Torrent Blossom
Torrent Blossom is an online exhibition centring artists and writers whose practices challenge the colonial state of Australia.
From turbulent waves of social, cultural, political and environmental upheaval, it emerges, bathed, in the digital blue glow of our shared captivity and consciousness. Curated by Firstdraft and supported by the City of Sydney, Torrent Blossom brings together a selection of new and existing video artworks, presented in dialogue with newly commissioned critical and poetic texts.
Dean Cross
Pauline (a portrait)
2020
What does normalisation look like? Can it be felt like a gentle tingle across your face on a foggy morning? Or does it smell like the rank breath of that teacher who leans in too close and tries too hard to be liked by everyone? In truth it is probably closer to the defeat one feels when the person sitting next to you on the aeroplane unashamedly colonises the arm rest (do you remember air travel?) and you concede to hours of uncomfortable frustration.
As a child I remember asking an Elder why politicians are allowed to lie but I am not – I am still waiting for a decent answer.
Somewhere a tap is broken. One reservoir is draining whilst another fills to the brim. Our old people built canoes, but I am forgetting how to swim.
Somewhere a tap is broken. One reservoir is draining whilst another fills to the brim. Our old people built canoes, but I am forgetting how to swim.
Dean Cross
Dean Cross, Pauline (a portrait) (still), 2020, video with sound, 7 minutes 31 seconds. Courtesy the artist and Yavuz Gallery, Sydney and Singapore.
