Inclusion and accessibility collide with radically reclaimed art forms in QUEERING THE MUSIC VIDEO at this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Queering the Music Video is the culmination of a twelve-year creative odyssey for Sarah Ward and Bec Matthews, the queer, Naarm-based duo behind Fat Fruit.
This year at Fringe, the pair will premiere three music videos from their full-length visual album The Legend of Queen Kong.
The evening is primarily a panel discussion with a superstar panel of queer, access-inclusive artists and a conversation about how the music video form can be radically remixed and reimagined.
Queering the Music Video – Melbourne Fringe Festival
- The Capitol (RMIT) 113 Swanston St, Melbourne
- 16 October, 6-8pm
- Tickets here
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“It is a premiere, panel and proof of concept all rolled into one inclusive, radical night,” Sarah said.
“We want to know how the form of the music video can be queered?”
Since 2007, Bec and Sarah have been creatively pushing boundaries and breaking through expectations and rules of what it means to be queer, access-focused artists.
“I often think that queerness means you’re already living outside of the conservative bounds of rules. By being queer, you’ve broke the rules. And so, in some ways, you can do whatever, because you actually cannot conform to the rules now,” Bec said.
“That fed through into our art making. In this case, the rules of what a film clip might be are going to get broken as well.”
The event concludes with the unveiling of three music videos, with music from Queen Kong and the HOMOsapiens. These clips are part of a feature length visual album The Legend of Queen Kong, a D/Deaf-accessible, “myth-making” space-rock odyssey through the heart of creativity and humanity.
Footage collected over twelve years will constitute the visuals of The Legend of Queen Kong, including works from a range of cinematographers and filmmakers: AACTA-winning Rainer Kelly, whose work includes the SBS documentary Alone; Will Huxley of The Huxleys; and Aotearoa’s Finn Scholes of Carnivorous Plant Society, who created what Sarah calls the “beautiful, naïve animations” throughout the film.
With music by Queen Kong and the HOMOsapiens, all three clips have been sign-sung by Fat Fruit’s collaborator, deaf queer artist Asphyxia, and accompanied by audio description and captions.
Bec and Sarah consulted with Asphyxia on accessibility and inclusion through breaking the mould of what music videos can be.
“We asked her what kind of access she was interested in, and it wasn’t Auslan just tacked on. Asphyxia gave a lot of insight into D/Deaf culture and the D/Deaf experience that we were able to incorporate into our work,” Bec said.
The panel will be inclusive of Fat Fruit’s own Bec Matthews with Dr Stayci Taylor, a surprise guest and video presentations from The Huxleys and Asphyxia. The event will be Auslan-interpreted by Dr Kirri Dangerfield and Khang Chiem, and moderated by former Melbourne Queer Film Festival Program Director and HOMOsapien Cerise Howard.
“She’s a really exciting person to be running it,” Sarah said.
Audience engagement with The Legend of Queen Kong is vital to the future of the visual album.
“We are testing the music videos with an audience before moving forward with the full-length visual album to be sure the way we are doing it is the right way forward,” Bec said.
“Part of this is about getting feedback from the audience, the D/Deaf and hard-of-hearing community, the queer community and the film and music makers. We want to know what they think of the film clips, whether they are accessible and interesting,” said Sarah.
Over their 20 years of creative collaboration, Fringe has been an anchor of Fat Fruit’s creative journey.
“Fringe has been a massive part of our art making. Some people think of independent theatre as being the ‘journey’ somewhere. But for us, independent theatre and fringe theatre are the beginning and the end. It’s where we want to be,” Bec said.
Sarah and Bec have worked across the main stages of Melbourne and beyond, but the duo say they have found “freedom in the fringes.”
“Mainstream doesn’t often work in areas where there are so many intersecting cultures and intersecting ideas. It can be very prescriptive. Whereas we can make things up as we go along,” said Sarah.
Bec said the same: “Mainstream has to stick to its script to some extent, whereas we don’t have to, we get to respond to what is happening around us.”
“We feel a freedom in the fringes. And that’s where queerness has always been.”
“As soon as you take queerness into the mainstream and onto flagship stages, you do feel like you are busting through a window, but it is compromising in some ways. We have done flagship venues before, but we find that there is more freedom in the fringes,” Sarah said.
Sarah and Bec haven’t forgotten the challenges of self-producing in the early days of fringe. Queering the Music Video is a partnership with the Melbourne Fringe and RMIT University, with funding from the City of Melbourne and the Melbourne Fringe Radical Access fund.
“This scale of event isn’t possible without the support of those organisations and institutions,” Sarah said.
“This isn’t in some ways a fringe event; this is a fully funded and supported event that we’re able to open up to the community because of the support of these organisations.”
“Access costs. Often people say, why aren’t more people putting access in? It’s a factor of time and money. There’s a lot of burnt-out artists, and there’s only so much we can do, so it is great when organisations and festivals come on board and we all partner up to make something amazing,” the duo said.
Join the accessibility revolution on October 16 at The Capitol (RMIT); tickets are $10, and can be booked here.
This article was made in partnership with Melbourne Fringe Festival.
