Exhibition • Touring
Just Not Australian
18 Sep 2020 – 4 Jun 2023
Artspace
43–51 Cowper Wharf Roadway
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
Sydney Australia
Just Not Australian presents work by Australian artists at the forefront of national debate and practice. This exhibition brings together 20 artists across generations and diverse cultural backgrounds to deal broadly with the origins and implications of contemporary Australian nationhood. Showcasing the common sensibilities of satire, larrikinism and resistance so as to present a broad exploration of race, place and belonging, Just Not Australian interrogates what it means to be Australian at this challenging point in time.
Just Not Australian engages with the moral and ethical undertones of the loaded rejoinder ‘un- Australian’ – a pejorative now embedded in our national vocabulary that continues to be used to further political agendas and to spread nationalistic ideals of what it means to be Australian. Far from a simple comparison, a consideration of what’s not Australian ultimately leads to questions of what is, and the artists in Just Not Australian consider this in detail.
This exhibition begins its national tour from 2020 which marks the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s first voyage to Australia, a timely moment to interrogate Australia’s colonial history and the complexities of presenting and representing national identity.
Past Locations
18 Sep – 8 Nov 2020
21 Nov 2020 – 7 Feb 2021
20 Feb – 5 Apr 2021
8 May – 1 Aug 2021
14 Aug – 24 Oct 2021
5 Nov 2021 – 5 Feb 2022
9 Apr – 18 Jun 2022
2 Jul – 4 Sep 2022
17 Sep – 30 Oct 2022
18 Nov 2022 – 29 Jan 2023
11 Mar – 4 Jun 2023