Beer and Loathing in Bris Vegas

Background: In the 80s, cut off from an increasingly cosmopolitan Australia by conservative government led by Joh Bjelke Petersen, Brisbane was frequently seen as a cultural backwater. Distinct subcultures developed in isolation that contributed a sense of cultural particularity to Brisbane through its art and music scene, through the music of The Saints, The Go-Betweens, Powderfinger, Custard, and Regurgitator. This theme was debated in my photographic artworks alongside those of Jay Younger and Marian Drew, amongst others. This research sought to represent a shared experience of Brisbane’s particular character through phenomenological, practice-led research methods. It proposed that the roots of Brisbane’s cultural character could lie in an ironic take on 70s tourist memorabilia. Contribution: ‘Beer and Loathing in Las Vegas’ is a set of 3, large ornately framed photographs produced in collaboration with jeweller Matt Dwyer. Using kitsch souvenir items from the time of the Fitzgerald inquiry (when Bjelke Petersen’s corruption was being exposed), we photographed them in neutral settings, enlarged them to 1 metre square and ironically set them into ornate, ‘museum’ frames to make light of their inclusion in a major Brisbane institution. We posited that an ironic, self-deprecating worldview is central to the subcultural vision that flourished in Brisbane at the time and shaped its particular identity. The work contributes to cultural histories of Brisbane at a formative time of great creativity and burgeoning artistic subcultures. Significance: The work was commissioned by the Museum of Brisbane and was included in the group show ‘Silver’ curated by Jacqueline Armistead. We were commissioned alongside 5 other pairs of leading Queensland photographers and jewellers to respond to Brisbane’s changing identity. The exhibition sought to use the mutual centrality of silver to both mediums to stimulate novel and unlikely critical observations.