Artspace

Vernon Ah Kee

Belief Suspension

Exhibition Dates
8 February - 1 March 2008

Overview

Belief Suspension presented new and recent work by Vernon Ah Kee exploring the defining role played by the beach in Australian culture. The beach is central to the nation's touristic promotion internationally and a locus of subcultural activity locally, where surf, leisure and body cultures are presented as emblematic of Australian identity. That the beach has also recently emerged as a contested space, a site of racial and social tensions played out most dramatically between surf and migrant communities during the Cronulla riots, speaks of broader disjunctions within the Australian community.

While the film and installation works comprising Belief Suspension marked something of a departure for Ah Kee, or rather an expansion of the artist's practice, they retained his elegant handling of visual space, wry wit and incisive commentary on race relations in Australia from an Indigenous perspective.