Close Contact, curated by Firstdraft, presents five new commissions by Tom Blake, Jazz Money, Amy Claire Mills, Athena Thebus and Leo Tsao. Curated by Firstdraft for No Show, an exhibition of 11 NSW-based artist-led initiatives presented by Carriageworks. 

 

Each artist traces zones of contact that intersect with our present moment: the new relationship between public surfaces and public safety; the deep histories and practices of First Peoples landcare displaced by First Contact; the politics of touch and those marginalised from the embrace of the public sphere; skin, the biological interface that both binds and separates us; and finally, the choreographies of resistance that drive bodies together and against each other, and against power.

Amy Claire Mills aims to disrupt the socially-constructed idea of disability. Using her own experiences as a starting point, she transcribes texts, phrases and questions from her various encounters and sews them onto vibrant and tactile quilts. In highlighting and reframing the personal, her aim is to transform and disrupt the ableist narratives that dictate our interactions with people with disability. Burden of Proof challenges our understanding and perception by forcing us to confront the language and bias with which we communicate about disability, while suggesting new vocabularies – of softness and tactility, empathy and care.

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Installation view, Close Contact, Carriageworks, Sydney, 2021