From Archer Magazine
Viewed in the most literal way, the internet is dreadfully mundane. It is a series of interconnected networks comprising many computers and servers, all using standardised communication protocols to exchange information. What makes this web of cables and computers a technological spectacle is that it allows people to invent new worlds and reside in them. …
I want to tell you something about being quiet. I want to tell you about the four weeks I spent at an artist residency in rural Finland. I want to tell you about the forest and the lakes and the summer evenings when the sky went a different shade of blue but never darkened. About …
Identifying abuse or violence in relationships can be tricky for anyone, but LGBTIQA+ communities face a unique set of challenges when it comes to spotting healthy and abusive behaviours. We spoke to Karen Field, CEO of drummond street services and queerspace, and a partner in WithRespect, the first LGBTIQA+ specialist family violence service funded by …
An Arrernte drag artist based in Narrm/Birrarung, Stone Motherless Cold is a combination of blak excellence and club kid aesthetics, here to celebrate and highlight WOC and blak queerness. She was part of disrupt at Hamer Hall and was one of the winners of the Vic NAIDOC LGBTQIA+ Pride Crown in 2019. Trè Turner is …
Bobby and Ginny Minang country, 346km from Ballardong A small plaque outside the IGA includes a photo of a couple with an inscription, which reads: “The only known image of ‘Denmark’ Aboriginals 1898. Their camp was across the river in Millar’s times but it is believed that European diseases killed most of these people.” I …
SJ (Sarah-Jane) Norman (b. 1984) is a cross-disciplinary artist and writer. Their career has so far spanned 15 years and has embraced a diversity of disciplines and formal outcomes, including solo and ensemble performance, installation, sculpture, text, video and sound. They are a non-binary transmasculine person and a diasporic Koori, born on Gadigal land. I’ll …
Blends of blues and greens shimmered back up at me from the palm of my hand. Lightly brushing sand off little pearlescent jewels, I looked into what was very recently a home for a little saltwater friend, but was now lying in the company of many other colours and shapes. Every trip to the beach …
I most frequently find kinship with bodies unlike mine. In this space between my body and theirs are shared ways of moving, shared language that describes us in archetypes, not individuals. It is from this space that I have picked up the language I use to describe myself, from this space that I can draw …
I roll over and get out of my single bed. It’s the only piece of furniture in a large white room, with old wooden floorboards, a high ceiling and a bay window. I go outside to catch some sun and stretch my body. I am surrounded by valleys of pasture and cattle. Not a house …
Musician and artist Diimpa chats to Rose Chalks about endurance, enlightenment and climate change. Your main influences are from the minimalist movement, removed from the traditional classical landscape. How is classical music different from the minimalist movement for you? The minimalist movement in music sprung up around the 1960s, removing itself from the classical scene …
The interplay of identity and place is fresh in my mind after re-reading Bronwyn Fredericks’ ‘We don’t leave our identities at the city limits’ (2013). In this article, she argues that space and place are never neutral in the sense that there is an ongoing cultural, social and political struggle at play. This was also …
“I’m Pretty and I’m Handsome” – Jesswar, Savage (2017) I had used tape to strap down my chest for the first time earlier that day. It was my first live drag performance at Hamer Hall for disrupt, a show for the Yirramboi Festival. When I was 11 I would use bandages from the first-aid box …
Meryl McMaster is a Canadian artist and a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD U). Through her distinct approach to photographic portraiture and self-portraiture, she explores questions of identity in relation to land, lineage, history and culture. Her work has been included in exhibitions throughout Canada and internationally, including the National …
As a child, I used to sneak into my mother’s room and try on her things; nothing gave me more of a thrill than rifling through her drawers. My most coveted items were tucked away – a veritable treasure trove of hidden silken garments: camisoles, teddies, bras that I would stuff with tissues. I’d try them on …
I’ve always known I wanted to be a mum. The only other parts of myself that I’d ever been so sure about were that I was black and queer. I became a mother in January 2016 to a healthy, gorgeous daughter. My Napanangka Nangari, a skin name given to her by two of her aunties. Becoming …
When Uncle Jack Charles appeared on a 2015 episode of Q&A, he took the opportunity to point out to Australian viewers the ways in which the country is uniquely and peculiarly racist towards its First Nations peoples. It’s something he has experienced and seen, a lot, firsthand. His words resonated strongly. The beloved actor, trailblazer, Indigenous-theatre pioneer, …
‘Together’ is an image essay from photographer Luke Austin, which originally appeared in Archer Magazine #11, the GAZE issue. Luke spoke to Hailey Moroney about the series. Your imagery and body of work as a whole is inherently inclusive – not only of the gay community but of the LGBTQIA+ community at large. Is this …
“It’s done! We did it,” a colleague of mine tells me in the tearoom. I know what he’s referring to. Two days prior to this exclamation, it was announced that 61.6 per cent of Australians voted ‘yes’ to legalise same-sex marriage (SSM). Eyes beaming and shoulders relaxed, he says we can finally move on and be …
The desires to perform for the camera and for a Dom partner are comparable – and complicated. Naked, adorably chubby and covered in white body paint, I turn to the camera and shout, “I think it’s time for a spaghetti shower!” The footage jump-cuts to show my 24-year-old self pouring canned spaghetti over my trembling body while screaming, “Spaghetti shower! Aaah, I’m gonna get so clean!” This continues for …
I’m walking down King Street in inner-suburban Sydney with my headphones in, engaged in that detestable digital-age behaviour: scrolling through social media while walking. I come across a video posted by Juno Mac, a UK-based colleague and comrade in sex-work activism. I’ve been watching her posts closely this week because she’s where I’d like to …
This series by 20-year-old HIV-positive American photographer Sam Stoich confronts a subject that has long been misunderstood, and remains burdened with stigma even today. Q&A with Jess Desaulniers-Lea Shot in the Dark has a sense of continuum; is this series ongoing? If so, how has it evolved so far and in what direction do you see it …
A revolutionary leader, labelled a terrorist by those who despise her, but a hero by those who love her. She is the head of an elite band of bearded warriors who know the plains along the Indus River just as well as they do the sand dunes of the Sahara. She is known for her …
