The Lives of Celestials: John Young Zerunge
Town Hall Gallery
Hawthorn, VIC

Role: Curator

This solo exhibition presents John Young Zerunge’s History Projects (2007 - 2019). Created through intensive research-led investigations, the works pay homage to the remarkable characters and important events that have shaped Chinese-Australian history over the past 150 years. The resulting stories of migration, trauma, and cross-cultural exchange seek to redress the historic invisibility of non-western narratives within Australia’s public memory.

In the works, archival images, newspaper clippings, oral histories, and interviews are re-imagined and integrated with artistic reflection into large grid-formations of chalk drawings and recomposed photographs. Together with Young’s video work and abstract paintings, The History Projects examine the role of empathy and cultural subjectivity in the telling of history, and reflect on the forces of survival, memory and othering that continue to shape Australia’s contemporary social context.

31 August - 20 October 2019