A captivating and humorous new exhibition focused on women’s self-portraiture is now open at Platform Arts.
From guest curator and photographer Jody Haines, Refusal/Futurity explores how contemporary women’s self-portraiture using photography and video can subvert the colonial, western and patriarchal gaze.
The exhibition, which has taken over Platform Arts’ Galleries One and Two, presents works from Eddie Abd, Hayley Millar Baker, Amy Carkeek, Pia Johnson, Clare Rae, Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis and Jody Haines.
Launched on Saturday, May 10, the exhibition also includes a free field trip facilitated by Haines on Saturday, May 17, a self-portrait workshop on July 12 and the release of a special podcast featuring Pia Johnson.
Haines’ work, which has been commissioned and exhibited widely across Australia, forms a dialogue between Country, body and self, using large-scale public art, projections and photographic installations to explore identity, representations and the female gaze.
She said Refusal/Futurity was all about subverting the dominant ideas around the use of photography.
“So that’s subverting the way photography has always been used; as a reinforcement of colonial hierarchies, perpetuating the many forms of the gaze, whether that’s male gaze, white gaze, the returned gaze,” Haines said.
“I was interested in how other women were using photography as a mechanism for subverting those dominant narratives and how they use it as a way of poking fun and expanding conversations.
“I always think of resistance as what (American theorist) bell hooks calls ‘radical possibilities’. You can have resistance, but what can you do with that? What can become from that?”
Refusal/Futurity is at Platform Arts until Friday, July 11. Gallery entry is free. Visit platformarts.org.au for more information.
Matt Hewson
