Slippages, Identification and Desire and Always moving: the body in the landscape

Please join us for an evening of discussions to accompany Entre Nous: Claude Cahun and Clare Rae.

Queering the Image: Slippages, Identification and Desire

Dr Drew Pettifer
Queer representations are slippery and ambiguous. It has been argued that the queer gaze denies wholeness and embraces spectatorial fluidity. In turn, queer modes of looking serve to destabilise the heteronormative, male gaze. This lecture will explore the complex power dynamic between gazer and gazed in these viewing contexts as they oscillate between identification and objectification.

ABOUT DREW
Drew Pettifer is a Melbourne-based artist and lecturer in the Fine Art Honours Program at RMIT University. His practice explores themes of gender, sexuality, intimacy and the politics of desire using photography, video, installation and performance. Drew also works from time-to-time as a curator and writer and currently hosts FIELD WORK, the Australian podcast on contemporary art.
www.drewpettifer.com

Always moving: the body in the landscape
Clare Rae
This presentation will give an overview of Clare’s project Never Standing on Two feet, currently on display in Galleries one and two. The resulting photographic work produced engages with a feminist interpretation of landscape, locating the performing body within the discourse of landscape photography to disrupt and subvert patriarchal ideas of the natural environment. The talk will unravel some of the ideas and themes that have sparked Clare’s current research into representation and subjectivity, surveying the field of landscape photography made by women and positing a methodology for active looking and making.

ABOUT CLARE
Clare Rae is an artist from Melbourne working with photography to explore the feminist act of self-representation. She currently teaches at Photography Studies College, and holds a Master of Fine Art degree from Monash University.
www.clarerae.com