Lara Chamas | What’s that Skippy? | resin, nuts, bolts | 2017
Forever marching backwards to the tune of Centrelink’s (Mozart’s originally) ‘Divertimento in F major, K. 138’, What’s that Skippy? directly contradicts Australia’s self-gratifying idea that it is a country only moving forward. From imbalances of wealth, ineptitude of government and archaic social politics, the mighty kangaroo that once bounded onward has passed its prime, shrivelling into a haphazard zombie, losing all sense of direction.
Lara Chamas is a first-generation Lebanese non-indigenous Australian artist, based in Melbourne. Her practise investigates sub topics of postcolonial and migrant narratives, specifically within the context of her cultural identity. Her practise explores this in relation to contemporary Australian and global society, and current political issues. Currently a completing her Masters by research in Fine Art at Monash University, through the use of narrative and experience documentation, storytelling, oral history / orally transmitted information, and historical texts; her research intends to explore links between narrative theory, cultural practice, current politics, the body as a sculptural, oral and political vessel. Included in this is personal experience and family history, to relate to contemporary issues in Australian society surrounding bi-culturality and assimilation.
https://www.instagram.com/lara_chamas_artist
