Opening Wed 5 Jun, 6pm
Exhibition runs Thurs 6 Jun – Sat 29 Jun
Open Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm, Saturday 11am – 3pm

Body as an Archive: tracking the transgender experience in Tasmania is a multi-media project that explores and articulates the historical and contemporary Tasmanian transgender experience through storytelling and text, archival objects, video, sound and photography.

Worldwide, there is a lack of transgender representation in the media and historical archives, contemporary arts and general society. This is amplified in Tasmania because of (until recently) lagging legislation, remote geographic location and small population. As a result, trans invisibility has been widespread, and it has bred feelings of isolation and despair among the local trans community.

Transgender bodies are like walking archives because of their ability to change, move and be constantly erased or supplemented. This means they are also sites of consolidated queer temporality and experience. They carry the collective intergenerational trauma of their community, past and present.

Erasing trans identities results in the erasure of trans history and this perpetuates a vicious cycle of oppression through tampering with their sense of self-identity and belonging.

In this project, Dexter Rosengrave engages with the community and with archival material from various collections, to contribute to and preserve part of trans history. Through this process, the stories of the Tasmanian trans community materialise and become visible.

CONVERSATIONS
Sat 29 Jun, 1pm

Join Dexter Rosengrave for Conversations. This is a free, casual event where you can meet artists currently exhibiting at MAC and hear more about the stories behind their work.

Image: Dexter Rosengrave, Exi(s)t, found 35mm slide photograph, unknown photographer