黑料不打烊

Formed by Sydney-based multi-disciplinary artists Justin Shoulder and Bhenji Ra, Club Ate is a collaboration inspired by their shared Filipino heritage, immersion in Sydney鈥檚 underground nightlife and queer communities, as well as an interest in the body as a performative tool. Ex Nilalang鈥攚hich means both 鈥榯o create鈥� and 鈥榗reature鈥欌�攊s an ongoing series of video works conceived as an 鈥榓rchive of queer identities鈥�. Each of the four episodes engages with a different mythological, ancestral or pop cultural being to reflect the lived experiences of the collaborators involved.聽 Here, stories previously used by colonial forces to 鈥榦ther鈥� LGBTQI communities are reconfigured to assert a more inclusive world view: 鈥業n encounters with eerie inhumans we witness yearnings, complexities and utopias that resist forces of surveillance and demolition. It is no coincidence that the creatures we have been taught to hate are racialised and gendered. Yet these same creatures teach us how to reformulate kinship in ethical, non-violent ways.鈥� 鈥擟lub Ate The first episode, Balud, transforms the Manananggal鈥攑ortrayed in Filipino folklore as a monstrous woman who splits in two and feeds on human flesh鈥攆rom a subject of fear into one of great empathy. In Dysebel the artists鈥� transgender identity is explored via the hybrid figure of the Sirena (mermaid), while Lolo Ex Machina speaks to Shoulder鈥檚 longing to connect with his deceased Lolo (grandfather). In the most recent episode, the origins of the Philippines as told in the creation myth of Maganda and Malakas are reimagined through a contemporary lens, transporting us into a brilliant virtual universe of sea and sky.