under construction
Yucky
17th February - 4th May 2024
Adelaide Experimental Contemporary (ACE), Kaurna Land/so called Adelaide
Lead Artist: Sam Petersen
Artists: Josh Campton and Lorcan Hopper, Sophie Cassar, Makeda Duong, Elizabeth Reed, and Finnegan Shannon
Public Program Curators: William Maggs and Hen Vaughan
Facilitators: Rayleen Forester, Grace Marlow, and Patrice Sharkey
“I had a flower pattern of drool on my pillow case.”
“The yucky feeling you get when other people have too much power over your life.”
Excerpt from What is yucky? by Sam Petersen
Yucky is a group exhibition that explores the personal and political complexities that exist as part of disabled experience. The exhibition's premise and title has been led by artist Sam Petersen in conversation with Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.
This exhibition and accompanying programs reclaims the visceral world of 'yuck' and encourages audiences to question the ableist preconceived biases and assumptions we have toward disability and "yuckiness”.
Taking pride in what is socially assigned to yuckiness is a personal and political way to defiantly embrace what it is to be human outside of an able bodied set of value systems.
Yucky draws attention to institutional structures and systems of supposed support and 'care' that limit disabled people's autonomy, advocating for greater understanding of interdependence and the complexities of giving and receiving care.
Featuring new and recent work by a mix of pivotal local, national and international contemporary artists, Yucky centres disabled, chronically ill, deaf, and neurodivergent artists and is a call to disability awareness and justice.
Sophie Cassar
Clinic of the Gaze (2023)
series of 4 archival prints (inkjet on cotton rag) 123 x 82.5cm each
Courtesy of the artist
Sophie Cassar explores how illness and disability are portrayed in society using both photography and words.
In Clinic of the Gaze she examines the sexual politics of disability by referring to medical and disability fetishes. For example, the fetish abasiophilia involves a sexual attraction to people with mobility impairments who use orthopedic aids. This fetish often involves role-playing with plaster casts and leg braces, using bondage to mimic the limitations of physical disabilities. Sophie performs these ideas across a series of four large photographs, one in colour and three in black and white.
Through Clinic of the Gaze Cassar acts as the subject of this fetish to shed light on the dynamics of power and consent when a patient entrusts their body to medical procedures.
Photography by Amy May Stuart, studio assistance from Katie Ryan, Nunzio Madden, Jemi Gale and Hazi Nagel. Supported by Maribyrnong Council’s Western Artist Mentorship Program, with mentoring from Jane Trengove.
Makeda Duong
The Real Thing (2023)
recycled viscose nylon, machine knit by Knitup Courtesy of the artist
Makeda Duong creates art that reflects her personal experiences with race, gender, and mental health.
In her piece The Real Thing Duong explores her experiences with bipolar disorder. Unlike her usual hand-knitted text-based works, she chose to use machine knitting for this project. The garment features carefully selected song lyrics that capture the intense mood swings of mania and depression. The title of the artwork is inspired by a song from the band Faith No More, which Duong relates her mental illness struggles with.
Sam Petersen
Drool Fountain (2023)
steel, photographic print, glycerine Fabrication by Sculpture Co Courtesy of the artist
“Only something you fear for so much and for so long, could ever be so beautiful!
Take me, fuckers
This is a photo inspired by another photo seen 15 years ago, then a photographer friend said, ‘Oh wow,’ taking a photo of my drool hanging from a straw that was in my latte. Dripping down to a pool on the floor.”
Sam Petersen is a visual artist, writer and performer. Sam is an AAC and power wheelchair user. Sam is also Queer; working in the politics of bodily function and prejudice through sensorial engagement.
This change in Sam's art focuses on different materials, but the main idea stays the same. Drool Fountain challenges how society often sees disability as gross. An image of Sam is suspended from a grid, you can see a trickle of glycerine fall from Sam’s photo to the ground to look like drool. The artwork highlights the natural and human side of things like bodily fluids and messes. Sam explores how spaces and bodies interact and how society views certain bodily functions, while also trying out new materials and sizes in Sam’s work.
Joshua Campton and Lorcan Hopper
Scattered Comets Inbetween the Lines (Multiverse) (2023) Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Welcome to the scattered world and travel the solar system. Music is always in the heart. Listen to us so we can actually connect our story to the solar system.
“Because we are brothers
We see a different point of view (when working together)
Bullied and being discriminated (against) by other people and I feel yucky inside.
I focused on gruesome facts of the human body.
Josh: I started writing poetry out of my heart and mind
Lorcan: When I write poetry (a new poem) it feels like a different chapter. He goes to me. I go to him.
Poetry, DJing, dance, hip hop, theatre, multimedia.”
Joshua Campton is a disabled artist and proud Larrakia, Wadaman and Karajarri man. Josh has worked with Tutti Arts (since 2015), Back to Back Theatre, No Strings Attached, Restless Dance, Slingsby, SA First Nations Dance Collective and Kurruru Performing Arts. Josh is a founding member of the Beats Crew. Joshua Campton and Lorcan Hopper frequently collaborate and perform as DJ Salt and DJ Power – the Culture Brothers.
Finnegan Shannon and Sam Peterson
Do you want us here or not (ACE) (2023) plywood, paint
variable dimensions
Courtesy of the artists
Finnegan Shannon is an artist who challenges ableist norms through humour, honesty, and frustration. They struggle with walking and standing, so they're always on the lookout for places to sit and rest. After a painful and tiring museum visit in 2017, where they couldn't find enough seating, Finnegan decided to create artworks that double as benches to encourage more seating in exhibition spaces. Finnegan writes their thoughts on the benches for people to sit on and think about their experiences.
Their pieces feature text like "This exhibition is making me stand too long. Sit if you feel the same" or "I'd rather be sitting. Sit if you agree." This text expresses their frustration and humorously highlights the need for rest.
One of these benches was made specifically for the Yucky exhibition in collaboration with Sam Peterson.
Elizabeth Reed
Peer Viewed Body Parts of a Work (2023) Mixed media installation
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Elizabeth Reed uses her art to share the deaf experience. As an advocate for deaf education, she works at a deaf school, aiming to draw attention to the issues facing the deaf community and future generations.
Peer Viewed Body Parts of a Work visually critiques the hearing-focused approach to "fixing" deaf children, influenced by academic research that overlooks deaf scholars. It questions society's opposition to deafness and sign language. Reed uses the imagery of cut infant hands, surgical tools and instructional video to communicate a shocking idea of what enforcing a medical procedure could look like for audiences. While the concept of "bimarcosectomy" may be fictional, discouraging sign language can lead to language deprivation and trauma in reality.
Yucky Reading Room
For the Yucky Reading Room, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE) has gathered rich texts, audio and video that have inspired each exhibition artist. The resulting collection engages with topics such as illness, the abject, disability, access advocacy, and the body as a political state.
The Yucky Reading Room and the exhibition's public programs will share this space to encourage conversation and self-education.
It is a room for guests to gather, learn, explore and critique the ideas shared across ACE's galleries.
Additionally, a suite of digital resources have been made available for audiences who cannot access the gallery, extending Yucky's presence beyond these walls.
The Yucky Reading Room is a space where you can relax, reflect and dig deeper into the ideas shared in the Yucky exhibition.
Yucky.
What is yucky?
All of my life I have felt deeply yucky, in every way.
Of course I'm what they used to call germaphobic, but I hope now they just call being real.
People are really really yucky, and I think well they must see me as even more yucky, I am even more yucky.
And this has only been reinforced by people’s ostracism.
People looking past me to say, “Sorry,” to my support worker when they get in my way.
Being at a party, being told your costume is great and then that person telling your support worker that their costume is great too, but they also get a kiss. I didn't want a kiss and neither did my support worker, but why didn't they kiss me?
The yucky feeling you get when other people have too much power over your life.
The yucky feeling I get when people say I'm their friend and I don't feel it.
They look good if I'm their friend.
Being told by the pool people to wear long pants in the pool to hide my catheter.
The sad uncomfortable look I get when I express my access needs. Or still, disbelief.
Not being allowed into things that other people are. I am left too numb to cry and no one seems to care, that there is a hole in my heart that will never be filled.
“I was afraid of having to take care of you.”
Knowing everyone thinks that.
My sister going, “You sleep like this,” putting herself face down into the pillow and head to one side. Then she gets up and goes, “ew,” at her inevitable drool left behind. I had a flower pattern of drool on my pillow case.
And so on, and so on.
People may say I'm not yucky, but there is heaps of evidence that I am - Yucky. I know I am cleaner than most people, but I know people really think I'm yucky.
So I'm, Yucky.
And I have asked other artists with disabilities if they feel Yucky too.
By Sam Petersen
(under construction)