





Image 1: Tabita Rezaire, Sorry For Real, 2015, HD video, Represented by Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg. Image 2: Black Birds, Our visions begin with our desires, 2020. Cement Fondu commissioned video-performance. HD video. Image 3-6: An Appropriate Reaction installation view.
An Appropriate Reaction presents an exhibition of performance video works by international artist Tabita Rezaire and a series of live events curated by three Women of Colour – Matariki, Hannah Brontë and Black Birds – featuring theatre, performance, music, dance and newly commissioned videos.
The exhibition and events program responds to American writer, feminist and activist Audre Lorde’s 1981 speech ‘The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism’. The title, An Appropriate Reaction, references a line from Lorde’s speech:
“Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.”
As artists and performers, Tabita Rezaire, Hannah Brontë, Matariki and Black Birds have variously engaged their practices to speak to the creative uses of anger in contemporary life, while challenging anger as a reductive, racist and gendered stereotype for Women of Colour.
For An Appropriate Reaction, Matariki, Hannah Brontë and Black Birds have created, curated and perform in one-night live events that respond to the subject of Lorde’s speech from their own perspectives, selecting collaborators to participate through theatre, DJ sets, dance and live musical acts.
Image details: Courtesy of Black Birds, Ayeesha Ash and Stelly G. Photograph by Muna Hamid; Tabita Rezaire, Sorry For Real, 2015, HD video (still), 16min58sec.
EXHIBITION
23 JANUARY – 23 FEBRUARY
ARTISTS
TABITA REZAIRE
MATARIKI
HANNAH BRONTË
BLACK BIRDS
LIVE EVENTS
MATARIKI
NGĀTI KANGARU
1 FEBRUARY 6-8PM
HANNAH BRONTË
FEMPRE$$: MOON TIDES
8 FEBRUARY 6-9PM
BLACK BIRDS
OUR VISIONS BEGIN
WITH OUR DESIRE
15 FEBRUARY 6-8PM
PROJECT SPACE
EME
OPENING HOURS
THURSDAY – SUNDAY
11AM-5PM
This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW