PROFILE: DESTINY DEACON

: : Natalie King

: : printable version 

One of the last bastions of Aussie socialising, the backyard is often where barbeques, beer and aspects of daily life unfold. Primarily working from home with family, friends, dolls and props, Destiny Deacon’s photograph Over the fence (2000) was made in her backyard in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. Here two ‘sheilas speak over the fence giving racing tips’. [1] One is dressed up in a frock, perched on a red ladder, peering over a dilapidated fence to chat with her neighbour. Perhaps they are seeking a brief respite from the drudgery of domestic chores, or maybe they are secretly finding ways to escape as they act out human and domestic scenarios in a vaudeville routine. Whether confiding or complaining, there is a sense of neighbourly camaraderie within this melodramatic set-up. We are reminded of the TV theme tune – neighbours “should be there for one another” – but something has gone awry as the metaphorical associations of the fence suggest barriers, danger, hiding and entrapment.

Deacon has said about this image, ‘The dolls were sad and pathetic ones. I felt sorry for them. One of them had a wonderful pink frock that photographed well. But it’s also setting up a scenario of escape that’s been part of Indigenous life since whenever.’ [2] Purposefully adopting a low-tech method, Deacon has resisted the lure of new media in favour of the immediacy of Polaroid which is then enlarged to allow for stylistic shifts and to create various effects. There is no technical wizardry here. Deacon’s balanced composition in Over the fence comprises vertical palings dividing the picture plane while each doll’s head hovers on either side. Polaroid photographs, then, create spooky, make-believe worlds arranged with strong formal elements.

In 2004, Deacon was commissioned to make a film for Neighbours (the remix) program as part of the large-scale survey exhibition 2004: Australian Culture Now. Her brief was to create a prime-time TV show ‘critically commenting on the role of popular culture in Australian society and offering a different take on the cultural identity reflected back to us through commercial networks’. [3] Inspired by the quintessential Australian soapie – Channel 10’s hit TV series set in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough – Neighbours is part of local folklore and embedded in popular culture. Despite feuds and melodrama, the characters live in harmony in a quiet cul de sac in the outer regions of Melbourne, a polite rendition of suburbia. Here brown-brick double-storey houses and verandas with striped awnings are set amidst neat rows of trees presenting a one-dimensional perspective on suburban life.

Deacon skilfully converts Australia’s longest-running TV drama into an episodic, Indigenous melodrama. Over d-fence takes us into Deacon’s outdoor domestic environment cleverly revealing that the backyard is no longer a haven or sanctuary. This is no Ramsay Street! Recalling a skit format – Benny Hill meets Neighbours in Brunswick – Deacon’s witty sketches and comedic interludes are undercut by un-neighbourliness: aggressive dogs barking and an interfering neighbour peeping over the fence to shove pamphlets at one of the ‘yardies’ with the taunt: ‘I know you’re drinking in there’. Deacon’s cast, often family members, play a game of dismantling a pyramid of beer cans, while masks are placed on children as endless scenes of alienation unfold. Informed by vaudeville and burlesque, there is a sense of absurdity in Deacon’s racy humour and high melodrama.

Partly scripted and partly improvised, there is yelling, jeering and black dolls pushed along the pavement in fluorescent pink prams. Edited by Virginia Fraser, some sequences are slowed down to a groan and repeated in order to emphasise this hostile atmosphere. For example, the opening image comprises a menacing close-up of Lisa Bellear who declares “I don’t wanna see any of those bratty neighbours in here,” bellowing through a door grill like a prison barrier. The ensuing scenes include sweeping the yard, overflowing garbage bins alongside a fence with an empty trellis, and two battered ‘blak’ dolls perched on a plastic table. This definitely ‘ain’t no neighbourhood watch!’

NOTES

1. From a lecture given by Destiny Deacon at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2003. This work was partly inspired by a regular sketch in Channel 7’s 1960s variety show Sunnyside Up in which Bill Collins, the race-caller and TV personality, and Honest John Gilbert dressed in the most rudimentary of drag – head scarves and house coats – while chatting over the fence with cigarettes hanging out of the corners of their mouths.
2. Destiny Deacon interviewed by Virginia Fraser in Destiny Deacon: Walk & don’t look blak, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2004.
3. 2004: Australian Culture Now, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria and Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, p. 99.

Natalie King is a writer and independent curator based in Melbourne. She is the curator of Destiny Deacon: Walk & don’t look blak, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, November 2004 to January 2005, and touring internationally.