‘DEATH DRIVE’ is the product of deep collaboration and a shared interest in the baroque extravagance of survival after life-threatening periods. This exhibition understands ‘death drive’ as an experience born from a fork in the road, where death is one possible destiny, but instead the other path is chosen. What spirals of euphoria does this choice release; what deathly-energy can drive life? That obscene whipped-up energy needs to find another outlet. The show will consist of new sculptural installations, video, and sound, by Rebekah Bide, Jennifer Boyd, Mariana Portela Echeverri, and Madeleine Stack. Whether through creating a proxy to be responsible for work and life decisions, building an erotics from the closeness of environmental catastrophe, a beached body turning to trepanation, or the uncovering of an imaginary lesbian cloister, the artists in ‘DEATH DRIVE’ choose their own destiny, an exaggerated form of survival that refuses the inevitable.
Accompanying text by Jennifer Boyd and Madeleine Stack.
*This exhibition contains reference to suicide and wildfires in Portugal.
This project is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
Gallery Two:
‘Lytton’s Kumain’
Azadeh Hamzeii
Sound by Rouzbeh Esfandarmaz and Kamyar Arsani.
In ‘Lytton’s Kumain’, Azadeh Hamzeii subverts gender roles in the male oriented Islamic mystic practices found in Sufism. While conscious of the political implications, Hamzeii presents a ritualised act stripped of its ceremony and grandiosity. ‘Lytton’s Kumain’ is an investigation of the limits of ritual, tradition and controlled religious expression.
Accompanying text by Bobbi Beggs.
Exhibition Opening: 24th January, 6:00 – 9:00pm
Outer Space acknowledges the traditional custodians of Meanjin, where this project is carried out, and we pay our respects to Elders – past, present and emerging.
Image Credit: Jennifer Boyd and Madeleine Stack ‘Death Drive’ 2020.
