Three Top End artists have braved the cooler climes of Ballarat’s weather to bring a multi-platform improvisational work to the Biennale of Australian Art.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Koulla Roussos, Tarzan JungleQueen and Matthew van Roden are presenting their multimedia work The Contiguity of Totalisation as a video installation on St Andrew’s Kirk and as a photographic exhibition in Unicorn Lane.
The three artists describe themselves as emerging multimedia queer artists, who are interrogating the representation of queerness itself.
“It’s a collaborative project, and it’s been underway for a year now,” says Koulla Roussos.
A practising criminal lawyer, curator and lecturer, Roussos has exhibited and curated shows and film festivals across Darwin. Artistic partner Matthew van Roden, whose work explores the qualities of wax, text and video, says the group’s works will be projected on St Andrew’s walls over the duration of BOAA.
“Just as queer spaces are, and queer objects do, it transforms itself in myriad fashions; one of which will be stills from the film, which will be available here in the lightboxes on Unicorn Lane,” says van Roden.
“There are our highly collectable catalogues available, and of course the queer manifestation of our bodies will be present as well.”
“We’re thrilled to have this platform and opportunity outside of Darwin,” says Roussos. As a gesture of appreciation they have donated a flat screen to the Unicorn Hotel to screen avant garde work by other local artists into the future.
“This collaborative event has brought not just film work, but a really special bond between three humans,” says the evocatively-named Tarzan JungleQueen.
“The creation of the work is something that will last as long as it does, but that bond will be forever.
And as for coming to Ballarat from balmy Darwin?
“Can I just say I am thrilled with the weather,” says van Roden.
“I’d prefer it not to be raining when I’m installing works on paper, but apart from that, being cold is such a pleasure and a thrill.”