Australasian Beauty

Australasian Beauty is an exhibition of photomedia works investigating the fetishization and infantilism of Asian Women in the Anglosphere. Appropriating the 1999 film ‘American Beauty’ Mullens uses the film as a mechanism to challenge the notions of the Gaze upon the Other through self-portraiture. She re-casts herself, an Asian-Australian, in the role of Angela Hayes: the young girl who becomes the Object of the main character’s desire. In this way she becomes both the subject and creator of the image, actively subverting the gaze and transforming the character dynamic from fantasy to power.

Australasian Beauty is part of a larger contemporary conversation about power dynamics in gender and racial relations. Recontextualising the film 20 years after its release, Mullens asks, who is looking at who?

Artist Conversation
Join Mullens and arts writer Soo-Min Shim for an engaging contemporary conversation about power dynamics in gender and racial relations at 2pm on Saturday 10 August 2019. This is a free event and all are welcome, to RSVP head on over to our events page, here