Portfolio of visual artworks: Pinkwashing

Background: ‘Pinkwashing’ is positioned within a fine art discourse focusing on reproductive technologies to research how alternative printing substrates can assist the distribution of information and images to the public domain. By referencing historic associations of process and matrix, appropriated news images mingle the opening ceremony of the 2018 Veduchi ski resort in Chechnya with footage of targeted attacks of gay, lesbian and trans people now known as the ‘gay purge’ as a form of ongoing protest. Contribution: This project produced multiple artworks, reconstituting still images from a news report as protest placards printed on the substrates of paper and vinyl in hot pink activating the portmanteau title of ‘pinkwashing’. The project moves from paper and ink inside the gallery to the public space of gallery entrance doors and windows utilising electrostatic decals. These site-specific installations rescaled and rearranged SBS/BBC news images of celebration and oppression to highlight the sublimated and ongoing global crisis of LGBTIQ communities, their visibility and their lack of safety around the world. Significance: ‘Pinkwashing’ has been presented in five different iterations and venues: (1) c3 contemporary art space (2018, Melbourne) as part of The News Network Project; (2) Bundoora Homestead Art Centre (2019) as part of the Midsumma Visual Art Program; (3) L8 Gallery at the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (2019, Hong Kong) as part of the Matrix 2.0 exhibition co-curated by HK Open Printshop and RMIT Print Studio; (4) Swan Hill Print and Drawing Awards (2020) finalist exhibition; and (5) Forrester Gallery, Oamaru, New Zealand. ‘Pinkwashing’ was featured as an ‘In Conversation’ post with Andrew Stephens the Editor of IMPRINT Magazine on the Print Council of Australia’s blog in February 2019.