Alongside the Black Lives Matter movement, the anti- monument movement has been growing. In Bristol in the United Kingdom, a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was dragged down and dumped in the river; in the United States, ‘statues of Christopher Columbus have been beheaded.’[^1] In Australia, although colonial statues have largely avoided destruction thus […]

Franz Kafka’s short story ‘The City Coat of Arms’ (1931), begins with a group of people who all agree that it would be a great idea to build a tower. ‘At first all the arrangements for building the Tower of Babel were characterized by fairly good order … perhaps too perfect.’ Arrangements are made for […]

Dear E, I read in an article that the letter ‘E’ is what you preferred to be known as towards the end of your life.[^1] I’m accepting this, as I cannot ask you or seek your consent. It’s 2020. I am writing about your famed decision to boycott women in 1971, and a selection of […]

We began this issue with questions. What does it mean to sit against something? What does it mean to create against something? What are we against? How do we make art against the world? Does anti necessarily inscribe a binary logic? Does ante necessarily inscribe a chronological one? We still have all these questions, but […]

The desire for a disalienated life-world — as envisioned in the slogan bread and roses — is if nothing else the demand for everyone to enjoy the kinds of aesthetic contingency that capital cordons off for the wealthy. Kay Gabriel I write to you but in public; my description of you exceeds our relation. It […]

ANTI/ANTE DANCER : (noun) A dancer who is preoccupied not with the expressive notion of dance, but with the possibilities, communities, kinships and images that emerge from the pursuit of pleasure and rigour through dancing. ‘AUTHENTICITY’ : (noun) A dilemma to be inspected, in dance as much as in handbags. The anti-dancer moves towards the […]

Anticolonial Fireman Stripper Communes with (Wronged) Asterion in the Last Days of Fountains, 2019, acrylic (mis-tints) on poly-cotton (discarded quilt cover), 1400 × 2100 mm Manspread, 2020, acrylic (mis-tints) on (discarded) board, 300 × 400 mm Pasiphaë Poster, 2020, acrylic (mis-tints) on (discarded) Masonite, 1220 × 2440 mm Sexualised Workers Mural (‘Real’ vs. Actual Work: […]

SHELTER PRESS · The Weight Of History # # # # # Against classicism and for the possibility of new movements in sound, works from a series of 58 notations with three combs. All images courtesy the artist: *One*, 2020; *Twenty*, 2020; *Fifteen*, 2020; *Seventeen*, 2020, ink on paper, 27.9 x 21 cm, unframed. *14 […]

Sumugan Sivanesan is an anti-disciplinary artist and writer. Often working collaboratively, his interests span minority politics, artist infrastructures and more-than human rights. Sumugan organises with Black Earth, a collective who address interacting issues of race, gender, colonialism and climate justice in Berlin.

If they don’t see the joy in the film at least they’ll see the black Take My Hand, Let’s Dwell In This Space A pair of Black filmmakers. They’ve always been outsiders. At odds with the psychosis of whiteness, their lived experience has always been one of rootlessness and existential absurdity. One of being a […]

To recall is to mine. Language that is used to describe memory may refer to a geological excavation, a process of extracting from the past.[^1] Dig through densely sedimented layers of events, unbury the precious minerals of history. But the past is not constituted by solid ground, does not consist of absolute occurrences. We have […]

Lou Garcia-Dolnik is a poet working on unceded Gadigal land. A poetry editor for Voiceworks and alumnus of the Banff Centre’s Emerging Writers Intensive, their work has been shortlisted in the 2020 Blake Poetry Prize, awarded third place in PRISM International’s Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize and second place in Overland’s Judith Wright Poetry Prize. They […]

un Magazine: Could you tell us a bit about your country? Fiona Foley: I was born on my Country, which is Maryborough. We have two tracks of land. We have six islands and one of those islands is Fraser Island, also known as K’gari — it’s the largest sand island in the world. On the […]

My friends keep sending me grants and opportunities. I appreciate it, I really do. It’s nice to know that people are thinking of me. But I never want to apply for a grant again. I can’t. My body recoils. It feels like taking my skin off for nothing. We’ve all been talking a lot this […]

Whatungarongaro te tangata toituu te whenua (As man disappears from sight, the land remains) Indigenous struggles against capitalism and imperialism are often struggles orientated around land. As Maaori, we base our rela- tionship with land on reciprocity, physically and ethically com- mitting ourselves to land through a just and sustainable give and take. We even […]

# # # # # David Egan is an artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. All drawings courtesy the artist, 2020. This text is also available as a radio play performed by Brennan Olver, Katherine Botten, Clare Longley and Lucreccia Quintanilla, with music by Wet Kiss.

Autumn Royal is a poet, researcher and educator based in Narrm/Melbourne. Autumn is an associate editor for Liquid Architecture’s Disclaimer journal and interviews editor for Cordite Poetry Review. Lorilee Yang is an artist who lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne).

Dhyakiyarr vs The King Wally Wilfred’s sculpture Dhyakiyarr vs The King delves into the story of Dhakiyarr, a respected Balamumu leader from north-east Arnhem Land. In 1932, five Japanese and two white trepangers were speared at Woodah Island in Blue Mud Bay. The fishermen had violated territorial rights, threatened local people with guns and raped […]

In 1911, during the wet season, Northern Territory police officer Constable Johns arrested Ayaiga, also known as ‘Neighbour’ and three other Aboriginal men accused of robbing a white man’s hut. Johns shackled the four prisoners and they began the 32-kilometre journey to Roper Bar Police Station on foot, escorted by Johns on horseback. Arriving at […]

By definition, there is no master sketch for what such a thing might look like. It can only be an experiment. — Maggie Nelson Section 1: A Portrait of the Writer as a Failed Urbanist In Carceral Capitalism, Jackie Wang stares into an abyss of hopelessness, acutely aware that prison abolition is as implausible as […]

When I leave Lujayn’s room and I turn off the light, I turn off the dark as well. The paradox of form and void is that each exists by virtue of the other’s appearance and also by virtue of the other’s disappearance. The dark exists because there is light; this is obvious. You turn on […]