By Molly Magennis
Footscray Community Arts is hosting a new exhibition, which explores the resilience of people during Apartheid-era South Africa and of those living on the unceded lands of Australia.
The Purple Shall Govern, by Roberta Joy Rich, is showing from now until March 27.
Through this exhibition, Rich hopes to shed light on how the past informs our experiences in public spaces in the present by reframing history and examining her own family narrative.
“The Purple Shall Govern is a new major work that endeavours to reveal the slippery nature of borders and their embedded presences,” Rich said.
“The exhibition invites us to navigate and consider our relationships with histories that have residually informed the ways in which we move within public spaces. It considers the duality of
boundaries that have informed resilience, and the unyielding nature of people and publics.”
The exhibition will also feature two related events, The Purple Shall Govern: Sounds of Resistance and The Purple Shall Govern: Screens of Resistance.
Screens of Resistance will take place across two nights, with the first on March 2 encouraging guests to reflect on the documentary Lousy Little Sixpence, a film about the Stolen Generations.
The Purple Shall Govern is having it’s launch event on Saturday February 19, with an artist talk by Rich to take place the following day on Sunday March 20. RSVP is required.
