I WON'T LET YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT, 2015
Dual channel HD video with sound
10 min 21 sec
Live performances on 2-4 October, 2015
Maroubra, Cronulla and Bondi Beaches
Don't you worry!
Its gonna be alright
'cause I'm always ready,
I won't let you out of my sight.
I'll be ready (I'll be ready)
Never you fear (no don't you fear)
I'll be ready
Forever and always
I'm always here.
'I'll be ready' - Jimi Jamison
"I'll be ready" - Jimi Jamison's soundtrack to the 90s hit TV series Baywatch - blasts from a lifesaving-float-cum-boombox as the artist runs along several popular Sydney Beaches wearing a red burqini (a swimsuit with a hood designed for Muslim women). In addition to the run there are several other actions, some taken from Baywatch others boot camp routines, yet in all there is a blurring of the line between victim and saviour, the watcher and the watched, Muslim femininity and masculinity, as well as notions of success and failure. By this I refer to the queer notion of failure as put forward by Jack Halberstam, as an anti-nationalist discourse, a "performance of dissent."
Performed and presented on the 10th anniversary of the Cronulla riots, I WON'T LET YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT looks at the implications of gender in the midst of rising racial tensions, the war on terror, the role of surveillance and the impact it has on different bodies. It also engages with the often complicated relationship between western feminism and Muslim women, mired by a history of subject-constitution and object-formation.
Link to catalogue essay
Acknowledgements
Concept, performance and editing: Cigdem Aydemir
Cinematography and colour correction: Meg White
Assistant camera: Dimitri Zaunders
Assistant camera: Matthew Bedford
Sound editing: Drew Bisset
Music: 'I'm Always Here' by Jimi Jamison
This artwork has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
Dual channel HD video with sound
10 min 21 sec
Live performances on 2-4 October, 2015
Maroubra, Cronulla and Bondi Beaches
Don't you worry!
Its gonna be alright
'cause I'm always ready,
I won't let you out of my sight.
I'll be ready (I'll be ready)
Never you fear (no don't you fear)
I'll be ready
Forever and always
I'm always here.
'I'll be ready' - Jimi Jamison
"I'll be ready" - Jimi Jamison's soundtrack to the 90s hit TV series Baywatch - blasts from a lifesaving-float-cum-boombox as the artist runs along several popular Sydney Beaches wearing a red burqini (a swimsuit with a hood designed for Muslim women). In addition to the run there are several other actions, some taken from Baywatch others boot camp routines, yet in all there is a blurring of the line between victim and saviour, the watcher and the watched, Muslim femininity and masculinity, as well as notions of success and failure. By this I refer to the queer notion of failure as put forward by Jack Halberstam, as an anti-nationalist discourse, a "performance of dissent."
Performed and presented on the 10th anniversary of the Cronulla riots, I WON'T LET YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT looks at the implications of gender in the midst of rising racial tensions, the war on terror, the role of surveillance and the impact it has on different bodies. It also engages with the often complicated relationship between western feminism and Muslim women, mired by a history of subject-constitution and object-formation.
Link to catalogue essay
Acknowledgements
Concept, performance and editing: Cigdem Aydemir
Cinematography and colour correction: Meg White
Assistant camera: Dimitri Zaunders
Assistant camera: Matthew Bedford
Sound editing: Drew Bisset
Music: 'I'm Always Here' by Jimi Jamison
This artwork has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.