We Are Australians Too: Women Against Racism
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Liverpool Regional Museum
March 8 to April 1
Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-4pm
Phone (02) 9824 1121
Free admission
REVIEW BY VIVIAN MESSIMERIS
The Cronulla race riots of December shocked many people both in Australia and around the world. The riots raised fundamental questions about what it means to be Australian. What is identity? And who decides what is Australian and what is not? Perhaps the most dangerous question raised by the incident is "how Australian are you?"
Artists in the We Are Australians Too exhibition are taking on the challenge of answering these questions. Twenty-five women artists from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds have been invited to explore issues of racism, multiculturalism and identity in contemporary Australia.
Exhibition curator Nicholas Tsoutas told Green Left Weekly, "Our politicians refused to acknowledge the issues of racial discrimination as causal factors in the riots ... the question raised was very much to do with who, in fact, is Australian and what ... constitutes Australian identity in a nation that is increasingly defined through its cultural diversity".
We Are Australians Too provides a female voice and perspective to the issues surrounding racism and multiculturalism. Tsoutas believes "this project deliberately shifts the focus from the masculine cultures that provoked and responded with extraordinary violence to exploring a feminine response to this crisis of Australian identity".
This exhibition has been organised not only as a response to the Cronulla riot, but to foster a deeper understanding of the importance of cultural diversity in Australia. According to Tsoutas, the exhibition aims at "addressing the central issues of ... what constitutes Australian identity in this complex time".
This is not the first time that Tsoutas has curated exhibitions in response to political events. In December 2005 the Casula Powerhouse featured the exhibition Sedition, which investigated the impact of the sedition laws in the federal government's anti-terrorism bill. These laws not only threaten to silence any voice of dissent, but can ultimately censor artistic expression, by threatening galleries and artists with seditious intent. As a result, any exhibition considered to be controversial, can be shut down and so art is under government regulation and control. In light of this, the Casula Powerhouse is providing a wonderful service to artists and the community, by allowing a cultural critique of the society we live in.
We Are Australians Too will start on March 8, to coincide with International Women's Day. We Are Australians Too is a show that forces each of us to investigate our own beliefs in relation to the constructed notions of identity and of being Australian.
From Green Left Weekly, February 22, 2006.
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