Exhibition Opening Night
The exhibition opening night at CMAG was shared with the Head Full of Flames: Punk in the Nation's Capital exhibition, opened by Centenary of Canberra Creative Director Robyn Archer and ACT Minister for the Arts Joy Burch. The Punk exhibition was an appropriate counterpoint the the Splinters show, being two facets of the strong DIY ethos of Canberra's subcultures of the 1980s. The combination of the two made for the largest ever opening at CMAG. The bar was drunk dry very early, and some of the old punks were less than patient at the length of the speeches, especially given neither exhibition curator was given the oppportunity to speak at the official proceedings.
The first video shows a panorama of the gallery just before the opening night, as final touches were made to the Shrine installation with the CMAG Exhibition team leader, Mark Bayly. The second video is the performance element for the opening I devised with former Splinters members Dawn Gardiner, Kate MacNamara and Sarah McMurray (formerly Snell), with Victoria Lees, who created the black coffin, and the Brass Knuckle Brass Band. The text of the speech is below. The documentary footage was captured by Emily Hungerford.