You Are Here indicates the point on the map where you find yourself now. It is also the name of the Sydney based art collective which explores the world from the subjective potential of this place. Wherever you are, you are here: whether you are lost or found you are placed in the world on a point immediately related to the unknown around you, which like a derive opens up with endless possibilities. This subjective engagement forms the basis of our work – we look at the world from the point where you are and the steps that could be taken from a. to b., from here to there, from the known to the unknown, from now to the future.

You Are Here is an open experiment working through art, social research, curating, action, events, discussions and publications. We seek to breakdown the boundaries where one ends and another begins – working as artist/curators, writers/activists, speakers/listeners, cartographers/losties, organisers/disorganisers. You Are Here pursues non-hierarchical and dialogic forms of creativity seeking points of connection between artists, viewers, audiences and subjects.

Our own artwork focuses on opening up possibilities for living in, and thinking about, the world differently. Key themes we have explored have been spatial politics and mapping. For example we have a 10 year project mapping the changes taking place in the inner city Sydney suburb of Redfern the 2016: Archive Project or in 2008 we went to Yogyakarta for an Asialink residency and made a film project Cities Without Maps - Kota Tanpa Peta.

We organize discussions and workshops which place the teacher and student as equals. Our notions of pedagogy are based in the idea of skill sharing, open discussions and information swapping, as all people have something to teach and learn. As Paulo Freire explains “We must realize that the aspirations, the motives, and the objectives implicit in meaningful thematics are human aspirations, motives and objectives. They do not exist ‘out there’ somewhere, as static entities: they are occurring here.”

We also curate exhibitions such as There Goes The Neighbourhood and If You See Something, Say Something which aim to provide sustained relationships between groups of artists related to our own practice and interests thus placing our own work within this collective framework. While we may not always be in the exhibition we like to think of curating as an extension of art making – both our own and others.

You Are Here seeks moments of engagement between art, activism, revolution and everyday life.

You are never really lost – you are here.