Love Sick

Romance, with its association to rom-coms, red roses and raunchy chic-lit, has long been considered feminine territory. Yet historically, men have been the authors of the epic love stories told through literature and the arts. Love Sick, brings together the work of young female artists Brown Council (AUS), Rachel Scott (AUS), Narinda Reeders (AUS), Tatjana Plitt (AUS/US), Emma Thomson (AUS), Lilly McElroy (US), Laurel Nakadate (US) and one mixed duo Mai Yamashita & Naoto Kobayashi (GER/JAP) who are (re)writing some of their own romantic fictions.

Across the two venues we find real-life couples, unsuspecting men and the artists themselves, captured in telling moments and awkward scenarios that explore our desire to live out the romance of fiction. The artists converge performance with lens-based media in order to blur the line between fantasy and reality. Demonstrating how utopian romantic narratives play out, not just in the movies, but also in the performances of our everyday lives, they ask the question: is a truthful image as elusive as true romance?