Alexandra Savtchenko-Belskaia’s interdisciplinary practice pursues an interest in embodied experience of particular spaces. Through subtle but loaded alterations to carefully chosen sites, Savtchenko-Belskaia elicits an active response from the viewer, whose phenomenological and cognitive experience of the space becomes heightened.

For Sculpture Court, Savtchenko-Belskaia brings together sculpture and several modes of image-making in an investigation of the physical, social and architectural histories of Window and its surrounds. Central to Savtchenko-Belskaia’s project are original architectural plans for the space upon which Window now sits. Drawn up by architects Beatson, Rix-Trott, Carter & Co in 1963, these plans reveal that the gallery was built on a site originally marked as an outdoor ‘sculpture court.’ Working closely with these plans as a physical point of reference, Savtchenko-Belskaia investigates both the specific and the abstract experience of the space. Like a wedge, Sculpture Court uses the coordinates of the outdated design to open up an imagined sculptural space in which potential surfaces and volumes are alluded to. It also considers spaces within the library that are made both accessible and inaccessible by limits imposed by social hierarchy, general use or the difficulties of the present to account for multiple histories of real and potential transformation over time. Reconfigured in actual terms as an interior space enclosed by glass and tile and housed within a modern foyer, the space can be conceived almost purely in terms of windows, lending context to Savtchenko-Belskaia’s ongoing experimentation with different contractions of image and surface, and the role of light in the construction of images.

Alexandra Savtchenko-Belskaia is an artist and designer currently based in Auckland, after graduating from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2007, she went on to co-direct artist-run initiative Newcall in Auckland. Recent shows include an installation in a private apartment in association with Parlour – an Auckland-based artist collective, and Building out of Sound, a duo exhibition with Holly Willson at TCB Gallery, Melbourne.