The Alternative Archive engaged 13 regional artist networks across Western Australia in a series of exhibitions held throughout 2019.
The Alternative Archive: Broome exhibition was curated by Naomie Hatherley together with Chrissy Carter and Suzy French, under the auspices of the Kimberley Arts Network. It was hosted by the Broome Museum in their historic Sailmaker’s Shed rebuilt by exhibiting artist, Lachlan Fraser.
Artists were challenged to produce artworks that engaged with their local social contexts that privileged alternative narratives, voices or perspectives.
Artists are recorders of social history, the creators of cultural capital in any community and their creative output is central to understanding our sense of identity, place and community.
Alternative Archive brings together contemporary artists living in communities throughout regional Western Australia to participate in a statewide exhibition network that engages with their local social contexts. Artists and artist groups were invited to create a contemporary visual archive of an aspect of their community drawn from personal relationships with the people, places and stories around them that they feel should be highlighted for their implicit personal, cultural or social value. The project seeks to construct a dynamic new anthology of artworks and outcomes in any medium that examine how regional artists relate to the people, homes, towns or regions that they know so well. Encompassing the full diversity of artistic voices from around the state The Alternative Archive provides a platform for artists to engage with history, storytelling and local mythology, as well as personal and communal memory in a contemporary format.
- Ana Louise Richardson, Lead Curator