In collaboration with ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) artist Shannon Novak, and QAGOMA launched Dear Queensland — a project that gathers, documents and archives some of the important stories of LGBTQI+ people in Queensland.
As Novak explains, ‘currently there is very little to no local LGBTQI+ history being recorded in our public museums and libraries, and that needs to change.’
Shannon Novak ’81 Percent (Australia)’ 2021
Dear Queensland invited members of Queensland’s LGBTQI+ community to pen a virtual letter to Queenslanders, reflecting on their challenges and triumphs. The submissions formed part of an important archive centering and amplifying voices from the LGBTQI+ community. The digital archive is available to the public and shareable, and some responses were displayed onsite at the Gallery and in QAGOMA’s Research Library.
In line with Novak’s broader practice, the Dear Queensland project is inspired by the lived experience of LGBTQI+ people, and the statistics which reveal the issues faced by the community in this country.
LGBTQI+ people in Australia experience highly disproportionate rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide – recent statistics (2021) revealing between three to fifteen times higher than non-LGBTQI+ people. One thing we can do to help drive these numbers down is to make visible the challenges we face so people can see what we are going through and consider ways they may be able to support us. Shannon Novak
An important aspect of visibility is to account for the breadth and depth of lived experience. The experience of LGBTQI+ folks in Queensland can vary tremendously throughout the state; from regional towns to city centres and between the many cultures who call Queensland home, with over 220 languages spoken, and one third of Queenslanders being born overseas or from parents born overseas.
For this reason, the Dear Queensland submission process offered participants the option to self-identify, tag and reflect on all the intersecting identities that effect their lived experience as a member of the LBGTQI+ community. It is hoped this highlighting of intersectionality will offer tangible insight and nuanced representation of the LBGTQI+ community here in Queensland.
Novak hopes ’cataloguing (the LGBTQI+ community’s) experiences at QAGOMA sparks a movement towards a more inclusive and representative archive that all can access and be inspired by’.
Dear Queensland
Dear Queensland formed part of Make Visible, an ongoing community led project developed by artist, curator, and activist Shannon Novak, whose work features as part of APT10. The aim of the project was to grow support for the LGBTQI+ community worldwide by making visible challenges and triumphs for this community.
If you need support, free support services for the LGBTQI+ community are available.
Watch | Time-lapse of Shannon Novak’s ’81 Percent (Australia): Someone you know’
The installation — encompassing GOMA’s ground-floor River Room window — signals, from the artist’s perspective, a view to a positive future for the local LGBTQI+ community in and beyond the city visible across the river. As the light changes during the day, the large, colourful patchwork designs of 81 Percent (Australia): Someone you know offers a sensory immersion: a continuously changing atmosphere of diffuse colours.
Shannon Novak, Aotearoa New Zealand b.1979 / 81 Percent (Australia): Someone you know (from ‘Make Visible: Queensland’) 2021 / Transparent vinyl / Commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) / © Shannon Novak
Watch | Brisbane Pride Choir perform at GOMA
On the opening weekend of APT10, the Brisbane Pride Choir performed as part of Shannon Novak’s ‘Make Visible’ project. The project seeks to make visible the challenges and triumphs of the LGBTQI+ community.
Watch | Make Visible
What role does art and culture play in creating safer spaces for the LGBTIQ+ community? We discuss how artists, writers, performers and community groups are leading projects which make visible the challenges and triumphs of the LGBTQI+ community, and how the arts can be a powerful medium for sharing the stories and experiences of diverse members from the rainbow community.
Watch | Young, LGBTQI+ & Amplified
Stories about LGBTQI+ young people are always in the news. So, what role can art and culture play in empowering them to tell their own story? Hear from three young creatives from the LGBTQI+ community, as they chat about their connection with the arts and discuss whether they think art should be treated as a form of activism, an outlet for self-expression or a means to amplify diverse voices.
Watch | Queerstories x QAGOMA
In this special edition of Queerstories held in conjunction with ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10), hear unexpected tales of pride, discovery and resilience from incredible local storytellers. This video contains content that might be triggering for some viewers. Some of the stories presented may include adult themes, that aren’t appropriate for children. Viewer discretion advised.
Featured image: Shannon Novak’s artwork for the installation in Edison Lane, Brisbane
The fibrous souls 2018–21 currently in the Queensland Art Gallery Watermall is constructed with 70 giant shikas — embroidered, reticulated bags typically made of jute strings that are tied to a beam in the ceiling of houses and used to hold pots and food containers — Shikas are found in almost every house in rural Bangladesh and are traditionally made at home by families. Their designs, knotting and decoration varies between regions.
Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts expansive installation focuses on a part of Bengal’s complex and pervasive colonial history through personal stories of movement and displacement, the artwork articulates how a small part of the community came to settle in the surrounding villages.
Watch | Installation time-lapse
Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, Bangladesh, est. 2001; Collaborating artists: Johura Begum, Monowara Begum, Majeda Begum, Fatema Begum (1), Shabnur Begum, Chayna Begum, Fatema Begum (2), Samiron Begum, Shirina Begum, Rekha, Nasima Begum, Shushila Rani, Protima Rani, Akalu Barman / The fibrous souls 2018–21 / Jute, cotton, thread, clay, brass / 70 pots: 40–100cm each (diam.) (approx.) with 70 shikas of various dimensions / Originally commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation / Purchased 2021 with funds from Metamorphic Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane / © The artists
Stories that inspired the artwork are drawn from families that had followed the railway tracks from what is now Bangladesh into India, after the British East India Company established the Eastern Bengal Railway. Operating under British Indian rule from 1892 to 1942, the railway served the profiteering trade interests of British India, fuelled by locally produced commodities such as jute, indigo and opium. The domination of these cash crops led to food scarcity, debt and land loss, forcing people — such as the ancestors of the Thakurgaon jute makers — to turn away from farming their own lands.
Families gradually left their homes to follow opportunities along the railway to Assam; however, during the 1947 Partition of India, they found themselves separated from their homes by a new national border, only to be forced back over from India into what had become East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). They settled along the Brahmaputra River in the regions by the new border dividing Bengal. As this vast river continually eroded, their plight turned from political to ecological migration, slowly moving westwards until they settled in Thakurgaon.
Over more than 20 years, Kamruzzaman Shadhin has developed new possibilities for contemporary art in Bangladesh, centred around the communities of his home village of Balia in the far north-western state of Thakurgaon. In 2001, he established Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts to work with local indigenous Santhal communities. The foundation seeks to be a catalyst for social inclusivity through collaborative approaches.
Shadhin is also one of Bangladesh’s foremost contemporary artists, known for his installations and performances that address environmental and social issues, particularly those facing regional Bangladesh and its communities. Together with Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, he produces ambitious contemporary art projects, driven by the principles of community development and exploring shared culture and histories.
Working with 13 women hailing from jute-making families to construct the shikas, along with a handful of other local craftspeople to create the pots and connecting jute ropes, Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts have constructed a giant hanging system of shikas, laid out as the map of the historic Eastern Bengal Railway that began this story.
The women created their own designs on the shikas, so each is unique and features various wrapping and knotting techniques and additional decoration. The shikas hold brass, jute and clay storage pots, which are suspended over water for APT10. The hanging pots each symbolise the stations of towns and cities on the railway map — from Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Chittagong (now Chattogram) in the south, to Darjeeling and Guwahati in the north — signifying the defining role this piece of colonial infrastructure has played in shaping their lives. In Shadhin’s words, the installation is
an attempt to interweave these historical and cultural strands that seem apparently and innocently disconnected, and connect these to the present-day peasant conditions in Assam and Bengal.
The project draws together members of communities to explore their own stories and cultural practices — and is a product of the unique practice Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts have developed. Imbued with local and social values, it is a practice that advocates and finds in regional communities new pathways for contemporary art that are not reliant on art centres or global arts discourse, revealing new possibilities for art production to audiences far from where they emerge.
Tarun Nagesh is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA
This is an edited extract from the QAGOMA publication The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art available in-store and online from the QAGOMA Store.
