Documentation clip from 501s, 2018 at Melbourne Art Fair
HD video projection, custom-developed software, internet
Courtesy of artist and The Physics Room

501s

Live video work 2018- ongoing

501s, a major video work by Cushla Donaldson, foregrounds the voice and perspectives of current detainees in Australian detention centers. Named after the group of people being detained and deported in the recent wave of visa cancellations by the Australian Government, 501s V.02 uses cutomised and secure technology to allow current detainees, as well as those already deported from Australia under the Migration Act (1958) to text in and disrupt the luxurious 3D modeled moving image work on the instrumentation of glamour and soft power.

The 3D animated sequence, a digital depiction of coded luxury: champagne pouring into an elaborate glass slipper. In addition to the Cinderella reference, the champagne in the shoe parodies an historical marketing stunt, staged by “The Grande Dame of Champagne”, Madame Verve Cliquot.

“She did a promotion of her champagne that she’d relaunched after her husband died. She invented the orange label and did this event where she made a giant glass slipper in Venice and filled it with champagne. She was a kind of proto ‘lean-in’ capitalist feminist.”- Donaldson https://thebigidea.nz/stories/cushla-donaldson-explores-progressive-politics-as-cultural-commodity

501s was originally presented at the Melbourne Art Fair 2018. 501s V.02 was presented at The Physics Room Ōtautahi and the Gus Fisher Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau (2019-20).

501s V.02 2019-20

501s at Melbourne Art Fair 2018