By Claire Cao — 19 September, 2019
It takes a 50-minute train ride and two buses to get from South-West Sydney to Rushcutters Bay. Trips of such length and commitment are punctuated by interesting characters: teens with bum bags talking a big game about their sexual conquests; aunties propping their callused feet up on the seats; a woman chomping on a lamb…
By Melinda Reid — 10 September, 2019
At the August opening of The essayist at The Cross Arts Projects, I found myself feeling the combined effects of the anti-inflammatories I’d taken for a sore back, the surprisingly warm afternoon weather, a room full of new works, and a recently digested dense ginger tart. The conditions were ripe for a brief daydream. I…
By Emily Stewart — 6 September, 2019
Eight years ago Cherine Fahd’s grandmother gave her a collection of family photos. In a nondescript envelope Fahd found pictures from her grandfather’s funeral; he had died too young, when she was still a baby. Although Fahd and her grandmother were very close, the pictures revealed a grief that had been otherwise unarticulated her whole…
By Jane O'Sullivan — 23 August, 2019
They’re so bright I can barely look at them. I manage seconds before I have to duck back out again and stare at the white walls or the polished concrete floor. They’re so bright, they demand to be seen but refuse to be looked at. The afterimage burns. The bright orange letters follow me wherever…
By Lucie Reeves-Smith — 13 August, 2019
A fortnight of equatorial downpours preceded the opening of Michael Armitage’s solo exhibition, The Promised Land, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. With a heavy blanket of humidity cast across the city, this oppressive atmosphere seemed to sit comfortably alongside the bright colours and rotting surfaces of his paintings. Slick and warm, the…
By Holly Isemonger — 9 August, 2019
We’re on a packed train on the London underground and Beatrice Gibson is having a panic attack. Her confessional voiceover is paired with images of destruction, global turmoil, family footage of kids playing, and domestic life. Through this kaleidoscopic collage of life in the 21st century, I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead (2018) asks:…
By June Miskell — 23 July, 2019
‘Embracing a love ethic means that we utilize all the dimensions of love in our everyday lives.’ bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (2001), p. 94 ‘Love’ remains devoid of a singular definition. Manifesting in many forms—be it ‘care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect and knowledge’, love is more than something we feel, it…
By Naomi Riddle — 19 July, 2019
‘Recalcitrant’ is one of those four syllable words that’s fun to say out loud. It’s a mouthful of stones, a jumble of hard-edged consonants that mimic the word’s definition: disobedient, difficult, wayward, wilful, and above all, uncooperative. Contemporary Recalcitrants, curated by James Gatt, brings together the works of Christopher Hanrahan, Anthony Johnson, Elizabeth Pulie and…
By Rebecca Hall — 17 July, 2019
In place of a wall text, OK Democracy, We Need to Talk leads with a TV screen that plays a brief, simulated text conversation—a digital quarrel—between the curators and ‘Democracy’: I think things could be better between us. You’ve changed… OMG…is this a conversation or a provocation!? It is both—according to the extended curatorial statement…
By Claire Cao — 5 July, 2019
The birth of Communist China heralded an explosion of life. Cocooned in the monumental shadows of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, Mao Zedong publicly avowed that a greater population meant greater power for his fledgling state. Like blood haemorrhaging from a cut, births increased—by the late ‘70s, China had a population of more than 900…