Why does the desire for a single and unambiguous national identity persist in Australia? Why, when our country is home to people from all variety of cultural backgrounds, of all sexualities, genders, abilities and ages, do we still seek to flatten out that richness and diversity?
The 24 artists who are showing work in this exhibition curated by Kate Just all deal with critical questions of national identity, challenging racist, homophobic and misogynistic ideas about Australia's identity.
There are 11 artists from Michael Buxton's collection – Brook Andrew, Daniel Boyd, Juan Davila, Destiny Deacon, Tony Garifalakis, Tracey Moffatt, Callum Morton, Raquel Ormella, Mike Parr, Tony Schwensen and Paul Yore – alongside 13 leading artists who have all made their mark on this particular social and artistic debate: Abdul Abdullah, Kay Abude, Hoda Afshar, Tony Albert, Archie Barry, Richard Bell, Ali Gumillya Baker, Janenne Eaton, Eugenia Lim, Hoang Tran Nguyen, Steven Rhall, Christian Thompson and Siying Zhou.
This exhibition celebrates the first anniversary of collector Michael Buxton's impressively designed Buxton Contemporary gallery, alongside dual exhibition A New Order.