A warm thanks to everyone who attended the opening of We Don’t Need Another Hero at Gallerysmith on Friday 21st October and made it such a magical eve. It was an inspiring night for me, to be part of this collaborative expression of what aims to be creative resistance.

A big thanks to Gary Foley for opening the show with a flattering and otherwise rousing speech that furthered this feeling I’ve been having that we are in an exciting time of change. He made much reference to a poem I recently wrote and performed as one of the guests at his Melbourne Festival show (soon to be at Sydney Festival) that I didn’t further talk about in my speech. It is relevant to the show in that it deals with being defined by physicality, specifically being racialised. So for anyone who was there and curious, you can read it on my harshbrowns blog.

I’m so honoured that two of the members of Ladies of Colour Agency, Loretta Mui and Raina Petersen performed in front of their portrait “Exotic Escape”.  Their spoken word was incredible and Raina followed her pieces with a Bollywood reclamation dance (especially choreographed for me!!!) that blew everyone away. Their portrait sold immediately after, with others queueing behind to purchase it too! 

The series of posters were hot sellers too. All the profits are towards new QPOCalypse poster collective to print and distribute more people-of-colour-focused posters for the street and beyond so expect to see more POC presence on walls inside and out and about in Melbourne! If you’re part of a people-of-colour focused collective or organisation and want a free copy (or more) of the series for a space, or bulk copies at cost please let me know.

More photos of the evening are up on Gary Foley’s website here and stay tuned here for more too.

If you’re in Melbourne, the show runs until November 5th at Gallerysmith.

Thanks for the warm and wonderful feedback to the work, to all the subjects who collaborated to make the work, Caleb Latreille for his research and art assistance, and other friends and my family who have been inspiration and support in the emotional and creative process along the way!

Gary Foley and TextaQueen in front of his portrait, “Creature from the Black Platoon”. My outfit is by the lovely Emily Hasselhoof.