Remember when life was nothing but long nights of smashing your siblings into submission playing Street Fighter on the Super Nintendo? No, just us? Not that vintage?
Choose Your Fighter at the Leo Kelly in Blacktown Arts Centre is an eye-popping group show of young, emerging artists form the local area who have all played with the idea of donning fantasy armour, adorning it and deploying a super-powered persona.
Amy Toma, Emily Ngo, Ethan Neish and Jayda Neish combined their creative forces in workshops run by established artists Justine Youssef and Leila El Rayes, who helped them to craft incredible costumes and powered-up props. They then posed for fantastical self-portraits, allowing them to highlight the issues they face day-to-day in a hyper-stylised way. Choose Your Fighter is a partnership with mental health centre Headspace Mt Druitt and delivers a brilliant sense of place while exploring concepts of world-building, placemaking and code-switching.
You can get involved too, with armour workshops led by Rayes and Youssef at Blacktown Arts on Saturday, February 13 and 20, 10.30 am to 1.00 pm, which you can book here. It's on until February 27. Now that's worth muscling up for.
