Close Contact
Close Contact, curated by Firstdraft, presents five new commissions by Tom Blake, Jazz Money, Amy Claire Mills, Athena Thebus and Leo Tsao.
Each artist traces zones of contact that intersect with our present moment: the new relationship between public surfaces and public safety; the deep histories and practices of First Peoples landcare displaced by First Contact; the politics of touch and those marginalised from the embrace of the public sphere; skin, the biological interface that both binds and separates us; and finally, the choreographies of resistance that drive bodies together and against each other, and against power.
Amy Claire Mills
Amy Claire Mills is Sydney-based artist living and working on unceded Gadigal and Wangal land. Her practice explores identity and self-preservation through immersive installations and performance, by which she becomes both the artist and subject. Her practice critiques and examines the politics surrounding the female disabled body. Using distinctive, colourful and bold mediums, her work encourages audiences to challenge their own paradigms and internalised preconceived bias, with the ambition of deconstructing ableism.
Burden of Proof, 2021
cotton, polyester, velvet, tulle, denim, tinsel, faux fur, glitter, lamé, polyester wadding, interfacing, press studs, thread, wool & polyester batting
175 × 155 cm (Are you sure it's not just in your head?)
190 × 180 cm (What's wrong with you?)
Artist’s assistant: Shirley Thorpe
I have an invisible disability. My disabled identity has shaped how I interact and hold space within society. Yet the legitimacy of my lived experience is always interrogated – invasive questions, asked without understanding or empathy. I am constantly called to convey the burden of proof that I am disabled. – Amy Claire Mills
Amy Claire Mills aims to disrupt the socially-constructed idea of disability. Using her own experiences as a starting point, she transcribes texts, phrases and questions from her various encounters and sews them onto vibrant and tactile quilts. In highlighting and reframing the personal, her aim is to transform and disrupt the ableist narratives that dictate our interactions with people with disability. Burden of Proof challenges our understanding and perception by forcing us to confront the language and bias with which we communicate about disability, while suggesting new vocabularies – of softness and tactility, empathy and care.
