THE MODERN FAMILY

Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 2021.

This intervention is installed in the Whale Mall where three humpback whales float in the air. The original creators identify these as a bull, cow, and young calf, however, this could be interpreted differently by the viewer. Humpback whale males and females look very similar to each other, making it very difficult to visually determine sex. Both have a genital slit on its underside and the relative location of this slit determines sex. For males the genital slit is located closer to the whales stomach. For females, the genital slit is closer to their tail flukes. The two larger whale sculptures don’t have slits, so they could be a male and female, male and male, or female and female. The family unit we see could be many configurations.

This intervention consists of a window work by Novak titled The Parent, The Parent, and The Child and an audio work titled Currents (Beauty in Ambiguity) developed in collaboration with artist Jase Ess.

This work formed part of the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10). The photos of all work at QAGOMA were commissioned for APT10. Images courtesy Queensland Art Gallery l Gallery of Modern Art. Photography: Katie Bennett, Chloe Callistemon, Merinda Campbell, Marc Grimwade, Joe Ruckli, and Lee Wilkes.

THE PARENT, THE PARENT, AND THE CHILD

This work mirrors the three floating whales onto the glass window panels in the Whale Mall. Breaking the work into thirds, the left and right thirds represent the two parent figures and the middle third represents the child.

CURRENTS (BEAUTY IN AMBIGUITY)

This is a sound work developed by artist Jase Ess exploring the diversity, flow, and beauty of sex characteristics as found in nature. With reference to the difficulty in determining the sex of humpback whales as something beautiful, Ess recounts, merges, and celebrates their own experiences of ambiguity in gender identity through sound.