Conflated #3: Eugenia Lim on togetherness in divisive times

“Then we’ll get real systemic change,” says Eugenia Lim when talking about making structural changes in the art world that reflect genuine diversity, “but I think we’re still just the tip of the iceberg. It’s still quite surface, but it’s good to be even pushing and talking about these things I think.” At a moment where politics and individuals feel increasingly divided, Lim creates videos, film and installations that look beyond divisiveness, capitalism and exploitation, to forefront the power of collectivity—something she speaks to in our latest podcast series Conflated.This series centres on the ideas of inflation and conflation, linking with a touring exhibition also titled, Conflated. In ways both metaphorical and material, the show looks at ideas of inflation and deflation through creative, environmental, and political ways. And one of the artists in the show is Lim. Lim is an Australian artist of Chinese-Singaporean descent and her work partly explores this by subverting cultural stereotypes in ways both intelligent and very witty. In past works she’s taken on invented personas, inhabiting them across multiple videos, performances and sites. Lim is also one of the previous co-directors of the experimental art organisation Aphids, and we talk about one of Aphids’s latest performance works EASY RIDERS, which looks at the gig economy and capitalism—and we discuss how worker exploitation is an ongoing concern in Eugenia’s work. In addition to her thought-provoking practice, Lim also has co-directed the inaugural Channels Festival, and she was founding editor of the journal Assemble Papers. In our conversation she talks through her latest work with Kyneton locals, an area in regional Victoria, and how her work speaks to collective acts and what this means in a divisive political time like the one we’re living. You can also listen back to the first episode of this series with artist Zoë Bastin on conflation, bodies and transformative politics, and the second episode with David Cross on inflatables, experimentation and precarity.With a current showing at ANU School of Art and Design Gallery, NETS Victoria are touring Conflated nationally throughout 2022 and 2023:ANU School of Art and Design Gallery(Canberra ACT)29 September—4 NovemberLogan Art Gallery(Logan QLD)29 July 2023—3 September 2023Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery(Swan Hill VIC)1 October 2023—3 December 2023This series is kindly sponsored by NETS Victoria who are nationally touring Conflated, assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program and the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.Produced and presented by Tiarney Miekus, engineering by Patrick Telfer, and music by Mino Peric.