SASA Gallery

SASA Gallery is the university gallery on campus at CityWest and plays host to a variety of shows by local and Australian professional artists, some of whom at Masters or PHD students at the uni. There is a very wide range of stuff shown here. For example, their program included a show of ‘outsider art’ called Margin to Centre: Visionary Art, an architecture show and the university graduate Honours exhibition.
The space itself is a big grey concrete room with supporting bollards in the centre — it is a somewhat harsh space that can be challenging for artists to use. Shows at SASA tend to hinge on the ability of the group of artists (SASA doesn’t generally host solo shows) involved to ‘own’ the space and adjust the mood of it with their work.
As SASA is a ‘research’ gallery — meaning it supports artists that use their art as form of finding and testing ideas out. This sounds kind of abstract and possibly dull but the best shows here tend to operate on your sensations as well as your mind. In addition to each exhibition, there is an artist’s talk, a public opening and a small published catalogue with one or two essays. The essays vary from creative to academic writing, sometimes revealing more about the show and sometimes furthering the mystery.
I don’t love every single show that happens here, but it is well worth coming along to openings and finding the shows I do like.