Organised by Rafaela Pandolfini with Jana Hawkins-Andersen
Over seven days and four nights of live events, the Cosmopolitan exhibition program brought together artists, writers and collectives from Australia, Aotearoa, China, the USA and France, speaking to 'the social' in relationship to world-making, centres and peripheries. Taking place at The Drill Hall in Darling Point, Sydney a former site of Navy use and administration for much of the twentieth century, and overlooking Sydney's famous harbour, Cosmopolitan includes artists who, together, address our changing relationship to the divisions and interconnections between contentious notions of the local and the global. Subcultural aesthetics and expressions of community pushed up against the logic of globalisation.
Cosmopolitanism is a concept that has a number of usages/deployments. Etymologically it is derived from the Ancient Greek: κοÏμοÏολίÏηÏ, or kosmopolitês, formed from "κÏÏμοÏ", kosmos, i.e. "world", "universe", or "cosmos", and ÏολίÏηÏ, "politês", i.e. "citizen" or "[one] of a city". At the centre of cosmopolitanism is the notion that all individuals, regardless of socio-political affiliation, are members of a universal and singular community. As such, we are challenged to detach from more localised, parochial, discrete and exclusive forms of socio-political organisation - nation state, ethnicity, religion etc - in exchange for wide, all-encompassing modes of global-being. We are to echoe with 4th century BCE cynic Diogenes, âI am a citizen of the worldâ
Lukiah Bodley, The Cosmopolitan, 2019
THE GREEN ROOM
Spencer Lai (AU)
hippies enter through the side door to the bazaar
a curated show with
Alethea Everard
Ander Rennick
George Egerton-Waburton
Hana Earles
Jessie Kiely
Joe Speier
Nik Lee
Samraing Chea
Sorawit Songstaya
George Egerton-Warburton appeared courtesy of Sutton Gallery Melbourne
Samraing Chea appeared courtesy of Arts Project Australia
Even though I have never been here before, the bay and this area reminds me of boring obscenities, fantasies you hear on television, in movies: I never experienced like handjobs under piers I never gave, pairs of underwear and greasy groceries I never stole.
That evening, I dream about being an adolescent teenage girl. More accurately: I dream about the embodiment of a young person during their formative years.
In the dream I make friends, listen to music. I rebel against my parents, who are conveniently represented in my dream as two shadowy, undefined figures. I lie in bed and kick and cry and scream into my pillow. No one understands me, and if only there were other people like me out there, we could be friends.
We could share similar interests in another city. We share each other's clothes and exchange information to one another. And if there is no one else left in this world: so be it. I smile to my friend in the dream and I am sure we will continue this friendship over many years. This scenario could take place in the 1950s through to contemporary times. The clothes, music and environment changes only slightly, incrementally different each year -- such is the passage of time.
The large doors swing outwards, as hippies are asked to use the side door to enter the bazaar.
Spencer Lai
https://suite7a.bigcartel.com/product/cosmopolitan-publication
Inspiration for Cosmopolitan Ainslie Templeton
- there I was at a bbq at the ambassadorâs house
- omg I was at the ambassadorâs house too..
- I know you were at the ambassadorâs house bitch I saw you there
theory
maps as the forgotten metaphor
you know Iâm
so jaded about this
reading
de Sousa Santos on laws as maps
carving out a space for interpretation via:
scale of parts
abstraction of symbols
projection of featuresan event that happens now
with multiple competing jurisdictionsthe misreading of social territories
(in London where I am now)
what is a meridian?
pin pointsyou know, my acupuncturist Alistair
has a voice like a split oakembraces me, rolls me, twists me
covers me in needlesa squeeze on my uncovered forearm:
âIâm just going to let you bake for a bitâ
he leaves,
my conducted basement FLOODSthe equator tipping
I donât know how he knows,
but he knowsbearded fish surface in the corner of the image
a truly accurate map would be a giant one
one that covers the very territories it claims to representhell with all its rings and rings of Italians et al
change temp colour
contour, maybe valenceS becomes J
obelisk becomes pinprick
buffalo heaving through the creekLatour: common cosmopolitical concern of climate change
all these plane crashes
the terrible floodingjaded
misreading social territories
listening to fkn BBC radio
interview an academicwhile Alistair has a wank in the toilets or something
(I wish)
thematicsmulticulturalism being the probsi policy of Australian cities
cosmopolitanism being the denial policy of London
havenât there been other words for these relations?cosmo questions:
how do you feel on a long plane?whereâs home?
what connections transnationally? like mirrored selves, joining hands
over a cosmopolitanCarrie in Dubai bitch
all the gorgeous and diverse hookers in Dubai;
oil baronsâ nephews; colonial schoolteachers; fashionovas husband hunting;
baklas at DK sending money home; ski instructors; vampiric estate agents;
passport-confiscated workers; Michael Schumacher; tragic lifestyle Brits;
maids; spies; thrill seekers over from Saudi; etc.gossip as process
disappeared journalists
baseless âAustralianâ subject position
Burj-al-Arab selfie
peach brunchBBC News transition graphic to:
Documentaâs headquarters get firebombed in Exarchia lol
youâre asked to do this show
interview even triplecanopy wonât publishBBC News transition graphic to:
white feminist curator desperate to salvage cunts
as a framework for womanhood
instead turns to nipples as a strong connective symbol
of femininityânipples are. democratic!
they have the largest iconic reach as dichotomized targets
steeped in affect
my cosmopolitan nipplesâmunch munch
Iâm a teen mutant eating Korma in my 2nd floor nightmare flatâlike you donât even have to be on hormones?
no augmentation necessary? always round?â5318008
skates across the bottom of the screenwe get back to fertility headliners
gestational feedingsensation of cashew milk moving down your throat
into your stomachbut itâs a creepy
injection of FSH
before egg harvestingwet dream wakeup sweat
yearning but not yet hungry
just thirstytherapy
task: write something not about your body
response: an essay on 13 looks you got todaythe chill people I want to tap the glass
make sure theyâre workingsilence, shadow
future
blink to some portal
the eyelid comes down like whoosh
a second time whooshand you see it
provincial ways of being
creative beautiful people
drinking, smokingtask: write on the affect of this--
old Manila friendâs Onlyfans you linked up and watched eachother weirdly
--not a diary-found a clientâs art site, itâs pixelated spreads of what could be your open arse
--and Iâll give you $100,000 you might be able to blow in Spain.I really miss my friends
and get a thrill to see someone like myself on Instagrambirds and snakes which live in the city
the cynical ghost shell info wisping from the train station
itâs confession timecommission for a perfect interior
a closet full of carapace corsets
a saxophone in the ebbing wind
two men walk on and hi-five, not so poetictask: 3 yrs later you return to the Imperial capital to starve out a residency and
marry up
this round life just thematics?Iâve been to paradise but
thereâs still this random pulling over on the main road
and frenetically gesturing for me to get inâ¦trains, planes, ships
(I like the way you move your hips)mummy getting upgraded
mummyâs special holiday
mummyâs piggy bankdoesnât know when sheâll drink real champagne again
through the tearstask: 16yr old Danni in Bulgaria with a Guess model heiress, 4 guys and a
magnum of Moet
the items just pouring
through the doors of the incubator
housing Alistairâs acu/IVF studiohe comes back
tells me heâs taken a short round trip to his farm in Tasmania in the interval