The SEDITION festival is in its second year. The core of SEDITION 2020 is an art trail that snakes through Sydney displaying some of Australia’s best and most provocative artists in spaces from the HSBC bank to World Square, to Pass-Port, 100 Oxford Street, the Eternity Theatre foyer and finally to the Grandiflora window on Macleay Street Potts Point.
The idea is to take art out of the galleries and into the streets where works will stimulate debate in the community.
The works focus on public discourse – Black Lives Matter, gender, sexism, anti-science and climate change and the toxic side of male culture.
Artists include Brook Andrew, Marina de Bris, Destiny Deacon, Tamara Dean, Blak Douglas, Fiona Hall, Meg Hewitt. Fiona Lowry, Teena McCarthy, Kaye Mahoney, Reg Mombassa, Susan O’Doherty, Julie Rrap, Luke Sciberras, Claudia Chan Shaw, Stuart Spence, Laurens Tan, Jenny Watson, Jason Wing, Anne Zahalka & Toby Zoates.
‘Cake’ – Susan O’Doherty (textiles, latex, stainless steel knife , wood 95 x 40 x 30cm. 2019) is a metaphor for Australia and the way English colonisers divided up the land for themselves, using the pretence of terra nullius, ignoring the fact that it was inhibited by the First Australians who had been here for 60,000 years. Though I have denoted one tiny sweet slice for the Aboriginals, it is a token slice to assuage the guilt of the thieves. The British brought with them their concept of land and property ownership with no regard or comprehension that Aboriginal people did not have such a concept. They were custodians who were made to endure the pain of occupation and dispossession. Today we have not come close to resolving systemic racism or come to terms with our brutal past.
Susan O’Doherty. 2020