In mid-2012, women’s rights were in the public consciousness. The Murdoch press was busy jeering at then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s appearance and childlessness and Tony Abbott had recently referred to “the housewives of Australia doing their ironing.” In Melbourne, 29-year-old Jill Meagher disappeared during a five-minute walk home, sparking national outcry.
This was the cultural backdrop when Kelly Doley embarked on The Learning Centre: Two Feminists, in September 2012. Over the course of the three-week project, Gillard would give her now-infamous, furiously biting misogyny speech; and the Jill Meagher case would proceed from missing-persons to rape and murder. Feminist energy had been bubbling under the surface but these events catalysed a tumult of media coverage and online discussion. It was a turning point.
The Learning Centre: Two Feminists took place at Westspace in Melbourne. In a gallery-turned-classroom with blackboards and desks, Doley met one-on-one with 16 strangers. In return for painting their portraits, she received a 30-minute lessons on feminism from each one. The expertise of the participants included feminist cultural theory, domestic violence advocacy, raunch-culture, eco-feminism, medieval feminism, and the black women’s rights movement. Chosen for their diverse perspectives, the resulting conversations traversed a wealth of knowledge, experience and opinion.
Out of this came Doley’s project, Things Learnt About Feminism. Drawing on the political slogan as a cliché of second-wave feminism, Doley condensed the conversations down into catchphrases (a process that took a year) and produced an installation of 95 hand-painted posters.
Her eye-catching aesthetic of black ink on fluoro backgrounds lets the slogans speak for themselves. The call to arms of ‘Equality Now!’ is matched by the weary ‘Going Round in Circles’ and ‘Pushing Big Rocks Up Hills’. ‘Feminism by Stealth’ sits alongside ‘The Time for Feminism by Stealth is Over’.
This range of ideas (often in opposition to one another) allows for a broad, intersectional catalogue of contemporary feminist thought. As Doley says, “I wanted to communicate the contradictory, overlapping, circular notions of what feminism is, or can be, or what it was.”
Doley’s 95 Things Learnt About Feminism are evidently not intended as a complete definition, if such a thing can even be attempted, but rather a snapshot of how the movement exists today: ever-shifting, many-layered, but stronger than ever.
Kelly Doley: Things Learnt About Feminism
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery
8 October – 10 December
For the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Paris-based Fondation Cartier has commissioned 14 new works by Indigenous artists across the globe, curated by renowned Kuku Yalanji artist, Tony Albert.
From revamped industrial sites to brand new spaces in Sydney, to openings in Adelaide, Melbourne, Cottesloe and Darwin—across Australia there’s a flurry of new and reopening gallery activity.
The National Gallery of Victoria has unveiled their summer blockbuster exhibition for 2024–2025. Yayoi Kusama’s signature polka dots and pumpkins, along with world-premiere work, will appear in Australia’s largest retrospective exhibition of the Japanese artist.
Yhonnie Scarce, a Kokatha and Nukunu artist, has emerged in recent years as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists. Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, curates a survey of significant works by Scarce from the last few years.
“Heat and gravity were as much the materials as the glass itself,” says Rosalind Lemoh on her latest show at Canberra Glassworks that explores new mediums and influences for the Gundaroo-based artist.
White Rabbit Gallery’s latest multimedia exhibition, A Blueprint for Ruins, explores the ongoing destruction and renewal of urban spaces in modern China, with works from over 20 contemporary Chinese artists.
