Promising to delve into ‘the death chamber of White Australia’s memory banks,’ Whitenoise: 12 ghosts, with its hazy approach, struggled to move its vision into something ready for audience digestion.
Helena Sinclair’s work exists at the edge of a boundary – or playfully sits either side. Seeing it, take note of your first feeling or instinct. Is the platter bristling with hairsoothing with its delicate beauty, or discomforting with a grossness that’s not quite gross? Does your reaction sit between the two, not at neutrality but an in-betweenness that depositions your body? Does its silly name undo you further?
How to Build a Universe, to me, almost looks archaeological: the sprawled objects spotlit in the dark to be personally discovered and interpreted like bones and fragments, rather than sold to audiences as a proud whole. The exhibition posits: it’s futile to reach for an objective collection of an intricate world and, instead, personal responses, self-aware of their subjective nature even if they draw from scientific method, can build our knowledge of the world. Creativity destabilises information.
Cousins, a new release from New Zealand, has its heart in its throat, harmonising a driftless protagonist with the enduring love of her whanau (Māori for extended family).
Tears brimmed my eyes as I walked down the dark street from Theatreworks to the car park building past partygoers starting their Saturday night strutting in sleek dresses. Never had I been so viscerally affected by a play to the point it altered my psychology. The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven made me euphoric, and I felt healed.
This Genuine Moment holds you in the orbit of Riley and Louis’ conversation as they take clumsy steps to embrace emotional transparency with themselves and others.