Friendship as a Way of Life

‘Friendship as a Way of Life’ brings together more than 20 artists and collaborative groups to explore queer kinship and forms of being together. The exhibition centres around three ideas that offer perspectives on LGBTQI+ partnerships, collaboration, visibility, sex, intimacy and knowledge: ‘Public Relations’ (the public expression of private lives and forms of communicating identities); ‘Living Arrangements’ (spaces and approaches to living/being with ‘chosen families’); and ‘Intergenerational Kinship’ (learning, sharing and support across generations). Presented across the entire gallery and online, this major project seeks to foreground the way LGBTQI+ communities create alternative networks of support through various creative and resourceful means.

A companion public program 'Forms of Being Together' provides an opportunity to expand the exhibition and consider trajectories of queer kinship — platonic, romantic, sexual and otherwise — in contemporary art and popular culture.