Deathscapes features hard data and articles pertaining to Indigenous issues and custodial deaths, and case studies and artwork responding to deaths worldwide.
Gretchen Coombs
Gretchen Coombs lives and works in Brisbane, Australia, where she teaches in the School of Design at Queensland University of Technology. Her interests include art and design criticism/activism.
Posted inArt
From Oyster Shells to Cardboard Bales, the Politics of Everyday Materials
Material Politics explores how socioeconomic growth, rapid gentrification, increased mobility, the rise of digital technology, and lasting colonial legacies impact the materials used in Australian art.
Posted inArt
Artists Share Their Personal, Tragic Experiences in Health and Care
In the small foyer of the 8th Floor gallery, a video shows artist Carmen Papalia with a bullhorn in place of a cane — Papalia, who is blind, beckons those who pass him as he strolls the sidewalk of a busy Vancouver street, making a public declaration of his need to cross.
Posted inArt
In a Tea Ritual, Stopping Time and Reflecting on War with a Veteran
As we sat in a circle, Aaron Hughes began Tea by describing where he was in February 2003: watching the snow fall in his barracks while his fellow American troops were being deployed to Kuwait for the Iraq war.
Posted inArt
A Performance Satirizes the Policing of Public Space
HOBART, Tasmania — She glared and said, “You don’t have a photo pass so get back behind the cones.”
Posted inArt
A Shrine to the Many Faces of Resistance
LOS ANGELES — A lone protestor currently occupies one of the rooms of a former apartment in Koreatown.
Posted inArt
At Venice Biennale, Artists Stage a Pageant for Precarious Workers in Abu Dhabi
VENICE — When I arrived in Venice three weeks ago, I immediately headed to the tip of the Donsoduro to S.a.L.E. docks, a contemporary art space run by artist and activist Marco Baravalle. As part of its Biennale programming, the G.U.L.F. was set to have the Precarious Workers Pageant that evening.
Posted inArt
Three Days of Debating Social Justice at the Venice Biennale
VENICE — As folks streamed into the dimmed theater and escaped the Venetian heat, I felt a sense of anticipation. Creative Time, which has been showcasing its support of socially engaged art practices for decades, made its way into the Venice Biennale’s central exhibition All the World’s Futures, organized by Okwui Enwezor.
Posted inArt
Reflections on a Weekend Devoted to Socially Engaged Art
BRISBANE, Australia — On the flight between Pittsburgh and Detroit, I felt art’s potential: Open Engagement 2015’s socially engaged projects had responded to the national discourse on social and racial justice.