Engages,

Drew Pettifer, Alex Cuffe, Xanthe Dobbie, and Léuli Eshraghi Queer Identities: resistance and assimilation

For the next iteration of Bus Projects’ Systems of Solidarity series, we examine queer identities in relation to positions of resistance and advocacy. Developed in response to the recent marriage equality vote, and in anticipation of achieving marriage equality, this panel will discuss issues that have come to the fore during this volatile political moment.

Speakers are invited to discuss these matters from their personal perspective within the arts and also to unpack the potential implications of the assimilation of queer identities into an otherwise heteronormative establishment.

While the plebiscite acts as a framing device for the panel, this event allows for a broader discussion about potential ramifications for future strategies of queer resistance.

Drew Pettifer is an artist and academic who currently lectures in Art History and Theory at RMIT University. Drew’s art practice explores themes of intimacy, gender, sexuality and the politics of desire using photography, video, installation and performance. Drew is currently a member of the Shepparton Art Museum Foundation Board of Directors. He is also a qualified solicitor and works from time to time as an independent curator and writer. His work is held in various collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Monash Gallery of Art and Shepparton Art Museum, as well as private collections nationally and internationally.

Alex Cuffe is a non-practicing artist, musician and writer. Though not practicing her work deals with the intersections of labour and queer identity.

Xanthe Dobbie is a Melbourne-based new media artist and curator. Her practice aims to capture the experience of post-internet contemporaneity as reflected through feminism, art history, iconography and queer culture. Many of her works take the form of large-scale moving collages, which are compositionally-based around 14th and 15th century religious iconography. Combining snippets of sourced footage and found images in hundreds of carefully manipulated layers, she develops animated paintings, which merge contemporary internet and trash culture with loaded historical imagery.

Léuli Eshraghi is a Sāmoan and Persian artist, curator, writer, Monash University Art Design Architecture (MADA) PhD candidate, and an uninvited guest in unceded Kulin Nation territory. His work centres on indigeneity, language, the body, and queer futures. Across video, photography, painting, and installation, Leuli processes intergenerational trauma, honours diasporic indigeneity, and imagines multilingual, sovereign bodies and relationships to our planet. Leuli holds qualifications in Cultural Studies and Indigenous Arts Management.