Queer Encounters

Queer Encounters brings together artworks, including new commissions, by Dennis Golding, Bhenji Ra, Sione Tuívailala Monū and Sidney McMahon.

The works are situated in, and respond to, the vestibule and Kaldor Hall at the entrance to the Art Gallery of New South Wales‘ historic South Building. Together, they create a ‘queer threshold’ that prompts alternative ways of looking, remembering and history-making.

Dennis Golding recasts fragments of memories into a gold-drenched chandelier using iron lacework details from the Victorian-era balconies of his childhood homes in inner-city Redfern. Bhenji Ra draws on the processes of remembering as a way to reconfigure representations and histories of marginalised bodies through dance and conversational soundscapes, alongside artist and collaborator Star Amerasu. Sione Tuívailala Monū presents spectacular apertures into real and imagined worlds of queer Moana diasporas, weaving together moving and still portraits of friends and family. Meanwhile Sidney McMahon’s video installation suspends us in a memory loop and tests the potential for the Kaldor Hall – both a waiting zone and a transitory space – to hold queer experiences of time and personal transformations.

Queer Encounters is part of WorldPride at the Art Gallery, an extensive program of art, performance, films, talks and more in association with Sydney WorldPride 2023, which includes a performance by Bhenji Ra.