Don’t Look Away!

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on my writings about contemporary artworks that were perhaps overly steeped in the heaviness of historical and ongoing trauma without fully grappling with other deregulating energies — scrappiness, coolness, abundance, tall tales, and piss-takes. These entanglements not only provide moments of levity within traumatic storying, as well as sometimes profound relief and jibing political critique. They also can refuse demands for certain cultural and personal stories while offering an unflinching picturing of the whole tangled mess of settler-colonial Australia.