Humans are innately malleable beings. We often find ourselves placed within taxonomic structures and repressive systems that usurp our pliability, moulding us into prescriptive versions of who we should be and how we should live. The artworks I’ve selected call us to think on this — how can we reside in the blurry in-between spaces? One tactic posed by these artists is resistance.
These artworks are gently subversive. Merging the personal and political, they agitate social, cultural, historical and artistic constraints as a refusal of binary thinking or dominant forces. Through various outputs, the artists offer alternative ways of considering the complexities of identity and selfhood (self-making, self-belonging, self-positioning).
I was drawn to the subjectivity and performativity of the body and its use as an artistic vehicle in many of the works, in particular the representation of identity as fluid, polymorphic and intersectional. Interrogating the roles of perception and representation, they explore how we connect to ourselves and each other, and how we are conditioned by our environments.
Sarah Rose (she/they) is a Gadigal/Sydney-based curator and arts worker, and is currently the Associate Curator and Executive Assistant, Artspace, Sydney. In recent years, Sarah has collaborated closely with artists to produce over 20 group and solo exhibitions. Rose has previously held positions at the National Association for the Visual Arts, Create NSW, and is currently Coordinator of Contemporary Arts Organisations Australia. She is Co-founder and Project Coordinator for ‘More Than Reproduction’, an artist-run printmaking initiative for female-identifying and gender diverse printmakers in Australia.
