Context

First commissioned for the 2012 exhibition 'We don't need a map' at Fremantle Arts Centre, The Phone Booth Project features a Pilbara pay phone, large-scale projections and multi-lingual dialogues. The work reveals the independence and adaptation of modern telecommunications by Aboriginal Martu peoples across the vast Western Desert.

Working collaboratively with three Martu communities, artist Lily Hibberd and Martu filmmaker Curtis Taylor created a 14 minute three-channel video installation that explores the contemporary use of phone booths in these remote places.

Exhibition History

Since its creation in 2012, The Phone Booth Project has been included in 14 exhibitions in museums and galleries across regional and remote Australia, in Perth and Melbourne, and in European centres, including Paris, London and Berlin.

As part of the “We don’t need a map” Australian touring exhibition from 2015 to 2016, the work toured to East Pilbara Arts Centre and Araluen Arts Centre in Western Australia, Gold Coast City Art Gallery in Queensland, Moree Plains Gallery, Western Plains Cultural Centre and Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in New South Wales, and to McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery in Victoria.

The project has been included in major museum exhibitions, such as "Mémories Vives" at  Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France in 2013, "New Frontiers" in 2015 at Linden New Art, Melbourne, Australia, and for "Networking the Unseen" in 2016 at Furtherfield, London, United Kingdom and also in 2017 at Villa Merkel, Stuggart, Germany. In 2014, it was screened as part of "Les Rencontres Internationales" at the Gaité Lyrique centre in Paris, France and the centre Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany. It was also selected for the Kalgoorlie Aboriginal Film Festival in 2021, and a new version edited in the same year as ‘The Phone Booth Project Predux’ for Prototype in conjunction with Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Australia.

Memory Projects