NETHERWORLDS

NETHERWORLDS are grappling at the corners of the everyday, carving dark and sweaty sanctums thick with power, love, and potential. Through object and performance, this exhibition claims space somewhere between contemporary art, the spiritual. and othered identities and behaviours.

Informed by emergent contemporary relationships between ideas of magic, mysticism, cultural ritual, and art making, NETHERWORLDS reflects on theories of early performance as invocational ritual, and prehistoric art as sympathetic magic (first proposed by ethnographer Richard Andree). Drawing on ideas of communitas, perceived and actual power, and the exoticised ‘other’, NETHERWORLDS foregrounds contemporary perspectives on the crafting of safe space and the empowerment of diverse artists through ritual and talisman on creative contexts.

Through her sonic practice, Naomi Blacklock subverts the history of her gender and cultural identity as ‘othered’ via accusations of witchraft or exoticised as ‘mystical’; Anastasia Booth embodies the subversive and mythological ‘Baubo’ – comic, lusty, and lascivious; Chantal Fraser questions the milieu of art, culture, and adornment; Caitlin Franzman explores the role of the diviner to work with methods and symbols of ritual in contemporary work; Clay Kerrigan melds artistic process and goetic ritual to craft collage-portraits; and Blake Lawrence considers images and encounters of men who have sex with men through the lens of natural spiritual practice.

With further writing by curators Amy-Clare McCarthy and Kieran Swann reflecting on the intertwined history of art and magic, and emergent queer, feminist, and culturally diverse practices, NETHERWORLDS opens dark and powerful spaces for those who know their true names.

Curated by Kieran Swann and Amy-Clare McCarthy.

Exhibition text.

Review: Un Projects.
Review: Runway Journal.

Spring Hill Reservoir: 9 June, 2018
Seventh Gallery: 6-22 December, 2017
The Walls, Gold Coast: 5-19 August, 2017
Firstdraft ARI, Sydney: 5-29 October, 2016

Documentation, Firstdraft ARI:

rear: Chantal Fraser, #traditional #blurredlines
foreground: Caitlin Franzmann, Magical Thinking
documentation by Anastasia Booth