The Q Files – Queer Love Collective at Unassigned Gallery
Image: Natalie Edge
Unassigned Gallery was wall to wall when I visited the opening of The Q Files: The Queer Is Out There on Saturday. It was totally packed, shoulder to shoulder, cannot take a step kinda busy. It was so busy that my friend and I could barely get in the door when we arrived and had to take a lap of Sydney road, get some dinner and a drink, and then circle back later to even be able to get inside and see the walls. It’s wonderful to see such an amazing turn out and a great show of community, for such a community driven show. There were DJs, drag, and even a food truck out the front for this opening party. And of course they kicked on at iconic lesbian bar Flippy’s. It really felt like a party and a celebration of all the work that goes into an exhibition like this, for both the artists and the curators. Queer Love Collective, run by Ruby Vaggelas and Madi Sherburn, focuses on creating inclusive local exhibitions at LGBTQIA+ venues for queer creatives. They seem to have a lovely relationship with gallerist Nour Abdullatif, who runs the space. Organising an open call show is certainly hard work, and Queer Love Collective (QLC) and Unassigned have certainly pulled it off!
Q-Files: The Queer Is Out There is a huge show, featuring work from over 100 artists. Citing how sci-fi ‘helped us baby queers connect with our communities and better understand ourselves before we even knew the language of queerness,’ QLC asked artists for artworks that responded to themes of sci-fi and speculative fiction. The science fiction theme runs strong through the exhibition, though the theme wasn’t enforced, just encouraged. Some of the work is distinctly alien of nature. Such as Snout by Lorelei. The shiny object at first almost appearing as if it’s an alien egg, or a meteorite, or an artefact left by a UFO. But on closer inspection, the dog like snout emerges from the ceramic sculpture and it becomes a far more familiar object. In the same vein is Eliza Baker’s blue alien photographed in 8:11pm. At first appearing totally alien, otherworldly, and undistinguishable. But, around the neck and behind the ears we can spy peaks of human skin through the blue. Not so alien after all! Maybe we are all aliens, or aliens are all just people?? Again, we can see aliens visiting earth in Darren Coventry’s Neptune! The soft oil painting showing glowing figures atop a rocky coastline. Maybe they’re aliens, maybe they’re angels, maybe they’re just people who glow sometimes? Who knows, but it’s a beautiful painting, and I was so glad to see a little red sticker to say it had sold! There were a few red stickers around the room which made me so happy to see!!!
Another theme I found through the exhibition were the more natural horrors of the world. In The Woods Somewhere by Elias Youssef sees a skull literally in the woods somewhere. The thick textural paint on this is so delicious, it’s like the texture of the forest come to life. Kari has cast small twigs in bronze in the aptly named Twigs. Making the ephemeral material of the natural world into something eternal. In the accompanying text the line “the land hold memories my body forgets” stays with me. Unfortunately, due to the sheer number of artworks in the exhibition, we don’t get didactic information or an accompanying text for most. Yet as body they all speak to each other, and most don’t need that additional context. Yet, one that I would love more info on is Pierra Van Sparkles’ Creature from the Blak Lagoon. The inkjet print features the text BOTTOMS UP! COLONISER DOWN! The double entendre sandwiches a black and white picture where a creature (presumably the one of the Blak Lagoon that the title speaks of) with long claws raises a bottle, facing the sun, sat beneath the trees and in the grass. I want to know so much more; about this artwork, about this artist, about this creature. I feel like this is from a series, and I want to see them all!
Speaking of more terrestrial horrors, there seems to be a parallel drawn between the everyday and the alien. I was especially drawn to the photograph Assigned Liminal At Birth by Foot. The nighttime scene featuring an eerily lit figure out of place sat at an iconically Melbourne bus stop – the glass just gives it away. This figure feels abandoned, left alone in a liminal space, which speaks to the queer experience of being out of place and alienated even in spaces that are our own. Similarly, is Kyle Archie Knight’s Green Urinal (from series ‘Cruising for a Bruising’ 2022- Ongoing). The green space pictured feels both unearthly and suburban at the same time, contradictory like its title which is a call out and a warning simultaneously. Cloudy’s collage titled Kralizec feels like Knight’s photo too. Confusing layers of magazine cut outs create a complicated, almost recognisable picture, yet it remains just slightly out of reach. It’s some kind of thing, but it’s not quite anything I know.
The Q Files is on at Unassigned until June 28th and there are a few fun activities happening over the course of the exhibition, such as queer crafternoon on tomorrow Saturday the 14th, and already sold out Lesbian Arm Wrestling on Sunday the 15th!!!