WESTERN PLAINS CULTURAL CENTRE


31 July - 10 October 2010 NEW MEDIA SPACE ANTHEA BEHM: THE CHRISSY DIARIES Anthea Behm is a visual artist working with performance, video and photography to explore what separates and connects the categories of high and popular culture. Through her practice she seeks to question how forms belonging to these categories - such as art, theory and entertainment – are relevant to understanding subjectivity and society. Taking such forms as microcosms revealing the social conditions of their production, Behm is concerned with how these forms contribute to the dominant hegemony and how this may be subverted. Anthea Behm The Chrissy Diaries 2005-09 Synchronised 4-channel video installation 36min loop. Image © 2010 Anthea Behm
7 August - 19 September 2010 REGIONAL ART SPACE RED SHED: LEAH-NICOLE TORBAY Leah-Nicole Torbay is an artist based in Armidale, NSW. Her exhibition at WPCC will transform the Regional Art Space into "a brainstormed chamber of eclectic ideas, offering a new perspective on what it means to live in country Australia." Leah-Nicole Torbay Red Shed 2010 Acrylic on plywood 20 x 25cm Image © 2010 Leah-Nicole Torbay
14 August - 3 October 2010 MAIN GALLERY WOMEN TRANSPORTED: LIFE IN AUSTRALIA'S CONVICT FEMALE FACTORIES Women Transported explores convict women’s experience in the 12 Female Factories established in early colonial Australia. The exhibition reveals the personal accounts of these women and documents their skills across two hundred different occupations including as dairymaids, housemaids, washerwomen, weavers, lace-makers, seamstresses, teachers, fishing net makers and shoe binders. Contrary to the myths, only a handful were prostitutes and the majority were literate. Their heroic lives are told and celebrated through films, interactives and some of the earliest colonial artefacts in the country including a laundry-stomper, spindle, book-marks and even a christening gown. A University of Western Sydney and Parramatta Heritage Centre partnership. This exhibition is supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia. Parramatta Female Factory, undated Society of Australian Genealogists collection Image © 2010 SAG
14 August - 21 November 2010 PROJECT SPACE MAX DUPAIN: ON ASSIGNMENT A new touring exhibition from the National Archives of Australia features many Max Dupain photographs that have never been seen before. While Dupain is now famous for his artistic photographs, over the years he also used his camera to earn a living, working for Commonwealth government departments and companies such as CSR Limited. The new exhibition features eye-catching examples of his government images from the National Archives’ collection, along with photographs he took for CSR Limited from the Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the Australian National University, Canberra. They include corporate and advertising shots, as well as images of life on the canefields. Max Dupain Boys playing cricket at the beach, Melbourne, 1946 Silver gelatin photograph Image courtesy National Archives of Australia
5 June - 29 August 2010 CHILDREN'S GALLERY iVISUALISE ivisualise is an exhibition of artworks by Western New South Wales region public school children from Kindergarten to Year 12. These are visions of their dreams, lives and the world around them. Installation view iVisualise 2010 Image © WPCC
MAIN MUSEUM PEOPLE PLACES POSSESSIONS: DUBBO STORIES Dubbo means red ochre. The city dwells in red soil western plains, infused with pastoral light and productivity. This place breathes the energy and passion of its people, past and present. We all experience place by moving through it, all our senses alive to its shifting shapes and moods. This sense of place is created through the entanglements of nature and culture, past and future dreams, shared stories and collective memory. In this exhibition we explore pastoral landscapes with symbols of agriculture and family ambition. Dubbo streetscapes reveal the changing facades of shops and the hidden stories within. Storytellers spin yarns about Dubbo events and identities. There are many objects from the old Dubbo Museum, material traces of past lives and aspirations. They speak in eloquent silence about people, place and possessions. LEARN MORE Download catalogue (603kb) Installation view: People Places Possessions: Dubbo Stories
PAST EXHIBITIONS FUTURE EXHIBITIONS