Sexualising The City

Within the popular imagination there is a direct link between the image of the sexualized body and the city image
of the Gold Coast. These perceptions are however often limited by cliché and disparaged, leading to a wider dismissal of the Gold Coast as a whole.

This exhibition intends to confront and challenge this view and will present important and visually rich images and
objects from art, design, fashion, popular culture and architecture from the 1920s’ to the present. It aims to offer a much more layered and diverse view of the way in which the crafting of these types of images grew to contribute to city identity.

In doing so the exhibition also intends chart in microcosm, the changes that have occurred in wider Australian
society regarding the depiction of women and men. The Gold Coast as a cultural site has seen the creation of very potent images of women and men.

Sexualising the City will bring the background and reasons for this type of imagery to the forefront and will identify the wider culture around the city as a tourist destination and what in effect was actually being promoted to
potential visitors.

The exhibition will also explore the way that artists have responded to this visual culture and have sought to define their own way of seeing the body within this very particular city environment. The exhibition will also present design elements from the fields of architecture, graphics, commercial photography and fashion and as such acknowledge the work of these creative disciplines in contributing to this broader visual culture.

YEAR LEVEL SUITABILITY Grade 7 - 12
CURRICULUM AREAS Visual Art, Fashion, Design, Technology, Communications, Media
THEMES Exploring the connection between city image and sexualised imagery
ART FORM Visual Communication, Painting , Architecture, Photography
TEACHERS KIT Available Term 3, 2012