Bridie Gillman's work as featured in Casula Powerhouse's 'Looking Here, Looking North'Exhibition has been reviewed in Art Asia Pacific Magazine.
SOO-MIN SHIM writes:
'At the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Sydney, a video portrays the interior of a restaurant, its walls decorated with Australian-flag bunting, and kitsch Australiana tea towels and posters, positioning us inside an ostensibly Australian establishment. It is revealed in subsequent shots of the staff, clientele, and the beach outside, however, that this is in fact a tourist spot in Bali. Bridie Gillman’s video work Bali State of Mind (2017–18) ruminates on the unequal power dynamic between Australia and Indonesia, the latter being economically reliant on tourism and subject to the objectifying tourist gaze that comes with over one million Australians visiting annually.
Still image from BRIDIE GILLMAN’s Bali State of Mind, 2017–18, two-channel video installation: 17 min 40 sec.
Gillman is one of seven artists included in the exhibition “Looking Here Looking North” by members of Woven, a collective with “continuing personal connections to Indonesia.” While Gillman’s work is subtly political, the exhibition holistically was striking in its ability to reach beyond essentialist identity politics, reconfiguring what it means to be part of the Indonesian diaspora by speaking to universal themes of memory, place and belonging.
“Looking Here Looking North” is on view at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, until March 17, 2019