maximised” in the design.
However, if you’re tempted to put in an offer sight-unseen, be warned this “shiny showcase” looks suspiciously like an oversized, rusty tin can. In fact, that’s exactly what it is.
The work of artists Juan Pablo Pinto and Cristian Rojas, Hermitage is a witty comment on the crazy Sydney property market where even the tiniest spaces command eye-watering sums, and the super-rich and wannabes alike clamber to secure prestigious ocean views.
“We wanted to make a humoristic take on the housing affordability crisis,” Pinto says. “We’re thinking of ‘how can you sell a property that is just a shoebox for millions of dollars?’ You’re not just selling the house itself, you’re selling a lifestyle, an image that’s on Instagram.”
Like so many great ideas, the concept for the three-metre by two-metre sculpture began life when the two friends were chatting over a beer.
“We were discussing how nature resolved the problem of housing, and that’s how we went into the idea of the hermit crab,” Pinto says. “These animals, they actually find an object and they take it as their own home. And also they need to move houses as well. So when they grow, they need to look for other shells. So they have the first home, second home and so on.”
Can of worms: A compact and cosy residence with views to die for.Credit: James Brickwood
Pinto and Rojas, both of whom have day jobs as architects, met 10 years ago after emigrating from Chile. They were also selected to show at last year’s Sculpture by the Sea with their work, Selfish, an enormous fish hook intended as a commentary on the depletion of the oceans while also asking, what would happen if humans were no longer at the top of the food chain?
“This time is also an oversized subject,” Rojas says. “We think it’s a nice way of approaching the subject, playing with the scale of things.”
Peer into the work and you can look through a barcode cut in the base of the can to the ocean beyond.
“It’s interesting to kind of frame the texture of the water through the barcode,” Rojas says. “Then there’s the idea of the ocean or the view as a commodity, being behind the bars – and of being in a mortgage prison, chained to this investment.”
Hermitage joins more than 100 works in this year’s Sculpture by the Sea, the 25th time the event has been staged along the headland between Bondi and Tamarama. It runs until November 6.
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