Lismore Regional Gallery presents Love, Lies and Indoctrination – A new exhibition by Asphyxia on show until 21 November 2021.
Love, Lies and Indoctrination explores the strange customs of our society and the challenge of belonging – when we can’t or won’t follow those customs, perhaps due to feminist ideals, chronic illness, disability, queer identity, or just disagreeing with them.
It’s easy for us to assume that many social conventions are just the natural way of things, and yet when you look closely, many are quite bizarre. Are they healthy for us? Should we find another way to live? These are the questions Asphyxia’s artworks hope to provoke and explore through the unique lens of being Deaf, queer, chronically ill and needing to use a wheelchair.
Asphyxia is an artist, writer and public speaker. She is the author of Future Girl, winner of the Readings YA Book Award 2021 and shortlisted for numerous other awards, as well as the much loved junior fiction series, The Grimstones. Asphyxia has also been a circus performer and puppeteer, and has recently begun composing music, preparing a Deaf-accessible show for 2022.
An avid art-journaler, she loves to share her process to help others benefit from this amazing tool for self-expression, problem-solving, planning, goal-tracking and self-esteem. Deaf since the age of three, Asphyxia learnt to sign when she was eighteen, which changed her life.
She is now a Deaf activist, sharing details of Deaf experience and raising awareness of oppression of Deaf people and what we can do to change this. Her free online Auslan course at www.asphyxia.com.au has over 15,000 students.
Love, Lies and Indoctrination
Lismore Regional Gallery, 11 Rural Street, Lismore
Exhibition continues to 21 November 2021
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.lismoregallery.org for details.
Image: Asphyxia, Not Entitled, digitally created in Procreate, 2021 – courtesy the artist