Amina McConvell is an artist, curator, and community arts worker who lives in Darwin and often enables cross-cultural exchanges between artists in the Northern Territory and South East Asia in her role as the creative producer of Asia in Darwin. Amina also works at Darwin Community Arts as the creative producer of Arts Access Darwin […]
Artist: Torbjørn Rødland. Years ago I encountered an image of a caged child online. A pair of jeans lay crumpled on the top of the cage, which was flanked by a discarded tube of moisturiser and a single yellow earplug. The sweet, shirtless boy peered out gleefully from his wire enclosure, his cherubic face illuminated […]
Artists: Alex Selenitsch (ATMOSPHERES) and Joseph Kosuth (A Short History of My Thought). A series of neon phrases are arranged like notes along a staff, in a staggered sequence across the gallery walls. And the words hum, with the prolonged electric buzz one hears from streetlights during the night. One step past a glowing red […]
Artists: Rebecca Thomas and Meredith Turnbull, with contributions by Fiona Abicare, Kay Abude, Damiano Bertoli, Terri Bird, Ross Coulter, Sarah crowEST, Andrea Eckersley, Debris Facility Pty Ltd, Christopher L G Hill, Jenny Hector, John Meade, Mascha Moje, Spiros Panigirakis, Sean Peoples, Lisa Radford, Masato Takasaka, Salote Tawale, Sarah Ujmaia, Manon van Kouswijk and Behn Ja […]
Artists: Tony Albert, Archie Barry & Max Milne, Liam Benson, Get to Work, Angelica Mesiti, Echo Morgan and Angela Yu Curator: Grace Partridge Engender is an exhibition about many things: gender, race, self-representation and power – essentially an exploration of identity. Amidst the constant news feed from the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns in the lead […]
Artist: Robert George “Imagine, though, that the makers of Fourth Cinema come to accent whanaugatanga or wairua or aroha in their productions” Barry Barclay Death, like life, is one moment intrinsically linked with the human experience. While we all have different ways of seeing, understanding and functioning in this world, the event of leaving life […]
Artist: Warraba Weatherall In August I was invited to preview the exhibition InstitutionaLies by Warraba Weatherall at Metro Arts Brisbane. Warraba and acting curator Llewellyn Millhouse walked Brisbane-based Quandamooka curator Freja Carmichael and I through the exhibition. We were both left speechless. I am familiar with Warraba’s work, having followed his mural and street art […]
For Issey Miyake-clad curators the world over, 2017 has marked a unique alignment of the stars, a once-a-decade overlapping of Documenta in Kassel, The Venice Biennale and Münster Skulptur Projekte (SPM). While it is safe to say that Venice and Documenta were directed squarely at the art illuminati, SPM was as close to an antithesis […]
Artists: Paul Gorrie, Neil Morris, Carly Sheppard, Kuan-Hsiang Liu, Sojugang, Alice Skye, Meriki Onus and Dtarneen Onus Williams. Curator: Nayuka Gorrie ‘Black people are experts at surviving,’ announces curator and emcee Nayuka Gorrie, a Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri, and Yorta Yorta writer. She is standing on a stage lined with Australian plants, between curtains emblazoned with […]
Artists: Tony Albert, Rushdi Anwar, Sophie Cassar, Tabita Rezaria and Liz Linden. Curators: Georgie Meagher. Is it a measure of resilience to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick biosphere?[^1] Within a biosphere subject to an entanglement of hyperobjects – white supremacy, patriarchy and climate change, just to name a few – finding ways to […]
Artists: Raj Kumar, Sonia Leber & David Chesworth and Adeela Sulamen. Curators: Mikala Tai and Kate Warren. I don’t want to be there when it happens takes its title from a work by Adeela Sulamen, and forms a statement of intent for this exhibition at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. The exhibition features the […]
The following is a series of transcribed and edited conversations between producers of ‘Facts on the Ground: a situated reading group’ Hannah Ekin & Jorgen Doyle and Apmere angkentye-kenhe project artist Beth Sometimes. Introduction Apmere angkentye-kenhe – which translates to ‘a place for language’ – is an artist-led social project made in collaboration with Arrernte […]
Félicia Atkinson is a visual artist, an experimental musician and the co-publisher of the independent imprint Shelter Press and curatorial platform Argument with Bartolomé Sanson. Her works explores improvisation, fiction, instant composition, noise, abstraction and poetry. Born 1981 in Paris, Félicia graduated with Honors from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Her paintings, drawings, […]
The following is a series of transcribed and edited conversations between producers of ‘Facts on the Ground: a situated reading group’ Hannah Ekin & Jorgen Doyle and Apmere angkentye-kenhe project artist Beth Sometimes. Introduction Apmere angkentye-kenhe – which translates to ‘a place for language’ – is an artist-led social project made in collaboration with Arrernte […]
Dear un, We had talked over email about this text being a ‘postcard from sunny Perth’, but it’s hailing as I write this and the state deficit for 2017-18 is forecast to be $2 billion. What can I tell you about the state of the arts in Perth, Western Australia? The usual WA line is […]
Given that this iteration of documenta has been particularly shadowed by calls for political accountability, manifesting in rigorous critique bordering boycott, the exhibition’s title Learning from Athens could perhaps now, in the almost aftermath, be thoroughly reconsidered: What have we learnt from documenta?[^1] Unable to make it to Athens, I recently ventured east to Kassel […]
August is a time of year I really look forward to. It’s not the icy winds and rain of Narrm (Melbourne) or those short days when the sun seems to go to sleep at 4.30pm. It is because I look towards the north and pack my bags for Larrakia country, Darwin. August is a vibrant […]
Artist: Nástio Mosquito We sit in the middle of the front row to watch the thundering that was Nástio Mosquito’s Respectable Thief in late July as part of Season 2 (2017) at the Arts House in the North Melbourne Town Hall. A large shadow appears from behind a screen wall, singing an acapella gospel song. […]
Artists: Hannah Brontë, Skawennati, Esther Ige, Lisa Reihana, Salote Tawale and Leafa Wilson & Olga Krause Curators: Abby Cunnane and Charlotte Huddleston There is a sea change in the Ōtautahi arts scene. I can only speak to some of it, being Pākehā, but there is definitely change afoot and space is being made. This city […]
Artist: Luke Willis Thompson Within the context shaped by a musket barrel, is there any ethical responsibility besides silence, resistance and cunning?[^1] In the face of brutal violence, survival can be a radical form of resistance. Acting with poise and immediacy, Diamond Reynolds used her smartphone to record and broadcast, via Facebook Live, the moments […]
Artists: Francis Alÿs, Brook Andrew, Del Kathryn Barton, Farida Batool, Vivienne Binns, Leigh Bowery, Destiny Deacon and Virginia Fraser, Christine Dean, Kelly Doley and Diana Baker Smith, Ella Dreyfus, Regina José Galindo, Amala Groom, Samuel Hodge, Geumhyung Jeong, Kate Just, Samson Kambalu, Deborah Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Radha La Bia, Pat Larter, Richard Larter, Leigh Ledare, […]
Alana Hunt: I’m looking to you as a means of engaging with some of my own questions and uncertainties as a non-indigenous artist living in and being increasingly influenced by a community and environment – or perhaps, rather, a world – that is predominately Aboriginal. You and I are on opposite sides of the Kimberley, […]
Artist: Georgina Cue In the midst of geometric wooden structures, plush velvet drapery and other theatrical paraphernalia, a woman sits in an exaggerated stance, sheathed in a turban and cascading gown emblazoned with striking painted pleats. Beneath her, champagne satin shrouds a make-shift cardboard floor. Her face is painted a creamy ivory, the contours of […]
Artists: Anang Saptoto, Bambang “Toko” Witjaksono, Cinanti Astria Johansjah, Cut and Rescue, Handiwirman Saptura, Iwan Effendi, Julia Sarisetiati, Kokok P. Sancoko, Krack, Priyanto Sunarto, and R.E. Hartanto. Curator: Grace Samboh Featuring 13 artists from Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bandung, this is an uneven but energetic exhibition of Indonesian paper works curated by Grace Samboh. Her curatorial […]