Howdy!
Project Room 13, Dynamo Jugendkulturhaus, Zürich / 2019
A group presentation featuring Brigham Baker, Harley Hollenstein, Dominic Michel, Carla Milentis, and Tshepo Moloi
Curation and text by Ella Krivanek
There is a place for country in all of our achy-breaky hearts. The sincerity of certain words that are totally uncloaked - die, love, ride, whiskey - has a cute and sad directness pierces my defences like a sweet dog. Trapped in this half village, half city, walled by mountains, I miss being able to see the sun go down for hours and smell the smell of wheat that is a destructive plague on Australian soil.
I’m listening to Locash Cowboys and feeling half sorry, and half disgusted. But there a secret key inside the frank affect, whatever the message, of Preston Brust and Chris Lucas. Kendra Wilkinson Leads Pagan Ritual in Truck Rally Mudbath. I don’t know if this translates to sincerity in practise, of even if it did, then would it matter anyway? Whatever.
If you ever have the chance you should ride a horse down a mountain covered in Snow Gums, and give it a good pat on its neck when it takes a precarious step into ice. Perhaps if country is about a balance between a regimented two-step, and a soaring Tim McGraw chorus, my heart recognises the imbalance between constriction and freedom that it feels in this place that I am now. I wonder if yours does too, in the place where you are?
