YUMMY Discussions: Abjection
Join Yucky public program curators William Maggs and Hen Vaughan in conversation with V Barratt for a discussion exploring abjection, as it relates to disability and gender.
Adelaide Contemporary Experimental
1 May 2024
5:30pm to 7:00pm
YUMMY is a two-part discussion series accompanying Yucky, a group exhibition led by Sam Petersen that explores the personal and political complexities that exist as part of disabled experience.
The exhibition and accompanying programs reclaims the visceral world of ‘yuck’, encouraging audiences to question ableist biases and assumptions made towards disability and ‘yuckiness’.
Taking pride in what is deemed yucky whilst embracing what it is to be human outside of able-bodied value systems, YUMMY discussions take prompts from Yucky and The Yucky Reading Room delving deeper into yuckiness - and its inverse, yumminess - with invited thinkers.
This discussion will focus on the concept of abjection through the lens of V's work with VNS Matrix and other collaborations, as well as their recent PhD research on panic, to imagine possible figures for representing and embracing abjection, and the complicated boundaries of the body.
V Barratt, a trans-media writer, performer and researcher, will draw on their extensive experience across artforms to speak to the creative and resistant possibilities of playing with abjection today.
This event will be Auslan and English interpreted and live streamed online.
Resource Spotlight:
mMouth hHouse pPanic cCathedral - V Barratt
Savouring Disgust - Carolyn Korsmeyer (accessible in the Yucky Reading Room)
This discussion will refer to resources from the Yucky Reading Room. Prior reading is not necessary for attending as excerpts will be read at this event.
Feature Image: YUMMY Discussions: Abjection (2024), design by William Maggs. Photography by Hen Vaughan. Image 2: Sam Wilson (2023), image courtesy Sam Wilson.
Public Program Curator
Artist
V Barratt (they/them) is a trans-media artist, researcher, writer and performer living on Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide, so-called Australia. V’s doctoral research had as its chaotic focus: panic, affect and deterritorialization, explored through performance, experimental poetics and queered affective vocalities. V values co-creation above all other production modalities, and as a neurodivergent cryptoqueer elder and soil fancier, honours all who are enmeshed in creative pursuits with them, trans-generationally, trans-materially, trans-temporally. V works ongoingly with a number of accomplices, and has performed and published widely across their lifetime of making doing and being.
Public Program Curator: William Maggs (they/he/she)
William Maggs is visual artist based in Adelaide, South Australia who uses various mediums including painting, digital art, and drawing. As a Deaf artist, William is particularly passionate about capturing the joys and struggles of being Deaf in his art. From a young age, William discovered his love for painting, which provided him with a powerful creative outlet to express his thoughts and feelings in a way that words couldn't. Currently completing his tertiary studies in Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Effects and Entertainment Design) William is honing his skills to turn his imagination into reality and to explore the complex and nuanced journey of life through his work.
William presented his first solo exhibition in 2021, and has exhibited as part of Flow Festival (2018, 2023). William curated the inaugural Deaf Gain group exhibition at Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, Adelaide (2023); a celebration of the local and national Deaf community platforming 9 diverse artists works from South Australia and Victoria.
In 2023, William was awarded Deaf Volunteer of the Year by Deaf Australia recognising Maggs’ ongoing advocacy for the Deaf community nationally; including William’s involvement with Deaf Rainbow NSW during World Pride 2023, and attendance at the 2023 Parliamentary Breakfast where William represented South Australia.
Public Program Curator: Hen Vaughan (they/them)
Hen Vaughan is a writer and artist living on unceded Kaurna Yarta. With a particular focus on walking arts, site-specific poetics, and critical ideas around health and illness, Hen’s practice has involved working on performances, workshops, walking tours, exhibitions, publications, radio programs and artist camps. Their writing has been published in Runway Journal, fineprint, and Artshub. Hen was an inaugural recipient of the National Gallery of Australia’s Digital Writers Mentorship in 2022.
About the Yucky Reading Room
The Reading Room is a space to encourage conversation and self-education. It is a room for guests to gather, learn, explore and critique the ideas shared across ACE’s galleries.
For the Yucky Reading Room, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE) has gathered rich texts, audio and video that have inspired each exhibition artist. The resulting collection engages with topics such as illness, the abject, disability, access advocacy, and the body as a political state.
The Yucky Reading Room and the exhibition’s public programs will share this space to encourage conversation and self-education. It is a room for guests to gather, learn, explore and critique the ideas shared across ACE’s galleries.
Additionally, a suite of digital resources have been made available for audiences who cannot access the gallery, extending Yucky’s presence beyond these walls.
The Yucky Reading Room is a space where you can relax, reflect and dig deeper into the ideas shared in the Yucky exhibition.
The Yucky Public Program Curators are supported by the Government of South Australia through the Richard Llewellyn Deaf and Disability Arts program.
This project is presented and supported by Adelaide Festival.
The Yucky Reading Room is supported by the City of Adelaide.
