Don’t Tell Nanna

Overview

This is a show that asks you to be complicit with it. Right there in the title, see? Kind of like having a giggle about doing something a bit mischievous, but with a sense that it's still important to be nice. Nanna might not want to see her granddaughter's tights stretched over a board, or embroidery lessons used to put Pulp slogans on pretty hankies. All the works in the show play with ideas of the feminine and the domestic in their imagery, materials and techniques. There's a real sense that this stuff "for girls" is being used by the artists to express personal identity at the same time as being very obviously conscious of the connotations of their repertoire.

It's a little bit like a sleepover, really: there are in-jokes, secrets being whispered about, music, dressing-up and sequins. But there are also political undercurrents and things going on that might just help you to grow up. Oh and instead of going to school together, the artists all work at the MCA. Ella Condon, Bridie Connell, Sarah Contos, Micaela Gifney, Leahlani Johnson, Be Jones and Nicola Walkerden are talking about girls in the way that girls so often do, and the show lets you overhear and become part of the discussion. So long as you don't tell.

Image: Sarah Contos