Spoiling Illusions in Helen’s Shed
Saturday 28 October, 1.30-3pm | Adelaide Central Gallery
Join Melinda Rackham, V Barratt and Sasha Grbich in a participatory conversion on gender in the artworld on the last day of Helen Fuller’s survey exhibition Shedding. Discussions will be drawn from Melinda’s new book, co-authored with Countess founder Elvis Richardson, CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions Since 2008.
It’s undeniable that unconscious bias, institutional resistance, cultural asymmetry, and the algorithms of mediated spaces all maintain an artworld which recognises and rewards art and artists based on gender, race and class. Yet despite many waves of feminisms, equity legislation, women inclusive projects and political actions, the myth of white male genius persists.
Please join our conversation in Helen’s shed where the personal is political, as we unpick the structures and strictures of power, and suggest strategies to re/build an art world ecosystem that sustains and celebrates our diversities. Your contribution to this conversation is welcomed!
The recently launched publications:
CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions Since 2008 Melinda Rackham & Elvis Richardson, Countess.Report, Melbourne 2023
Hellen Fuller Ross Wolfe, Sasha Grbich & Glen Barkley, Wakefield Press, Adelaide 2023 will both be available for purchase.
https://www.melindarackham.com
Melinda Rackham is an artist who writes and speaks on art, artists, ecosystems, and injustices. Immersed in an early internet they explored virtual identity, sexuality and virality. As a curator and organisation director she opened new opportunities for artists and experiences for audiences in networked and emerging technologies and hybrid art-science collaborations. Over several decades as an author, their crafting of critical and engaging dialogues and texts, appears in accessible and academic arenas, in print and online.
An Adjunct Professor at UniSA Creative, Spoiling Illusions is their third book.
Sasha Grbich (SA) is a mid-career artist, writer and lecturer who works responsively with places and communities. An avid collector of things, found footage, sounds and stories; she is fascinated by the way art takes part in the politics of everyday life. Sasha approaches artworks as ecologies: unfinished events that perform with audience and in local environments. Sasha is currently completing her PhD on …..
https://www.virginiabarratt.net
Virginia Barratt (they/them) is a trans-media artist, researcher, writer and performer living on Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide, so-called Australia. Their PhD focuses on panic, affect and deterritorialization, explored through performance, experimental poetics and vocalities. As a founding member of the cyberfeminist collective VNS Matrix, still active through occasional collaborations, Virginia has been instrumental in developing critiques around gender and technology over three decades.
