“The ideas that we attribute to bodies are arbitrary and often accepted but don’t really exist,” says Zoë Bastin in our latest podcast series, Conflated. “Bodies are very malleable substances that can become whatever they want.”
Conflated is a short series centred on the ideas of inflation and conflation, linking with a touring exhibition aptly titled, Conflated. Whether metaphorical or material, ideas of inflation and deflation can be taken in creative, environmental, and political ways. The 11 contemporary artists in Conflated show this in myriad forms—which Bastin speaks to.
Bastin is one of the co-curators and exhibiting artists in Conflated. While known for her dance and choreography practice, Bastin also works across sculpture, video, radio and printmaking.
Bastin talks about the ideas behind Conflated—both as an exhibition and a concept—as well as how she began dancing at an incredibly young age, how dance can be a gendered form, and what transformative possibilities Bastin looks to beyond this. We also talk about queer politics, shame, how bodies are objectified in art and life, and Bastin’s advice to younger artists.
With a current showing at Deakin University Art Gallery, NETS Victoria are touring Conflated nationally throughout 2023:
Logan Art Gallery
(Logan QLD)
29 July 2023—3 September 2023
Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery
(Swan Hill VIC)
1 October 2023—3 December 2023
This series is kindly sponsored by NETS Victoria who are nationally touring Conflated, assisted by assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program and the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.
Produced and presented by Tiarney Miekus, engineering by Patrick Telfer, and music by Mino Peric.
Developed in 2022 by Artback NT as part of Apmere Mparntwe—the Australian Ceramics Triennale— touring exhibition Clay on Country, showing now at New England Regional Art Museum, showcases the diversity of ceramics in the Central Desert.
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
In Anmatyerr artist Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne—which focuses on the Central Desert food source Arnwekety (bush plum)—the influence and love of her Country and culture is palpable. Elizabeth Mbitjana Pitijana is now showing at Niagara Galleries.
Chris Langlois explores the abstract nature and fugue-like quality of the ocean in his latest exhibition at Olsen Gallery, which presents a dozen new large-scale works with endless variations on the seascape.
In his latest exhibition at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Jack Ball challenges the extractive history of the archive while searching for shapes that can articulate the complexity of trans life.
Lismore Regional Gallery is reopening to the public following extensive closure resulting from the devastating floods in 2022. The redesigned space will host a number of new exhibitions opening this weekend.
