“Myths & Facts”
Rafaela Pandolfini
15 Feb → 7 Mar 2021

Rafaela Pandolfini, ‘Crusade, Tyranny, Voodoo, Madness, Science’, 2021, digital illustration by Elliot Shields and research by Mitchel Cummings, Audrey Schmidt, Ainslie Templeton. Image courtesy of artist.

Myths & Facts is a procession of photographs displayed on billboards dispersed along the Hume Highway between N.S.W. and Victoria, with clusters in inner Melbourne and inner Sydney.

This work interrogates slow violence at a policy level, from failures in the face of environmental emergencies to the slippages of the law. Phrases pertaining to the legal definition of climate action and words drawn from environmental policies are transposed from official documents onto “chux” cleaning cloths. Blown up to bill-board size proportions, Pandolfini’s photographs take on a forensic quality. The recognisable zigzag pattern of the chux is a recurring motif in the artist’s ongoing exploration of gendered and emotional labour.

Myths & Facts was created by Rafaela Pandolfini with contributions from Rozsa Erica, Elliot Shields, Mitchel Cummings, Audrey Schmidt, Ainsley Templeton, Sabine Jean and Robert Milne.

Billboard locations

  1. 82 Redfern St, Redfern - Eora Country
  2. Platform 12 Redfern Station, Redfern - Eora Country
  3. Hume Highway Eastbound, Einfield - Eora Country
  4. Hume Highway Southbound, Gundagai North (Coolac) - Wiradjuri Country
  5. Hume Highway Southbound, Albury (Table Top) - Wiradjuri Country
  6. Hume Highway Southbound, Albury (Table Top) - Wiradjuri Country
  7. Victoria, Seymour, Northbound, Goulburn Valley Hwy (Emily Street) - Taungurong Country
  8. Rathdowne St, Carlton - Wurundjeri Country
  9. Collingwood Yards -Wurundjeri Country

Myths & Facts is presented in partnership with PHOTO2021 and supported by the City of Sydney & the City of Melbourne.

The billboard is positioned in a country setting with blue a sky, long grass

Rafaela Pandolfini is a photographer and artist, also working in the curatorial. Rafaela explores feminine identity in the broadest sense as well as the value of labour. From 2009 onwards Rafaela spent time photographing in clubs/dancefloors across Sydney, she continues to photograph for many prominent artists and institutions. In 2015, Rafaela created an epic 8 hour video called '02-02 A dance for every day of my pregnancy' exploring themes of the performative body, maintenance and care work.