“Passing”
Callum McGrath
17 Feb → 25 Mar 2017
Filmed at Brothers Rugby League Club in suburban Brisbane, Passing explores the tensions between Australian masculinity and queer culture. The work is part of an ongoing body of work that addresses McGrath’s biographical relationship with binary representations of masculinity and queer male sexuality. Passing challenges stereotypical representations by referencing personal and collective histories as products of cultural inheritance, to better understand how queer identity is not static, instead made up from a complex web of social practices. The project takes a position that both identifies and disidentifies with these stereotypes, choosing not to lock itself into any precise queer or masculine terminological binds.
Callum McGrath's practice utilises screen-based media to disidentify binary representations of the homosexual male body. His practice disrupts representations of the queer male on the screen by exploring the in-between space in queer male identity. McGrath critically engages with representations of queer male bodies in cinema as a key element in the construction of queer sexuality, addressing this culturally inherited site a space of resistance and identification.