In Conversation: Danielle Freakley & Robert Cook

Hear from artist Danielle Freakley in conversation with AGWA Curator of Western Australian and Australian Art Robert Cook, as they explore her work Equal Opportunity to be a Dictator. A meditation on where meaning and power resides and how fragile, how dependent on specific circumstances, our assumptions about ourselves and others might be.

Danielle Freakley

Danielle’s work creates moments to consider afresh the conventions that guide behaviour and communication between people in various contexts.

Equal Opportunity to be a Dictator is a participatory work where two or more people can instruct each other to say things. It’s a simple premise, until it gets started. While its form alludes to legacies of political or cult leaders whipping crowds into following instructions, the work is highly intimate and ambiguous in intent. It might bring to the surface previously unsaid thoughts or feelings; it might spark surprise in how certain words are spoken back (accidently, intentionally) in subversive, ironic, playful or impertinent tones; it might imply that even though you are dictating, you have only limited power over what message will be offered back to you.

There will be a chance for audiences to participate at the end of the artist talk.