Connie Anthes

About the work

Protest today, while still offering fleeting but powerful feelings of solidarity, seems to have become a flaccid, theatrical tool (much shouting, wielding of picket signs, marching, blocking), decoupled as it now is from social agitation, organised boycott and strategic activities that demand the change tomorrow that is being displayed on that banner today. Governments are no longer accountable or shamed; acts of solidarity are easily conscripted by the neoliberal machine, or weaponised in class and culture wars that continually consolidate power, wealth and privilege. In this work, the purpose of protest is made personal; audiences are invited to take a banner or placard and use it in public space in some future fight, assuming there will be many. Each object is a vessel for an idea, a spiritual prop, a temporary occupation, a call to action with consequence.

About the artist

Connie Anthes is an artist based in Sydney making objects, books, performances, site-specific interventions and installations that consider material politics and process as an essential ingredient in a broader entanglement with art and life. She is a graduate of University of Technology Sydney (B Design) and the National Art School (MFA Painting). Anthes is an active member of the Sydney artist-run and activist communities, having served on the boards of Firstdraft, Runway Journal and the MCA Artist Advisory Group. She is one half of the collaborative duo Make or Break and a co-founder of Frontyard – a not-just-artist run space for research, reflection and conversation and PALMS – a studio and shared workshop for women and gender-diverse artists.

Represented by

Represented by Darren Knight Galleries, Sydney