OCULAR
SAT MAY 10 – FRI JUL 11
MULTIPLE EVENTS
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MAY 10 - JUL 11
REFUSAL AND FUTURITY
Eddie Abd, Hayley Millar Baker, Amy Carkeek, Jody Haines, Pia Johnson, Clare Rae, Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis.MAY—JUN
FIELD TRIPFRI 11—SAT 12 JUL
TEXTURE OF ABSENCE
Carmen Yih and Jiawen Feng -
As lens-based media becomes increasingly prevalent, they encourage us to question not only what we are looking at but also what we are not looking at, highlighting a paradox identified by Frances Guerin. She suggests that while images have never been so readily available, we often fail to truly engage with them: "Not looking is a political gesture" (Guerin, 2015). The inability to look attentively can be understood as a form of disengagement, a refusal to confront uncomfortable or troubling truths that images may expose.
The way images circulate, are consumed, and are valued within societal frameworks reveals how they are embedded within socio-political structures. Images are not neutral; they are products of power, and their consumption is steeped in cultural and political contexts. As W.J.T. Mitchell argues in What Do Pictures Really Want?, pictures are more than mere representations; they are marked by personhood, expressing both physical and virtual bodies that "speak" to the beholder, often conveying messages about authority, subjectivity, and dominance (Mitchell, 1996).
‘Ocular’ invites a critical examination of these dynamics, urging a more mindful engagement with visual media. It challenges us to question how we see, what we see, and the broader implications of our act of seeing. As we increasingly navigate a world dominated by mediated images, understanding the politics of the ocular is crucial in unpacking how power, identity, and culture are constructed through the visual.
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Platform Arts is wheelchair-accessible via our Gheringhap St entrance. Unlocked, accessible bathrooms are available on both ground and first floors.
For accessibility enquiries, please directly contact us at hello@platformarts.org.au
What does it mean to be seen? How do we uncover what the image is trying to tell us? And how do we reclaim the image from the mediated world?
‘Ocular’ explores the complexities of visual culture, interrogating how images shape our understanding of the world and our roles within it. The act of seeing and being seen is inherently tied to power dynamics, with certain groups historically controlling both the lens and the subject on the other side.
Detail of the image: Untitled Actions (art collection offsite store), 2024, Clare Rae
REFUSAL / FUTURITY
MAY 10 - JUL 11 | GALLERY ONE
An exhibition of contemporary women's self-portraiture and how they use lens-based media as a tool and mechanism to subvert the colonial, western and patriarchal gaze.
Curated by Jody Haines, Refusal / Futurity is accompanied by a public program of workshops, an artist talk, and a special edition podcast episode with Out of the Frame, with Pia Johnson.
Featuring Eddie Abd, Hayley Millar Baker, Amy Carkeek, Pia Johnson, Clare Rae, Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Jody Haines (C)
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Detail of image: Batmans Landing, from the series Flowing with the Future (Surviving Batman), 2024, Jody Haines)
Field Trip is a series of encounters where participants join presenting artists on location, often travelling together from Platform Arts as a meeting point, to invite participants to remove themselves from their usual environment and experience artistic engagement through the personal, site-based lens and place of each facilitating artist, which often provides a critical yet unseen viewpoint in an artist’s practice.
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Photo by Cobie Orger
TEXTURE OF ABSENCE
JUL 11 - JUL 12 | PERFORMANCE SPACE
In Texture of Absence, Jiawen Feng and Carmen Yih explore the physical manifestation of absence to examine how humans experience loss.
Texture of Absence uses dance with real-time interactive audio to create a soundscape that morphs with the dancers’ movement, assigning an auditory texture to absence.
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