An exhibition of contemporary souvenirs by Joanna Callaghan produced during a residency in Brisbane in 2005.
Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane December 2005
Artist: Joanna Callaghan
Produced: Heraclitus Pictures
Funded & Supported: Raw Space Brisbane, Arts Council England, University of Bedfordshire
Australia is changing. Some say it is an inevitable outcome of nine years of conservative government. In economics, social policy, foreign relations and industrial reform, ‘Howard’s Right Hand’ is evident everywhere, obvious and powerful.
What interested me in making new work over the last four weeks during a residency at Raw Space Brisbane was how these changes impact the average Australian. What do we see around us, in the streets, in our living rooms, on our desks that defines the current political and social climate? Taking the souvenir as a point of reference, remember now is a collection of observations that have found their way into a series of postcards, a bikini, a calendar & a set of coasters and matching mug.
Postcards are powerful because they address themselves to the visitor, drawing upon collective notions of the appeal of a destination, and what defines its essence. Riding a bicycle around Brisbane, I conceived the idea of a postcard series that might reflect the day to day reality of the streets, as seen from the slightly ironic position of the expatriate. They mediate between my immediate experiences of homecoming (with all its attendant joys and traumas) to the places I knew, and attempts to make sense of what it has become.
The ‘Smart State, for all its dynamism and resource wealth, appears unable to solve the problems of homelessness, drug abuse and the disenfranchised. Australia’s aggressive economic policy relies on ever-increasing consumer overspending as the personal debt pandemic grows. An obedient, compliant public responds appropriately to advertising campaigns evident in the spending of ‘aspirational Australians’ on self-fashioning their identities, no better epitomised than in the case of Michelle Leslie.
Acquitted from possessing ecstasy in a Bali nightclub, Michelle Leslie is the quintessential new Australian. Taking the best of both worlds (cheap holidays, a strong dollar), her exotic looks, adaptability and sense of the dramatic captured the hearts – and attention – of Australia. While the media and public expressed outrage at her rapid change from nightclub babe to meek burka-clad victim to stiletto-wearing, Singapore-shopping beauty, secretly they were admiring (and often desiring) her. A million dollar underwear contract acknowledges and confirms the market potential of this beauty and her notorious ‘escape from paradise’.
Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees were also on holidays. They were backpacking around an Australia that has certainly now revealed itself in a different light. (‘Australia, A Different Light’, is the slogan of the current UK advertising campaign). This story has been so popular with the public that for the first time in the history of Australian courts, a sound recording was made of the sentencing of Bradley Murdoch. Vulgar as it perhaps appears perhaps it is not that difficult to imagine a trial memento series. The coasters and coffee cup, emblematic of a desire to consume images, produced domestically through a kiosk, find their way into our living rooms, onto our tables and into our digestive tract.
Finally WorkChoices, an ironic title for industrial relation reforms. This huge and momentous change appears to be going unnoticed by a large majority of the Australian public. I can think of no more powerful a symbol of the ‘divide and rule’ philosophy that has won so many wars and that is at the essence of WorkChoices. The difference here is that we are not at war – are we?
Joanna Callaghan, December 2005