CHRISTIAN THOMPSON
Photography, sculpture, performance
London
“The statistics about Aboriginal people are still really outrageous (…) I think people shouldn’t have to compromise their beliefs and their connection to country to able to have a fair shot at being an engaged and valuable part of society.”
MENG-YU YAN
Photography, sculpture, installation
Sydney
“There is often conflict between one’s hidden self and the self one projects (…) My work with mirrors [and] reflection have often been attempts to recognise who I am and distinguishing that from what others have told me to be.”
ABDUL-RAHMAN ABDULLAH
Installation, sculpture
Perth
“Kids just want to fit in and nobody wants to be seen as weird(…)I ended up embracing difference as a defence mechanism, if people saw me as weird I felt it gave me license to be weird.”
MIKE PARR
Performance, film, printmaking
Sydney
“My view is that we do face a desperate situation and we are all in avoidance mode. Once you compromise the future, the past becomes unbearable.”
EKO SUPRIYANTO
Choreographer, dancer
Java
“Through diving I experienced for myself how fragile our oceans are (…) it became really clear this work needed to open discussions around tourism, the environment and the community.”
STANISLAVA PINCHUK
Artist, Tattooist
Melbourne
“As soon as we arrived in the Fukushima disaster zone – these fishnets were just lying there, tracing the topography of the earth. It hit me sideways.”
ISAAC JULIEN
Video, photography, installation
London
“The most fragile of objects can be the most beautiful. These caves exist because of global warming. The ice is literally melting around you, you can hear the cracks.”
CRISTINA MITTERMEIER
Photography
Canada
“Our job is to make sure that issues related to the ocean are not invisible to politicians and the public.”
KHALED SABSABI
Video, installation, photography
Sydney
“I think that good leadership, education, strong grassroots community NGOs, activism, acknowledgement of place and country and positive role models contribute towards a healthier and more just society.”
EUGENIA LIM
Video, performance, installation
Melbourne
“Ultimately, my aim is to insert and claim space and territory for marginal identities within the mainstream, using my experience and perspective as a feminist Asian-Australian.”
JEFF KHAN
Curator. writer, director
Sydney
“Our bodies are a direct product of our
culture, and are shaped by the time and
space we live in (…) Performance offers
us a critical opportunity to re-imagine
our physicality—and therefore, our
relationship to the world.”
JAHRA WASASALA
Dance, Choreography, Poetry
Auckland
“Artists are the messengers between every world we are currently engaging with. They restore balance. They bring awareness. They challenge every current structure. They facilitate empathy.”
JAMES TYLOR
Photography
Adelaide
“Historically museums have been very problematic when representing Indigenous culture. [They] reinforce stereotypes of Indigenous people that have been constructed by the political narrative of European colonisation in Australia.”
OLGA CIRONIS
Photography, installation
Perth
“My work has always been political, seeped in gender and racial politics. I use my art as a tool to subvert the ideological tropes of mass culture, questioning how easily we accept tainted information as truth.”
ARCHIE BARRY
Performance, Video, Illustration
Melbourne
“When all people have the right to explore gender as a malleable resource, then the stigma and abuse that transgender people experience will lessen.”
ZOE WONG
Multimedia, Installation
Sydney
“It’s always been very clear to me how important good representation in mass media is and the power of its effect on people. If queer characters keep dying on screen then what do we have to look up to or hold on to.”
ABDUL ABDULLAH
Painting, photography, installation
Sydney
“The more insidious kind [of racism] is always there, just under the surface. It comes in the way people react to my name, and in the subtle differences in which they treat me.”
SIMON GILBY
Sculpture
Perth
“Our government is persecuting people according to race or certainly skin-tone … and inviting an increasingly punitive and xenophobic attitude within the general public”
JAMES NGUYEN
Drawing, installation, video
Sydney
“People will always find a point of difference (…) to act on a judgment. I am much more concerned about the silent or invisible structural examples of xenophobia that are much harder to be called out”
PETER MORGAN
Photographer
Sydney
“The Middle East as a whole is an area prone to great misunderstandings by outsiders. These misconceptions can travel far (…) These people are just like you and me and deserve to be treated as such – it is that simple.”
ANDY MULLENS
Photography, print, installation
Canberra
“I use thread in this work as we use thread to repair broken garments; just as I am seeking to mend the gaps in my cultural identity.”
LAURA DOGGETT
Film, photography
Jordan
“The work stems from the belief that these girls are not humans that need to be worked on, but rather artists that need to work.”
MARCO CHIANDETTI
Sculpture, installation
London
“When you make something, a ‘thought’ manifests physically. You learn something very profound about the human condition.”
LIZ DILLER
Architecture, design
New York
“Mobility for most of us is a metaphor for freedom, but for many of the world’s populations it is a tragic necessity.”
MIKALA TAI
Curator
Sydney
“We live in this era of the post-truth politicians who are divisive but at least they are catalysts of creativity.“
CHENG DAPENG
Architect, artist
Beijing
“Though homogeneity brings efficiency, it costs the richness of social life. (…) Urbanisation should improve people’s lives, not do the opposite.”
KAWITA VATANAJYANKUR
Photography, video, performance
Bangkok
“Being an artist is a privilege. I am to speak out and help search for the ‘truth’ beyond tradition, beyond definition and beyond image.”
DEREK KRECKLER
Photography, video, installation Sydney
“The ocean is a thing of fascination, fear and awe. I came to understand it as a big clock measuring life and death on this planet.”
LIAM BENSON
Performance, photography
Sydney
“Being both white and queer, I recognize and appreciate my experience and perspective is one of an insider and an outsider, both privileged and marginalized, powerful and powerless.”
DEAN CROSS
Video, installation, choreography
Sydney
“I feel honoured to have the heritage that I do, and feel a responsibility to continue culture through my practice. (…) I feel this is true for any artist. Who Am I and Where Do I Come From are relevant questions globally.”
PENNY RYAN
Ceramics, installation
Sydney
“Making art was at first a way of going somewhere else, of seeing the world in different ways that escaped text and gave me a new language. But all of my work had a subject that came out of my understanding of the world that had been informed by social activism.”