Departed Acts: Lineages of Queer Practice, is a performance-lecture series presented in collaboration between CCP and Bus Projects. This program invites four queer Australian practitioners to recall an encounter with a pivotal artist, exhibition or experience, that has influenced their practice.
For the iteration of ‘Departed Acts’ presented at CCP, practitioners have been asked to explore the potential histories, lineages and trajectories of queer artistic practice, both within their own practices and within a broader socio-political context.
Conducted with varying degrees of visual accompaniment, and with a critical playfulness towards the lecture format, ‘Departed Acts’ creates an idiosyncratic space where subjective memories can be indulged. Rather than focusing on objective testimony, ‘Departed Acts’ embraces the tangential nature of recollection, allowing for the factual and fictitious to intertwine. Intended as an open ended, train-of-thought exercise, ‘Departed Acts’ allows space for a personal, freely associative discourse, intending to provide a deeper and more intimate understanding of the creative process.
ARCHIE BARRY
Archie Barry is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Melbourne, Australia. They work with the slipping point towards abstraction within a practice of self-portraiture, as a gesture of trans resistance and dominion. Over the last year their work has been exhibited at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, The State Library of Victoria and ALASKA Projects, among others. They have written print articles for Art + Australia and Archer Magazine and will be undertaking a three-month residency at Phasmid Studio in Berlin later this year. Barry completed a Masters of Contemporary Art at Victorian College of the Arts in 2017.
JEREMY EATON
Jeremy Eaton is an artist and writer working in Naarm, Melbourne. Jeremy is invested in exploring lineages of social space and materiality through a predominantly print-based and sculptural practice. Jeremy has exhibited nationally and written for various artists and publications. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Summer Group Show’, Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney (2018); a group exhibition with Seven Valencia and Camille Hannah at C A V E S, Melbourne (2018); and ‘Of Everything That Disappears There Remains Traces’ curated by Lauren Ravi at the Honeymoon Suite, Melbourne (2017). He has undertaken solo projects at West Space, KINGS Artist-Run and a residency at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. Jeremy has written for un Magazine, participated in the Gertrude Contemporary Emerging Writers Program and recently wrote a catalogue essay to accompany Meredith Turnbull’s current exhibition, ‘Closer’ at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne.
CLINTON HAYDEN
Clinton Hayden’s studio-based practice uses photography, objects and installation methods to investigate ideas of desire, intimacy and longing. Through the careful, poetic combination of photography and artist-made objects, Hayden works with the understanding of the photograph both as image and object. Hayden’s first solo ‘Objects for Rebels and Lovers’ at Beers London in 2015 was featured in the top five shows to see from London Time Out and Whitechapel Gallery. He exhibits work frequently, and has shown in London, Melbourne, New York and Reykjavik. Notable group shows include ‘The Gravity of Form’ at Beers London in 2013 and ‘Mistaken Identities’ at Modern Art Oxford in 2012. His published work includes the series ‘Hunting’ for Excerpt Magazine #4 2012, and the self published artist book ‘fugue’ in 2013. Hayden’s work is held in private collections in Melbourne, London and New York. Hayden obtained a MFA with Distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology School of Art in 2011, and a BFA from the Australian National University School of Art in 2002.
AMY SPIERS
Amy Spiers is a Melbourne-based artist, writer and researcher. Spiers makes art both collaboratively with Catherine Ryan, and as a solo artist. Her socially-engaged, critical art practice focuses on the creation of live performances, participatory situations and multi-artform installations for both site-specific and gallery contexts. Through her work she aims to prompt questions and debate about the present social order—particularly about the gaps and silences in public discourse where difficult histories and social issues are not confronted. Spiers has presented numerous art projects across Australia and internationally, most recently at Monash University Museum of Art (Melbourne), the Museum für Neue Kunst (Freiburg), MONA FOMA festival (Hobart) and the 2015 Vienna Biennale.