During her residency at PICA, Lisa Liebetrau will research, examine and document ephemera on PICA from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia, Western Australian Museum and PICA’s own archive through a series of photographs. Liebetrau will consider the historical archive and heritage of the building and its original purpose as place of education, specifically its first use as the Perth Central School in 1897.

While looking back to the past, Liebetrau will also consider the present, by conducting interviews with current PICA staff, to connect PICA’s current history to the existing archive in the state collections. These interviews will attempt to reconcile the friction of a contemporary art gallery in a building that is not purpose built for the display of artworks. Liebetrau poses the question, is this site still a place of education? And can arts institutions form a relationship with the history of the building they inhabit, particularly those that, like PICA, were initially founded as artist-run initiatives?

Liebetrau’s practice investigates the architectural, historical and relational specificities of artist-run institutions and other arts organisations through site-specific works that directly reference the site of exhibition. Liebetrau selects overlooked narratives and distinctive histories attributed to each built environment she encounters as the driving force for new artworks. She often adopts several roles to respond to the site, combining the methods and processes of both an investigative journalist and historian to dig deeper into accessible archives.