cease and desist

Most days I add to an ever growing list of things I should’ve done or worse should’ve done differently. While I certainly added a few to List A today, I managed to cross a few off from days gone by. Of those I managed to put a thin red line through today, most I shall allow to go undocumented (as my irregular dentist visit really doesn’t warrant extended analysis, although I can’t prevent a short aside about the incredible powers of rhetoric operating in this country that has somehow explained the mouth out of the body. How else could we have ended up with a health care system that excludes access to basic dentistry?).

However, it seems appropriate that I reflect on a saga long forgotten, as I’ve finally had reason to contact the person most affected by the controversy and have had the chance to clear the air. In reflecting, she also highlighted that it was an enormous learning experience, and so in that vein, I open a stale wound in order to draw out what I learned from the experience.

I am assuming that anybody stumbling upon this blog already knows some basic personal information:

1. I spent many years treading water working for my school’s marketing arm in numerous joints;
2. that prior to treading water, I spent a few years thrashing around in baby pool of student activism trying not to drown in machinery of the degree factory that is higher education in Australia;
3. that amidst all the trashing I managed displace my body on exchange and got swept up into a radical arts collective: cease and desist.

Now these three narrative strands form a solid braid around Diversity Week this year. A friend of mine Signorina L, was invited to curate a show. Much of my work revolves around issues of gender and that being the theme; I was asked to participate (Strand c desperate to participate in any exhibition won out over Strand b’s concerns about the political appropriateness of a week predicated on shallow celebratory discourses of difference).

The internal compromise I thought I had reached at this point though was overturned when I discovered my school’s choice to open the event and the exhibition: DeSEN. After registering dissent, about this decision, the c+d collective met for the first time in years and decided to produce a work. In our mind we had wanted to provide information and awareness about this public figure who was invited to represent Diversity at the university by alerting viewers to some of the information that had been put on the public record. So while realizing that the ideas behind Diversity Week probably couldn’t sustain such radical difference of opinion we thought we could at least provide enough information for people to start questioning what ideas it could sustain. 

What we thought was rather a modest and discrete object of dissent emerged quickly to cause an enormous furore.

This all emerged the Thursday prior to the exhibition opening when Signorina L innocently discussing her excitement with event organizers about the quality of the exhibition mentioned the true diversity lurking behind the veneer of well behaved art. This resulted in ceased (spokesperson for the c+d collective) receiving a phone call from a senior university bureaucrat, (RightCat) saying that while the school’s president refused to censor the work, if the work was hung he would cancel the invitation for DeSEN to open the whole event and that would leave 40 Disabled Artists with nobody to open their exhibition, some of whom had life threatening illnesses and this would be their only opportunity to exhibit their work.

Rather a hard ball to throw when nobody had even seen the work. Being caught by surprise that old first stage of our collective adaptive response kicked in and ceased began to fight. Pointing out the hypocrisy of limiting student’s abilities to engage in discussion on a week designed to celebrate our Diversity, which one would assume should flow through to opinion. To which RightCat questioned how would ceased react if she invited him to a party simply for the party to ridicule him. Neurons now firing in random directions, he countered that indeed he would feel similar to when being forced to endure homophobic graffiti in the toilet every time he used a cubicle at the University. RightCat attempted to clarify the metaphor by specifying it was a private party, to which he politely declined the invitation and pointed out there was nothing private about criticizing a public figure during a public forum, but the cat was trapped in her own metaphor.

He decided better to move for an adjournment and consult with Signorina L overnight.

After much discussion and electronic relays Signorina L and the collective decided it best to agree to removal of the work until DeSEN was off campus. The work was never intended to be about DeSEN rather raise awareness amongst students about issues public representatives put on the public record supposedly in our name. RightCat of course snaps up this little SnappyTom and for a few brief hours resolution provided a moment of clarity.

Approximately two hours later RightCat calls ceased to inform him that the school’s president has reconsidered and decided to call DeSEN directly. DeSEN was now insisting that the offending work be hung or else she would refuse to open the show and as RightCat was quick to remind ceased that would leave 40 disabled artists without their one opportunity for a show. This time the pressure was too much and ceased, who’d spent the intervening hours in tears, confessed he couldn’t make a decision on the spot (plus he really needed to run this by the collective).

Hopefully, the previous 700 words have provided an interesting context in which to understand this image.

I have to include here that my favourite anecdote from this saga is that while sitting in the postgrad room first year students waiting in the corridor were heard musing over what in hell could be so bad that it had to be removed from a University gallery space.

All these words seem at odds with four little 10×15 hand coloured iconic photos with badly Photoshopped faces of a public figure.

But that’s the world of images, words never seem quite at ease with them.

ps: sorry folks, links to images will be fixed once i regain access to my server…