Join JC in discussion with Bruno Booth, Marziya Mohammedali and Theo Costantino about who we are and how we define ourselves as we navigate the arts industry as artists, makers, writers and storytellers. To be opened with Christina Chau reading Between You, Me and Lindy from Where the Ink Falls.

Audience provocations are welcome in this robust discussion on identity and belonging with the challenges that surface in our search for recognition, opportunities and to reclaim historical narratives.

12.00pm Gallery open for registrations

12.30pm – 1.30pm Panel discussion

1.30pm – 2.00pm Networking and refreshments

2.00pm stay on for a 30min screening of Big Art: Riven with Fire, a look at Lindy Lee’s public art practice with UAP.

“Authenticity is something we all yearn for—being true and real. And it’s the yearning for this, which underlies questions of identity and belonging. Dōgen, the 13th century Japanese Zen Master, wrote that ‘to study the self is to forget the self and be authenticated by the ten thousand things’, meaning that to understand who and what you are, one must let go of all the constructs and ideas about ‘self’ that we habitually default to. Being authentic is to engage without the ego projections that distort reality. By directly and openly engaging with precisely what enters your life in any given moment, we are authentic. That connection transcends intellectual constructs. We’re not thinking about it, we are it. In that moment the connection is what we are.”

Lindy Lee, Interview #159 by Soo-Min Shim, Liminal Magazine, 17 January 2021.

Speakers

JC (they/them) lives and works in Perth, Western Australia. They are an artist, activist, technician and the business owner of Strategic Art Services. JC’s practice embraces sculpture, installation, performance and new media works. They are primarily concerned with investigating contemporary conceptions around gender, sexuality, desire and embodied identity.

Bruno Booth (he/him) is a disabled artist living in Fremantle, WA. His recent work uses participation and large sculptural forms to create experiential works that challenge the able bodied to navigate a world that is uncomfortable by design. His constructed experiences poke fun at the assumptions many people have surrounding disability and yet they also leave lasting impressions that engender a deeper response from the audience. He is a finalist in the John Stringer Prize 2022.

Marziya Mohammedali (they/them) is a migrant writer, photographer, designer and artist. Their practice focuses on narratives of dissent, identity, migration and transition, working for social justice through multidisciplinary creative practice. They are undertaking a PhD at Edith Cowan University focusing on identity, protest and photography. They are the Deputy Editor of Jalada – A pan-African writing collective, where they are currently producing an anthology on the theme of Resistance.

Theo Costantino (they/them) is a queer non-binary artist based on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja / Perth, and Executive Director of ART ON THE MOVE. Their practice includes drawing, sculpture, video, photography, written works and performance. They have exhibited and undertaken residency projects within Australia, Europe, the UK and USA both in a solo capacity and collaboratively. Hear them In Conversation for Soft/Hard: radical love by R. Goo.

Soft / Hard: radical love by R. Goo

3 JUNE – 28 AUGUST 2022

Drawing from the Curtin University Art Collection, Soft/Hard: radical love by R. Goo responds to the theme of ‘Queering the Gallery’ through the unique perspective of the late multidisciplinary trans artist, Bec O’Neil, who worked under the pseudonym ‘R. Goo’. Through the Curtin Bachelor of Fine Art student placement program, he worked closely with the Collection in 2021. More recently, Collection Manager Lia McKnight has worked collaboratively with artist Beth Scholey to bring the exhibition to fruition.

O’Neil’s art practice explored trauma, queerness, alternate histories and futures and these themes are similarly drawn out in his curatorial approach to this exhibition. Covering a diverse range of media and approaches, there are close to 40 works created over a period of 50 years, many of which have not previously been shown at the John Curtin Gallery. Artists include Olga Cironis, Theo Costantino, Sidney Nolan, Lisa Reihana, Joan Ross, Christian Thompson, and Aida Tomescu. Drawing them all together is O’Neil’s vision of acceptance of ourselves and others in whatever shape or form we take.

LINDY LEE: MOON IN A DEW DROP

3 JUNE – 28 AUGUST 2022

Lindy Lee is one of the most respected contemporary artists working in Australia today. Influential Australian Chinese artist, Lindy Lee, explores identity, history, spirituality and our relationship to the cosmos. She creates meditative works using light, shadow and scale across many artforms. Lindy Lee: Moon in a Dew Drop takes an in-depth look at four decades of extraordinary practice.

Working across a range of disciplines including painting, sculpture, installation and public art, Lee draws on her Australian and Chinese heritage to develop works that engage with the history of art, cultural authenticity, personal identity and the cosmos. Key influences are the philosophies of Daoism and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, which explore the connections between humanity and nature.

Take in shimmering, meditative and thought-provoking works in her major survey exhibition which draws on her experience of living between two cultures.