ARTISTS: Abdul Abdullah, Maree Clarke, Gail Harradine, Lisa Hilli, Cassie Leatham, Jenna Lee & Mackenzie Lee, Claire McArdle, Tiffany Parbs, Simone Slee, Scotty So, wāni toaishara, Lisa Waup.
EXHIBITION DATES: Thu 24 March – Sun 15 May 2022
The UNIFORM exhibition looked at the body as architecture, a site for response, interpretation and expression. It talks about how we use our bodies to express history, culture and experience through the use of external devices such as adornment and clothing. It reflects the internal and external body, the landscape of the body, protection and defence of the body and the gendered body.
As an adjective UNIFORM means identical or consistent, as from example to example, place to place, or moment to moment: uniform spelling; uniform building code. And, without variation in detail: uniform output: a uniform surface. As a noun UNIFORM is specific to an identifying outfit or style of dress worn by the membership of a given profession, organisation or rank.
In UNIFORM the exhibition we are looking at the uniform within different cultures, societies, communities and stages in life that bind us, and also differentiate us. The wearable that defines us. We are also looking at how body adornment and the uniform interact, represent and tell a story. What is the uniform of motherhood? What do the intricate designs from Congolese dress represent? How are First Nations artists and other Indigenous and diaspora cultures in Australia rethinking how their cultural stories can be told through fashion.
UNIFORM will test these notions in a gallery context.
Image Credit: Abdul Abdulla, Zofloya (Groom)