My annotated bibliography contains carefully selected textsand images that, over time, have become crucial to my practice as a writer and researcher. As someone who identifies as an Australian Muslim, many of the works that have resonated with me are those that discuss issues and topics that are close to my heart and my own […]
Walking around the gallery space with an art conservator’s eyesight, I see paintings in a very specific way. I always start with colour. I see warmth or coolness. The vibrations or the movements. The dust, dirt and grime settled atop the canvas’ surface. I see the artists’ choices in the brushstrokes – what is original […]
During severe lockdown in 2020, a group of us formed a Pacific Reading Group comprising Yuki Kihara (interdisciplinary artist who is representing Aotearoa New Zealand at 59th Venice Biennale 2022), Natalie King (curator of Yuki Kihara: Paradise Camp), Ioana Gordon-Smith (Wellington-based assistant curator for the Venice Biennale) and Allan Haeweng (Kanak curator in New Caledonia). […]
Seed CatalogueWelcome to the un Magazine catalogue of flower seeds. Made available within are nineteen beings, each having persisted from the earliest of mail order catalogues through to their last. Each entry tells a plant story in language made possible through their growth and together they could even make a garden. I hope you will […]
Kink is a cross-disciplinary working group researching and formalising a history of queer Australian art. Our work is defined by an interest in publishing, scholarship, advocacy, and public access. We are deeply passionate about generating new and open resources for and about the Australian LGBTQIA+ visual arts community. Below, each of our group’s current members […]
citations for a dream1 And sothe whole thing collapse at the dawn of history2 when tiger look askance on His earthisland possessions riding shotgun the crocodile3 little bunso and kapatid kayak kuyaswing generous-genealogied into the mouth of a dream where wound are apertureand not deep pit to lose oneself down4 deep lore come present itself […]
by Caitlin Franzmann and Amaara Raheem Caitlin and Amaara sit on the quartz sandstone ridges of Karawatha Forest surrounded by Eucalypts. Sinking into geological time, the folding rocks and plant fossils enfold their skin, their senses. The rocks tell of ancient floods and volcanic eruptions. Stories of connection to Country exist both in the landscape […]
The following texts and filmic references were instrumental in the creation of In a World Full of Angels (2022), a short film commissioned by Gertrude Contemporary that is currently available to view online as part of their Digital Commissions program. Channelled by the film’s main character, a pilgrim skydiver, these texts and filmic references have […]
by Gabrielle Bergman Earlier this year I joined an art theory reading group. In between work commitments, navigating a pregnancy, completing a second university degree and managing an interstate relocation, I was determined to find time to meet with a group of students to learn and engage in art discourse for the pure purpose of […]
ED: Do you own a video camera?RENEE MADISON: No. Fred hates them. FRED MADISON: I like to remember things my own way.ED: What do you mean by that? FRED MADISON: How I remembered them. Not necessarily the way they happened. – David Lynch, Lost Highway (1997) As a child I had a photographic memory. If […]
MEREDITH Always be recording. LULU Yeah, every time. But yeah, they’re all super different. And some of them are guided by one person. It’s super significant that Torika would do Community Reading Room on her own. I feel this is a very community view, almost an aunty role. MEREDITH This is a sort of a […]
It was the night of Limbo Party’s queer ‘YEEHAW’ night and I was sick as a dog. My boyfriend had gone to a friend’s wedding that night. Originally, we’d both been attending – oh Covid restrictions! I tucked myself into bed, feeling sorry for myself after being uninvited. Maybe they think I’m too messy. I […]
As the severity of Covid-19 restrictions have been dialled up and down over the past two years, one rule with a significant impact on my work as an independent writer remained a constant: university libraries largely barred physical access to non-students. This has been the case for most Sydney campuses at least and it’s only […]
Burn, Ian. ‘Is Art History Any Use to Artists?’ In Dialogue: Writings in Art History, 1–14. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991. This essay has entered my life on several occasions, and every time I read it I interpret it slightly differently. Burn’s essay hypothesises that, fundamentally, there’s a disconnect between art making and the making […]
TITLE [untitled] ceramic cup ARTIST/MAKER Pauline Hoerboer DATE OF MANUFACTURE c. 2017 DATE OF REPORT February 2022 DIMENSIONS H 90 W 100 D 86 mm CURRENT LOCATION Kitchen cupboard above the microwave, second shelf from the bottom, to the left. KNOWN PROVENANCE Purchased at Kali Tengah, The Hague, 2017. Description A small ceramic vessel designed […]
Uncle Charles Moran, Uncle Greg Harrington, and Norm Sheehan. ‘On Country Learning.’ Design and Culture 10, no. 1, (2018): 71–9. Graham, Mary. ‘Understanding Human Agency in Terms of Place.’ PAN: Philosophy Activism Nature, no. 3 (2009): 71–7. These two seminal writings step out the importance of Place (Country) and its reconfiguration into and around the […]
The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the making of the feminine (1984) by Roszika Parker is a seminal text in contemporary textile and fibre art discourse. Centring on the history of embroidery and the role it played in the construction of the ‘feminine,’ the work has weathered much criticism since its original publication in 1984. While […]
Précis – In December 2021 ad agency Clemenger BBDO announced a collaboration with art collective Glue Society and the University of Tasmania for Earth’s Black Box, a large steel vault recording ongoing climate data much like a plane’s flight recorder. Drawing on this project, I reconceptualise the ‘black box’ – as container of knowledge but […]
I am a descendant of south-eastern Europe, a prisoner of war refugee and a post-war migrant: a second-generation Australian. I am conscious that while I am Australian, I live on the landsof Aboriginal Australians. Over two decades, I have sustaineda curatorial practice that honours this awareness. Travelling Australia from the lands of the Gimuy-walubarra yidi […]
THE ARGUMENT The One Eyed Man has cultivated an obsessional quality in us.It has become the keystone for paradigms of creative practice that are otherwise outside the normalised strictures of two allegedly art-historically trained artists. Through its polyphony of rhythms and basslines and harmonies and dissonances and instruments and players it ruptures and intervenes and […]
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York:Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993. I’m late to the work of Octavia Butler, having put the other Butler (Judith) ahead on my reading list. While I haven’t made it much beyond introductions and crib notes with Judith (whose teachings on gender have anyway passed into a realm […]
The-one-who-loves-knowledge, he says: ‘What is writing? What are its places of storage? Compare it to its like, O overflowing one!— Book of Thoth From my window, between this building and the next, I’m counting ibis. In the morning over coffee … 1, 2 … at lunch … 4, 5, 6 … at dusk …7, 8, […]
sanitation was a response to the putridness of British life classed, crammed, sickthe toilet is where youshitthere are chickpeas simmering gentlyon the stoveidentical almost to mybody simmering in the hot baththoughts slowing downor in the shower, speeding upSpecial Agent Dale Cooperperceived the demonic presenceof Bob by smashinghis head through the bathroom mirrorI was in the […]
Aesthetic perception is necessarily historical. — Leela GandhiWe’ve got to play ordinary venues at the moment but I dream of playing the rubble of London’s palaces.— Anwen Crawford We met as workers in a Middle Eastern restaurant. We worked less for them and more with them. You on dishes after the day’s art and me […]