bulletproofglass #3

Rosemary Laing is a contemporary artist who uses photography to highlight important political and social issues. Her work often locates incongruous subjects or objects in challenging environments – usually Australian landscapes – that resonate with cultural or historic associations. When making her images, she undertakes complex interventions in situ or choreographs performers as a means to physically and conceptually engage with the politics of place and contemporary culture.

The series bulletproofglass, 2002, is a sequel to Laing’s earlier work flight research, 1998–2000, in which a bride was suspended or diving mid-air across expansive skies. The earlier series captured the hopes and optimism for the new millennium. However, in bulletproofglass, the bride is injured, the shot and bloodied bride reflecting Laing’s disillusionment following the broken promises and political failures of the new century. For the artist the potential for profound social change had not been realised, with the refusal of the federal government to make a formal apology to Aboriginal people in 1998 and the defeated Australian republic referendum in 1999.

For Laing the bride takes on a dual meaning as a metaphor for social contracts and as an opportunity to reclaim a feminine motif, one that has historically been authored by male artists.

Tansy Curtin, Curator, International Art pre-1980