Moving Histories // Future Projections exhibition tour wraps up in Grafton

Moving Histories // Future Projections, has opened at its final touring destination, Grafton Regional Gallery.

The exhibition brings together some of Australia’s leading female contemporary artists working across screen based media including Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams, Amala Groom, Deborah Kelly, Kate Blackmore and Jacinta Tobin, Joan Ross, Soda_Jerk, Angelica Mesiti and Caroline Garcia, and has been curated by Kelly Doley and Diana Smith of Barbara Cleveland (formally Brown Council).

Moving Histories // Future Projections is a dLux MediaArts exhibition toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW. The exhibition tour began at Toowoomba Regional Gallery in February 2017. From there, it went on display at Cairns Regional Gallery, Mosman Art Gallery, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Bega Valley Regional Gallery, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Broken Hill Regional Gallery, and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery before reaching its final destination in Grafton.

Curated by Kelly Doley and Diana Smith of collaborative artist group, Barbara Cleveland, the exhibition explores invisible pasts, forgotten narratives and repressed memories, reminding us how history is fractured by race, class and gender.

The artists in Moving Histories // Future Projections approach their subject matter in a variety of ways – they turn the camera on themselves, re-stage historical events or reimagine alternative futures through speculative accounts of the past. Yet through repetition, montage and mimicry, they all explore a space where time folds in on itself and back again and each looks back while also moving forward. Collectively and individually they act as historians, archivists and archaeologists – excavating historical materials, digging through archives and channelling the past to make new connections across time and space.

It is through the voice of the artists that we are presented with new, alternative futures or future projections.