Voice and Visibility at QVMAG

Image: My World: Voice and Visibility community exhibition at the Museum at Inveresk. 

This week welcomes a new exhibition to the Museum at Inveresk entitled My World: Voice and Visibility.

Developed by the Queer Artists Collective (QAC), this community exhibition explores explore how artists fill their lives with experiences and memories, experiment and learn through success and failure, and establish roots within our environment and society.

Featuring works by queer and queer ally artists in Tasmania, My World: Voice and Visibility is now on display at the Museum at Inveresk with free entry.

Exhibition co-curator Amy Bartlett said the exhibition raised a mirror for artists to express their stories to themselves and others.

“This year’s theme provides an opportunity to seek acknowledgement for the queer and queer ally community. The power of visibility cannot be underestimated in the search for equality.” Bartlett said.

As co-curator of this community exhibition, Natasha Beattie said the exhibition provided new and deeper connections with queer and queer ally communities across Tasmania.

“I am so grateful for the opportunity to contribute to QAC and hope that ‘this world’ continues to grow,” Beattie said.

“It has provided new and deeper connections with queer and queer ally communities when there hasn’t really been a dedicated place for this in the North and North West of the state.

“The process of contributing to this group has also become a foundational space for reflection and for exploration within my art practice. My voice feels like it is clearer and the songs we sing together seem louder.”

Artist Mack Wharton said they are proud to be a member of the diverse community that is the LGBTIQA+.

“I am embracing and celebrating my Queerness now and this exhibition has given me further opportunities to explore my own personal journey of self-acceptance,” Wharton said.

“Creatively it has given me the freedom to put myself front and centre, and challenge people's preconceptions of what is Queer. 

“I'm proud to be a member of the diverse community that is the LGBTIQA+ and feel it's important to show we are here and visible in all walks of life."

City of Launceston Acting Mayor Matthew Garwood said the exhibition was a great display of community talent. “It’s great to welcome another brilliant exhibition by the Queer Artist Collective to QVMAG,” Cr Garwood said.

“I encourage everyone to make the most of this exhibition while on display at the Museum at Inveresk.”

General Manager Creative Arts and Cultural Services Shane Fitzgerald said the exhibition was a great way to enable artists to share their often raw, honest and vulnerable artistic themes in a safe and supportive space.

“Works on display within this exhibition are a great representation of artists in Tasmania, and we’re proud to be able to host this in our Community Gallery space,” Fitzgerald said.

“It’s truly great to see community groups come together through art; and this exhibition is a perfect example of exactly that.”

My World: Voice and Visibility is now showing at the Museum at Inveresk with free entry until 13 August 2023. 

Issued 24 May 2023.