To all the Women of Kyneton
Make or Break
Ruin Press
In recent years, the lack of commemoration of women in civic statues has raised concern, particularly in Australia where public monuments are primarily reserved for honorific male portraits, native animals and oversized fruit. Women who made notable accomplishments in the socio-political arena, as well as the private sphere, have been overlooked and underrepresented, and it’s time action was taken. In 2018, Sydney-based art collective Make or Break (Connie Anthes and Rebecca Gallo) sought to reverse this imbalance. Their efforts are the result of this publication, ‘To all the Women of Kyneton’.
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For ten days, as part of the project titled ‘Unveilings’ for the inaugural Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial, the pair asked female-identifying people in Kyneton, a town in the Macedon Ranges region of Victoria, to propose a public artwork, monument or memorial via an anonymous paper survey. Its introductory text seeks the participant’s permission to share their ‘ideas, hopes and frustrations’ and encourages proposals of any subject, material, form or location. Overall, the artists ‘wanted to know what might be different about the ideas female-identifying people have for sharing space and collective remembering, and how a town like Kyneton might be shaped by them. And changed by them.’ Their responses, although at times impractical, were always direct. From footpaths built by the tears of middle-aged white men and made from ‘fucking gold’ to silhouettes of women ‘invisible to history’ ‘doing ordinary things – giving birth, doing washing, making scones’ were requested. The need for recognition of Aboriginal women was underlined, and a range of sculptural forms were suggested including flagpoles, projected images, stumble stones, bronze statues, and a crown; some added sketches to articulate their design. Handwritten expressions of well wishes; ‘Good luck’, and approvals; ‘good project’, add a personal touch and show the support of the community.
This book is a compilation of all 63 surveys submitted; scanned copies showing every action, thought and execution of an idea through added or retracted wording, scribbles, and even the crinkle of the paper, reproduced alongside text by the artists, as well as black and white photographs of shopfront windows plastered with each survey contribution and live performances where audiences were guided to a series of secret locations around Kyneton, to witness site-specific speeches based on five survey ideas and then researched and developed into proposals by the artists; a monumental step towards equality and visibility for the women of Kyneton.
