Wulgurukaba & Bindal Country (Townsville)
Untitled (Gloves)
Tania Lou Smith
'The domestic is brought into the public sphere, in strange and disturbing ways.'
Untitled (gloves) is a performance-based video work situated in Townsville’s Bulletin Square and surrounds. In the video, a woman wears comically large and exaggerated bubble-gum pink gloves. The gloves have elongated fingers and reach up past the shoulders, drawing a domesticity into the public sphere, in strange and disturbing ways.
The woman inhabits a range of sites, appearing and disappearing in unusual configurations. Pink gloves are glimpsed in the familiar surrounds of Townsville Flinders St, and the movement and choreography of the protagonist’s gestures slip in and out of task-based motions, or slink between shopfronts, cling to trees or fondle statues. Clutching, wringing, stretching or creeping, the pink gloved figure creates a set of suburban horror tableaus that recall Erwin Wurm’s one-minute sculptures, transported into the middle of Townsville.
The shinny gloves point to the care work and labour that is performed in our private everyday, juxtaposed upon the usual order of this seemingly calm, urban environment.
But is she really here, or just a hyper-feminised hallucination, performing with absurdity and touching place with mischievous intrusion?
Feature Image/Video Credits: Untitled (gloves), 2021, © Tania Lou Smith.
About the Artist
Tania Lou Smith’s work is part vaudeville, part feminist inquiry. She uses video, photography and live performance to perform autobiographical concerns, from the trite to the weighty. Smith’s background as a performance-maker shows in her theatricality and she delights in costume, props and gesture. She approaches objects with curiosity and finds the comedic in the tools of drudgery. Her work is mostly narrative scenarios played out in empty, striking landscapes. Smith’s work displays the tension between professionalism and the dilettante, resisting rehearsal for immediacy and rawness, yet playing with proscenium framing and formality.
Event Information
Location Details
Featured on Townsville’s Bulletin Square Screen on Flinders Street, Townsville, QLD Australia
Venue Accessibility
You are able to view the Bulletin Square Screen from the Flinders Street side-walk, conditions include:
- Nearby accessible parking.
- Nearby accessible public transport (bus stations).
- Accessible third-party scooter options throughout CBD city centre (for travel).
- Nearby street drop-off points.
- Wheelchair accessibility.
- An accessible entrance (both ramp and stairs) and no obstructions to the path upon entering.
- Signage indicating it is a PUNQ program.
- Venue is close to accessible public bathroom facilities that offer wider doors, adequate floor space to move around in the bathroom, and fixtures designed for comfort including hand railings and low-effort tap handles (in Flinders Square).
- Quiet spaces available for participants, this location will have ambient or no music playing.
- There are nearby animal rest facilities (in Flinders Square).
- Venues have been strategically designed for clear pathways throughout with a focus on minimising clutter.
- The digital board is surrounded by designated seating areas for you to sit and enjoy.
- There is access from both Flinders Street and Ogden Street.
Pricing
This is a free and on-going event during the festival
