“Stranger than fiction”
Archie Barry, Teresa Busuttil, Nicholas Currie, Andrea Illés, Rosie Isaac, Basim Magdy, Rä di Martino, Sammaneh Pourshafighi and Joanna Kitto
29 June → 31 Aug 2024

Archie Barry works with performance, video, sculpture and music. Their work is autobiographical, somatic and process-led. They create self-portraiture that troubles dominant notions of personhood as stable, legible and sequential. Their practice takes shape through a genealogy of personas, devised from their experiences of mortality, power and transgender embodiment. Their artworks are a way to connect with the dead people in their life, by practicing the gifts of singing and spatial thinking inherited from loved ones. In 2019, they co-wrote (with artist Spence Messih) 'Clear Expectations: Guidelines for institutions, galleries and curators working with trans, non-binary and gender diverse artists in Australia', which has been widely received as a best practice document in Australia and internationally.

Teresa Busuttil is an Australian artist of Maltese heritage working between Tarntanya/Adelaide and Malta. Her practice blends personal stories, family history, and fantasy through multidisciplinary forms of art, including sculpture, installation, and moving image. Drawing on a kitsch aesthetic and religious iconography, Teresa explores culture, grief and memory influenced by her connection to Malta and her experiences within the Maltese diaspora.

Nicholas Currie a descendant of the Mulunjali Clan of Yugambeh people and Kuku Yalanji people of Brisbane and Beaudesert and Kuku Yalanji people of the rainforest regions of Far North Queensland. Nicholas is known for his diverse artistic and curatorial practice both in subject and medium, from abstract work on canvas, to murals and contemporary art installations, exploring social, cultural, and personal themes. The visual vocabulary links to themes of Indigeneity, emotional responses and larger community values.

Andrea Illés is a performance artist whose auto portraits explore the relational chasm between self and other. Merging dance, text, sound, and video, her enquiry emerges from the agony and euphoria she feels being perceived. Often working with states of overwhelm, Andrea is interested in the possibilities found in intense experience. Andrea was an artist in residence in the West Space Studio from February to August 2024.

Rosie Isaac is a visual artist and writer in Naarm/Melbourne. Interested in art-making that imagines different material and social futures, Rosie's research-based practice focuses on language as it is experienced in the body while reading, in relationships, and via social institutions. Rosie has recently presented across the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Liquid Architecture, Next Wave, Gertrude Contemporary and Adelaide Contemporary Experimental.

Basim Magdy is an artist from Assiut, Egypt, living in Basel, Switzerland whose work uses fictitious pasts and dystopic futures to critique the present. He has shown across M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium; MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MAXXI National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome; Jeu de Paume, Paris; CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux; Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Berlin; South London Gallery, London; Art in General, New York; State of Concept, Athens; and University Galleries of Illinois State University, USA.

Rä di Martino is an artist in Rome, Italy, whose work deals with our perception of reality and fiction, drawing attention to the absurdity of representing either. Her work has been shown across the Tate Modern (London); MoMA PS1 (NY); Palazzo Grassi (Venice); GAM and Fondazione Sandretto (Turin); MACRO and MAXXI (Rome); Museion (Bolzano); MCA (Chicago); HangarBicocca (Milan). Di Martino has participated in film festivals such Locarno Film Festival; VIPER Basel; Transmediale.04; New York Underground Film Festival; Kasseler Dokfest; Torino Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. In 2018, she developed the project AFTERALL with the MIBAC Italian Council Award, and in 2022 held a solo exhibition at Forte Belvedere (Florence).

Born in Tehran, Sammaneh Pourshafighi is a multidiscipinary artist in Naarm/Melbourne. She is a Queer genderfluid Muslim who arrived in Australia as a refugee after the Iranian Revolution and grew up on the Gold Coast. Across film, performance, poetry, collage, painting and photography, Sammaneh's practice examines identity politics, mental health, diasporic tensions, ethno-futurism, and the complex relationships between bodies and environments through an intersectional feminist lens, with an emphasis on colour, surprising contrasts, autobiographical events, and humour.

Joanna Kitto has been Director of West Space since late 2022. Joanna's practice is focussed on refining an inclusive, personable and receptive approach to contemporary art presentation, with an interest in generating meaningful connections between art and audiences. She has held curatorial and leadership positions across university art museums, festivals, council and artist-led initiatives in Naarm/Melbourne and Tarntanya/Adelaide, and co-founded independent publishing platform fine print.