QRAVE: The Podcast

Bryan Andy is a Yorta Yorta man from Cummeragunja. Bryan has been a writer, radio broadcaster and theatre maker for over 20 years. He has been published by Lonely Planet, Guardian, Meanjin, ABC, Witness Performance and Artlink. He performed as an actor in Andrea James’s Yanagai! Yanagai! (2003) and Ilbijerri Theatre’s The Dirty Mile (2014).

In 2023, Bryan was the Dramaturg for the Griffin Theatre/Blakdance development of swim by Ellen Van Neerven; and is currently working as a writer with Outer Urban Projects on a work titled Vigil.

Bryan holds a Master of Theatre (Writing) from Victorian College of the Arts/ University of Melbourne; and is currently serving on the board of Kaiela Arts Shepparton.

THE TRANSCRIPT

My name is Bryan Andy, I'm a Yorta Yorta man, and I'm speaking for this project from Yorta Yorta Country. In thinking about LGBTQIA+ lives, and particularly the First Nations experience, I just wanted to dedicate all that I have to offer today to a dear cousin of mine who just passed. His name is Toby and he's a Wemba-Wemba man from Deniliquin. Today I'll talk about our community, our First Nations community, within a very much an urban setting. But Toby was somebody that was a trailblazer in the regional, remote setting. So whenever I'd go to Deniliquin for funerals or for family gatherings or whatever, he always said to me, come down to The Globe and have a charge with me. And, you know, in his passing and just thinking about him, he was queer, he was gay. He was a gay man, a gay Aboriginal man, a Wemba-Wemba man, who just was kind of in his community standing up to people who might be homophobes, farmers, all those kind of rednecks and just trailblazing in that way. And so I just want to dedicate all of my words and all of my thoughts in speaking about our lives to Toby.

If you're thinking about Fitzroy and Collingwood and, you know, in particular places like Gertrude Street, they used to call it the Dirty Mile. And, um, not only has it had, like, a really important Blak history, it's had a really important Blak queer history. Um, and I'm gonna use the term queer when I talk about LGBTQI+ people when I speak to this. That's a bit of a shorthand thing, but I often say Blak and queer, and that's the mob I'm speaking of. But Fitzroy, Collingwood, the City of Yarra as we know it today, is on Wurundjeri Country. Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country. They've had a long legacy of Blak and queer identities. And so as a Yorta Yorta man that's come from a place called Cummeragunja, uh, I'm just, I guess, part of that story, part of that narrative, part of those oral traditions and actual tangible examples of queers just being queers, queers fighting for rights. But yeah, Fitzroy and the City of Yarra has a really beautiful, textured, important, strong, nationally recognized, internationally recognized Blak history. And it's sort of lovely to be part of that Blak queer history that is still around. It's sort of been pushed out in many ways through gentrification, but it's a really important part. And so, you know, it's always been there.

We have contemporaries like Annette Xiberras, who is a Wurundjeri Woman. She's a lesbian. She's a mother. She lost her partner, Cathy. But, um, yeah, I think of people like Annette who's, like I said, a contemporary Wurundjeri Woman who's a lesbian. And when I talk about, I guess, our identities, I know that queer rights have come to the fore more recently through things like marriage equality with international movements. They've had their prong locally with things like the plebiscite. When I think about, I guess, queer identities and from an Aboriginal perspective or a First Nations perspective, they're ongoing. They're part of that Dreaming, the past, present and future combined. They're informed by the past. The future is informed by that past and that present. And so I'm part of that as an Aboriginal man, as a gay Aboriginal man, as a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal man who has played, worked, lived, had fun in places like the City of Yarra. You know, it's really formed my identity as a queer person and it's something you can't always explore in a regional setting. But yeah, like, you know, we've always been there always was, always will be Aboriginal land, and there always was and there always will be that queer presence.

The Builders Arms on Gertrude Street is a really important pub. We call it the Blak Pub of Melbourne, or Fitzroy. There's a plaque that I worked on when I worked at the City of Yarra. One of the beautiful projects I was able to do was to signpost and to place importance on the Aboriginal history of Fitzroy. Builders Arms Hotel it's a really important queer place. Prior to that, it was a very important Blak place, and one of the kind of yarns that I like to highlight is that there was a transgender woman called Vicky Liddy, and she was an Arrernte woman. And, um, all the Blackfellas would go to The Builders Arms. It was a place where if you wanted to find people, you'd go to The Builders Arms. You go to the pub and say, if you know someone came in from out of town, they didn't quite, you know, respect, maybe queer or gay men or
lesbians or queer identities. Um, and they came into The Builders Arms if they got a bit funny about the queer presence there, Um, Vicky Liddy would kind of stand up to that.

The story goes that, If someone started up and wanted to have a go at one of the women or one of the queer Mob, uh, Vicky Liddy would pretty much just smash a longneck on the bar, have a go and say, “you want to have a go with this Mob.” And, yeah. So Vicky Liddy, like, she's passed on now and she's Arrernte. I'm not sure where she’s laid to rest, but she's an Arrernte woman from Central Australia. And she found, I guess, a sense of sanctuary and connection with the Blak Aboriginal people in Fitzroy. And so when I think of Gertrude Street Vicky Liddy, she comes up in my mind. She comes up in the minds of a lot of Aboriginal people who have that consideration around queer identities within Fitzroy.

I've got a roll call, a beautiful roll call of Elders: Uncle Jack Charles, who passed away only two years ago. He was an actor. He, you know, had his struggles with substance abuse. He was a film actor. The most beautiful, um, theatre actor, um, he really came into his fore as he got older. He's somebody that had a really strong connection to Fitzroy and to Gertrude Street. He was part of the Blak community. He was a queer man. He was a gay man. He had relationships with men. It was something that, kind of, I wasn't aware of until he sat down and had a yarn to me one day, but I didn't realise he was gay or queer or, you know. Um, I just thought, oh, that's Uncle Jack. But, um, he kind of. Yeah. He loved men. He was a staunch activist. Um, he was a cat burglar, too, which is sort of interesting. But he ran this, um, workshop called Nindeebiya Workshop. He was in and out of prison with his, I guess his kind of need to survive and doing crimes, um, crimes of poverty, basically. But he was institutionalized or incarcerated for those crimes, and he started Nindeebiya Workshop, which was a workshop on George Street just off Gertrude Street. And yeah, basically it was a place where the parkies, or homeless people, could go and get a cup of tea, get a bit of toast in the morning, connect with community. The services sort of go there and, you know, if they needed, you know, health assistance or housing assistance or any kind of welfare assistance they’d go to Nindeebiya and they connect with people. And yeah, Uncle Jack started that stuff. He also had a pottery workshop in that Nindeebiya. So, you know, if you had your toast and tea, you could, um, you know, maybe make a pot or just do something with your hands, basically keep a bit focused. And. Yeah. So aside from his amazing, well respected creative pursuits on the stage and on film, Uncle Jack, those basic things of, you know, looking after Mob with tea and toast, and with ceramics and pottery just to kind of keep people connected and, and I guess, make them feel welcome. So two people, I think of: Vicky Liddy, Arrernte transgender woman, and Uncle Jack Charles, who was a Yorta Yorta man like myself.

Hares & Hyenas; It's such an important part of Fitzroy. Hares & Hyenas started in Commercial Road in the south, down on Boonwurrung Country. I guess they were fortunate enough to find a space within Fitzroy on Johnston Street there, and Crusader and Rowland, who are the godfathers of the queer community in Melbourne. They were so open and so ready to kind of engage different sectors of our community. You know, when you talk about intersectionality, you just look at Crusader and Rowland and what they did, and you realise that they enacted and engaged with intersectionality before it became one of those academic terms. You know, they involved women, they involved lesbians, they involved sex workers, they involved people with a disability, and they involved and engaged Blackfellas. Like, I mean, I was fortunate enough to kind of call it my second home. I lived in Collingwood, but I always spent a lot of time at Hares & Hyenas. We did some really fun, um, Midsumma events, and Midsumma sort of straddles what some people might want to insist on calling ‘Australia Day’ - January 26th. And so I remember having an event at Hares & Hyenas called Australia Day Hangover. So I was thinking, you know, on the 27th of January after everyone's had their barbecues and they'd kind of, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” Beers and whatnot, they probably got a hangover like the rest of Aboriginal Australia. And so we had this Australia Day hangover event and just had a range of readings and a range of speakers and just, you know, people kind of come in as part of the Midsumma program to listen to Blak voices and to hear our perspective because, um, yeah. You know, we're often not considered in the general milieu that's, you know, so-called Australia. But yeah, Hares & Hyenas was a really important space, a really nurturing space. And I take my hat off and I give so much love to Crusader and Rowland for providing that space and being so open to, I guess, what we now call intersectionality.

Unfortunately, I've had some pretty harrowing experiences, racially, very racist experiences within the LGBTI community that, um, you know, aren't pretty. But, um, they kind of make me reflect on, I guess, racism within Australia and how, um, you know, just because somebody is oppressed doesn't necessarily mean they have an empathy or an understanding of how oppression works and how you might kind of better serve or support those who are similarly oppressed. When you think of activism and the fight for rights- I used to work with Amnesty International, and so I was really part of that marriage equality push from an international perspective, but also from a local perspective. And it was interesting how the LGBTI community wanted to employ us to sort of say, yeah, get behind us and support us and make this all look visible. And, you know, we also have, you know, the LGBTI community doing that for us. But also we had people like, you know, the conservatives like Tony Abbott as the Prime Minister of the time, he went to the Aboriginal community wanting to denounce this marriage equality push from the LGBTI community. And so it was interesting, interesting to watch how Aboriginal people were almost pawns within this sort of system, within this push for political equality, social equality, sexuality and gender equality. And so, yeah, we're all part of that whole wave. I mean, I remember, you know, being always asked to be involved in the LGBTI push with marriage equality within Australia. And you know, we got the ‘Yes’, through the plebiscite process. 64% of Australia, I think, voted, “Yep, we accept marriage equality as a consideration.” We accept marriage equality to achieve equality for LGBTI people or for, you know, same sex attracted and gender diverse people. And then most recently last year we had the Yes- or No vote for Aboriginal people, for the Voice. And it was interesting to kind of, to see how people like, um, Anna Brown, who was part of that big local, um, equality push. It was sort of nice to read her words in the LGBTI press. Um, last year when we had to kind of get that Voice vote up. And, Anna Brown, she was so vital in that local LGBT or the, the equality push, marriage equality push. But she did some stuff with the Voice and said, look, you know, Mob got behind us, Aboriginal people got behind us for the equality vote. Let's get behind them when it comes to saying Yes. And it was really nice to see that. But it also, I guess, that importance of the marriage equality plebiscite support was that was from a federal level. And so what that meant, and you could see it as a result, once that was established federally, you could see how states stood up and listened to the need to involve or to accredit themselves - to service - the LGBTI community to create a space of equality. Um, and you could see the kind of outcomes of that. And so when the Voice vote was coming up, I remember thinking, well, you know, part of me as a gay man, I'm endorsed by the general Australian electorate. And that's great. And I can see how that sort of manifests in a, you know, a state or territory or even a local government perspective. You know, there's this impetus to support that and to realise that that's what Australians want. And I was thinking, yeah, that's the importance of the Yes vote for, you know, the Voice. And unfortunately we didn't get it across. And I'm going to get a bit emotional here I think. But it was kind of um, it was quite hard as a gay Aboriginal man to accept, kind of realise that, you know, part of me is accepted and then part of me isn't, by what we call Australia. And, um, it was quite confronting, and I'll admit that I kind of went into a bit of a spiral mentally in terms of my mental health, and it kind of affected me. And so it was a really, um, confronting time for me, I guess, in terms of accepting that, um, part of me was accepted by Australia and then part of me wasn't. And I guess I longed for that parallel in seeing how a federal plebiscite that endorses, um, LGBTI lives and equality at that level, um, affected all those state and local councils and all that, sort of all those mechanisms that can support equality within Australia. It was really hard to sort of see how that opportunity was given to us as an electorate, um, in Australia for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives- First Nations lives. And for that Voice to be so important and to sort of see it, I guess, nipped in the bud.

I think what it speaks to is, um, racism within Australia. You know, this isn't me being skeptical, it's me sort of saying that, well, the fact that there are LGBTI people out there that are white, that come from well-to-do families, that come from those structures, that's why the LGBTI marriage equality vote got got across, and that's why we didn't get across as Aboriginal people, because there's a lot of racism in Australia, there's racism in the LGBTI community. The fact that The Voice didn’t get up and get across is reflective of that fact.

Barbara Creed is Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of eight books, including The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (1993), Stray: Human-Animal Ethics in The Anthropocene (2017) and Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema (2022). Her writings have been translated into 10 languages. Barbara has been invited to participate in international research events, including at the Courtauld Institute (UK), and the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of the Sciences (US). Barbara was involved in the Gay Liberation Movement, and the Radicalesbians, during the seventies. She took part in marches & demonstrations such as the famous 1973 Gay Lib Picnic in the Botanical Gardens –– all of which she filmed on super-8, available to see in the Archives. She also came out on a number of nightly news programs during Gay Pride Week (1973) along with other members of Gay Lib. She made the landmark documentary Homosexuality: A Film for Discussion (43 mins 1975). A restored print is in the National Screen & Sound Archives. She designed & taught one of the first queer film courses. She was film critic for The Age, ABC radio and The Big Issue and has been on the boards of Writers Week, the VCA School of Film and Television and the Melbourne Queer Film Festival.

Gay Liberation 

THE TRANSCRIPT - Bard Creed 

My name is Barb Creed, and, um, I was involved in the very beginnings of gay liberation in the early 70s. I was working at Coburg Teachers College, um, and teaching film and media. And around that time, in the early 70s, a colleague in the office who was also a lesbian told me there was a meeting – I think it was the first meeting of gay liberation – at Melbourne Uni in the student union. A dozen of us there – it was pretty small, but it was fantastic, because suddenly you felt at home. Um, there were guys there as well, of course. And I think all of us probably remained pretty close friends for years afterwards. My first encounter with gay lib was at Melbourne Uni, which I mean, when you don't – when you come from a marginalised community, you have to create your own spaces. So, we took over this space once a month for a fantastic meeting and get together, and we did quite a few things at Melbourne. Another thing we did there, we used the Beaurepaire Centre for dances. I remember one night it must have gone around the straight community – the straight male community, um, the toxic male straight community – that we were all there because afterwards, around midnight, we were leaving and about four guys jumped out of the shrubbery next to the Centre, trying to terrify us. But I'm very happy to say we chased them up, I think. 

The Brunswick street, um, gay center was at the top of, um, another building, of course, the top. We had the whole top floor. So it was a very long, big room. And that was a bit later on in the 70s, we had meetings and, um, probably went to Mario's for coffee, so I can't quite remember. In between that there was the Davis Street Centre. It was single fronted, lots of classic terrace rooms. The relationships between the lesbian and gay men came to a bit of head there, because just at that time, um, there was a feeling amongst that came from from overseas, actually, that the lesbians really should be spending their time in the women's movement, um, with other women, um, and politicising women more, and that we shouldn't be in a joint, sort of, um, community with gay men. Uh, I didn't actually agree with that, but some of the women did, and they left the Davis Street Center. Particularly, I think one evening some of the women came in and there were a few guys having sex on the couch or whatever in the meeting room, and they were not impressed. Um, so they left and did go to the Women's Center. I kind of did both. I stayed part of the Davis Street Center and also went to the Women's Center. And that was another story, again, because that introduced a different kind of sexual tension into the women's movement. But the lesbian groups stayed within the Women's Center, which was in the city, um, maybe in Lonsdale Street, it was a big building that was rented. Um, where we also held dances and so on. So it became a very, um, interesting space. Lots of arguments and lots of good times, though. Um, and, with the lesbians joining together with straight women – not all women in the women's movement probably were straight – but it created lots of space for argument, discussion and politicking. And of course, every time there was a Women's March, we would join in with our banners, um, and give support. 

My house actually probably became the first centre for a while. That was at 252 Rae Street and um, we had lesbian meetings there. Uh, we had a CR group there. I remember one night we were all sitting around talking about sex and how the guys all had beats, and men could do this because their sexuality was more out there than women's sexuality, because we'd been conditioned to repress it all our lives. So we thought, “Let's set our own beat up!” So one night we plunged into the Edinburgh Gardens. [Laughs] It didn't work, I mean – because, we all knew each other, so it was kind of [laughs] but it became the idea of this lesbian beat – which never really happened – became quite famous actually, at the time. But that's what you did. You had an idea and you thought, “oh we'll act on it.”

But if we hadn't had those spaces where we could sit and talk and plan our next move, nothing much would have happened really. I mean, we had to have spaces not just in our own homes, but we also wanted spaces out in the public arena, too. And we thought, “Well we've got a right to claim a room at the Melbourne University Union, a lot of us are students.” And we did, and we set it up and called it Gay Liberation Meeting Night, etc. and we rented spaces for the conference and um, that gave us a visibility with without which, um, we may never have got together to have all the activities, and demonstrations, and television interviews we had in Gay Pride Week. Um, and then we wouldn't have been invited to appear on television, and we wouldn't have had the picnic, and we wouldn't have ended up on the front page of newspapers. And all that visibility was crucial, really. 

When I grew up, I knew I was different. I remember I was having a very intense emotional relationship with my girlfriend. We were together for a long time and we said to each other one day, “Do you think we're lesbians?” And we thought about it and I said, “No, I don't think so,” because I was looking in this book by an author called Anthony Storr, and it was called Homosexuality. It was about men mainly, but there was a little bit on lesbians and it said women were men trapped – lesbians were men trapped in women's bodies. So we thought, well, we can't be because we don't feel like men trapped – women trapped in men's bodies. So, that was the only, that was as much visibility as I had found growing up, this book by Anthony Storr in the library, really. I didn't know of any other lesbians on the media, um, socially, at school. So we didn't even think we were, because there was no visibility. Um, so when gay liberation happened, that's why I went to the first meeting, because suddenly the movement was beginning, and here was a place where I could meet other people like myself. So we were becoming visible. So if gay people aren't visible – queer people, LGBTIQ people are not visible – not in the media, not in the papers, not in movies, and films, and books and so forth; then other people who feel the same way have got no way really, of understanding their own sexuality, their identity, um, their culture, their history. You don't have a history, actually. Um, and this is what you're doing? You're recovering our history in a way. I mean, it's a really important idea to document, um, spaces from the 70s where this movement really began in that decade. Because otherwise it'll all be lost. 

Meg Slater

Meg Slater (she/they) is Curator, International Exhibition Projects at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Since 2017, Meg has worked on a number of the NGV’s major international exhibitions, including MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art, French Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the forthcoming Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi.

Meg was also one of the five curators who organised QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection (2022), the most historically expansive thematic presentation of its kind ever presented by an Australian art institution. In 2021, Meg completed a Master of Art Curatorship at The University of Melbourne with First Class Honours. Meg’s thesis explored the potential for large arts institutions to more meaningfully engage with marginal subjects and histories through exhibition making and programming.

Ted Gott

Ted Gott is Senior Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria. After studying at the University of Melbourne, the British Museum, Northwestern University and the Art Institute of Chicago, he previously worked at the Robert Holmes-à-Court Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Australia.

He has curated and co-curated more than 25 exhibitions, including The Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay (2004), Kiss of the Beast: From Paris Salon to King Kong (2005), Modern Britain 1900-1960 (2007), Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire (2009), Napoleon: Revolution to Empire (2012), Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The Legacy of Catherine the Great (2015), Degas: A New Vision (2016) and Van Gogh and the Seasons (2017).

He has published widely on Australian, British and French art, and in 2013 co-authored a cultural history of the gorilla in 19th and 20th Century art, literature, scientific discourse and cinema (Gorilla, Reaktion Press, London).

THE TRANSCRIPT

Meg Slater: I'm Meg Slater. I'm curator of International Exhibitions at the NGV.

Ted Gott: And I'm Ted Gott senior creator of International Art, here at NGV.

Meg Slater: And I worked on the Keith Haring/Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines exhibition, which was curated by a guest curator Dieter Buchhart, and Ted has researched and written an amazing view on Haring’s time, he has specifically his work on the 1984 short-lived Water Window mural.

Ted Gott: Yeah. I also worked with Lisa Sullivan, who's at the Geelong Art Gallery.

Meg Slater: And of course you worked on yeah, you've worked on many other-

Ted Gott: Yeah we prepared a heritage report for the Richmond Council to save the Collingwood mural. Well, it captured an immediacy and a vibrancy at the time when the art world was changing. It broke down doors. It brought, as that old cliche, it brought the art of the street into the gallery. Or what for me is important about his art, is just his incredible painterly and draftsmanly skills.

Day one, it’s the first time he'd ever used a cherry picker, and he'd never painted on a surface this big before

Meg Slater: Or on glass…

Ted Gott: or on glass, and on day one he did without any preparatory drawings, he just created nine designs, two metres wide and seven metres high. Perfectly, in absolute symmetry and precision and perspective, allowing for the fact that on day two, he would come back and fill in the negative areas that he had left with a layer of black and a layer of red. That is, that is Leonardo da Vinci - genius. And when you see videos of him drawing, that is what stands out. He just starts from one end and just goes. And when he painted that he never got down off the cherry picker, he did not stand back and look to see where he was at. He was painting two inches in front of his face, but his mind could do that and the same thing with the Collingwood mural. He did that on a ladder and a cherry picker; never once got down to look at what he was doing. Only on one occasion the kids asked him what was the finished design going to be, and then he gets down off the cherry picker and he draws a foots long caterpillar snake saying this is what it's going to be.

Meg Slater: Amazing!

Ted Gott: Well, there was a very lively art scene here called the Roar studio, which operated out of premises in Fitzroy. And he met with the Roar artists and um they hung out with him. There's one artist in particular, Mark Schaller, uh, who sort of chaperoned Keith around. He showed him where to buy the right paints and paint this in Collingwood mural. He went out with him zapping the streets because there were lots of graffiti works done in Melbourne at the dead of night. While he was here.

Meg Slater: But I think Haring was a real - I mean, I can't really speak to the time as much, Ted - but am I right in saying that Haring was a bit of a hero for a lot of local artists here?

Ted Gott: Oh, yes absolutely!

Meg Slater: Word had come back of his, you know, his sort of like grassroots to sort of, you know, gallery representation success in New York and he was a real sort of, you know, yeah, as I mentioned hero for a lot of artists here. But I think his choice of where he made his art is really important. Even his choice of a space like the Water Wall, it's somewhere- it's a surface that you don't have to come into the building to see, but you could also see from within the building, and passers by could see the work. And that always remained very important to him even when he did gain gallery representation and he started to sort of rise through the ranks of the New York art world and and just internationally. He continued to make public murals. It was sort of the core of his practice and I think that's really important to think about. He could have stopped doing that, but he didn't. And I think his reasons for doing that are reflected in why he set up his foundation. It has social and political aims. It works with disenfranchised groups. It works with queer community groups, um, you know, the ethos has always been there and I think that's really admirable for someone who gained such quick success within the art world. And also just what he's done for the queer community and his legacy within the queer community. It's just astounding.

Ted Gott: He also wanted always to work with children. So when he was here, he requested a project that would involve a school, so that's how the Collingwood mural came about. And he interacted with them a lot. He had his little boom box playing rap music, the boom box decorated by Kenny Scharf. And the kids were doing dancing, and he would get down and dance with them and chat to them. So he was very interested in mentoring and inspiring younger people, always.

Meg Slater: What he was producing, he occupied quite a special space in that he was sort of touching so many parts of the art but that public practice, that sort of dual public practice and then practice in more formal gallery spaces. It's sad to think of, you know, it sort of, it makes you quite emotional to think of where he would have continued to go, just because his output was so prolific in the short time that he was working. It's quite astounding. He made art to live, really, and for us as well.

Ted Gott: Exactly. And one of his goals was to make art part of daily public love and his murals worldwide were part of that. So that was an enormous loss. But also, as his art developed, it did become more political. And so we lost one of the great advocates fighting for not only gay rights, but the messages of safe sex at the time of HIV/AIDS crisis, but he was also creating artwork that was criticizing the market of the dollar economy. He was criticizing the rise of computer technology and the threat that that would pose to civilization, which is now coming true. He was making works about apartheid and racial prejudice. He was really bringing to the fore incredible dialogue.

Meg Slater: His- I think one thing that interestingly has lived on in ways that I think he might not appreciate him as much as others is he had this very distinctive iconography, very distinctive line that has been in some cases appropriated by sort of commercial sources. But also, there's been an interesting use of his art that I think, you know, with the artist no longer present, what would he think of these uses, particularly in commercial spaces? So I think it's, yeah, he was very ahead of his time in terms of the issues that he was addressing in his work. He was very open- not only as a gay man making art about his experiences as a queer person, but uh, yeah, just about all of these issues that he came into contact with through the incredibly diverse circles that he mixed in. And even that Collingwood mural, the um, the caterpillar with the computer head and the people beneath it. It's a very fun looking image, but it does have a more sort of sinister undertone in that it's this sort of computer impending computer age crushing all of us below.

Ted Gott: The mural had been just fading away, and there was a lot of discussion about whether it should be just painted over or demolished, or whether it should be rescued. There were conflicting sides. Some people wanted it to be repainted, which I think would have been a disaster because then it's not a Keith Haring mural anymore. It's someone else over the top of Keith Haring. There were lots of public discussions. There were some considerable public fights from the camps who wanted it repainted and the camps who didn’t.

Meg Slater: Oh, really?

Ted Gott: It wasn't fading, but in fact, there was a leaching out of a white substance. We were able to apply poultices to it and remove this white matter. And suddenly the vibrant colours were back and they just did a little bit of in-filling, but it was miraculous. So they were able to rejuvenate the mural without repainting it. Really, there was 10 years of discussion that before was rescued. Now Meg tells me it's been graffitied.

Meg Slater: Not every person on the street is going to respect that this is one of the last surviving murals by Keith Haring. And it's interesting to consider, you know, what the artist would have wanted in terms of how these works are displayed. I don't think Haring would have wanted to have a giant piece of perspex up in front of it, but unfortunately, you know, what- where to from here? And I think that process of rediscovery is really exciting, it's a bittersweet. It shouldn't have to be this way but it is. And it's also really exciting to see people, you know, getting this recognition. Um and increasingly they're being more spaces for these practitioners within contemporary practice. So I think that's really exciting.

Ted Gott: I think that's one of the tragedies of just the human condition; that history has forgotten so quickly. As new generation comes forth and they actually have no idea of what came before them. So, they need to be constantly reminded and educated. And it’s a constant battle in the wider worlds to fight for our acceptance on all levels.

David Menadue (OAM)

David Menadue has been involved with the HIV response in Australia since the late nineteen eighties where he was involved in the establishment of the National Association of People with HIV Australia in 1989 and People Living with HIV/AIDS Victoria later the same year. He has since served on the boards of those organisations plus the Victorian AIDS Council/ Gay Men’s Health Centre( now Thorne Harbour Health) and the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (now Health Equity Matters).

He has fulfilled roles there as an openly HIV-positive Board member including talking to the press on HIV related topics when that was often a stigmatised and difficult thing to do. He received an Order of Australia medal in 1995 for his advocacy on HIV.

DAVID'S TRANSCRIPT

Without Fairfield hospital I've got my doubts about whether I'd still be here. And I don't want to sound like a drama queen, but, um, the fact was that they worked on the stigma. They understood the HIV stigma was stopping people treating, and stopping people wanting to leave, to be honest. It was so intense in the 80s particularly, and into the 90s even, that people wanted a kind of refuge. They wanted somewhere that would accept them totally for who they were. And Fairfield worked on that. You know, the doctors there were clued up. They understood stigma because they dealt with polio patients and all sorts of people that have had a hard, you know, diagnosis to deal with. HIV came along and, you know, I think it was about 50% of their patient load in the 90s. So, it was a very important part of who they were was HIV medicine.

What I would say about Fairfield was, it wasn't judgmental, unlike a lot of the other GP clinics at the time. But of course, in the 80s when I started going to Fairfield Hospital there were no treatments. So you can understand a little bit of the reluctance of doctors to, you know, be in the same room even to the person with HIV. But this wasn't something I felt with the nurses at Fairfield. It was a truly special thing that those people were prepared to treat you as just a normal patient, do the same things they would normally. It's a beautiful sanctuary. Now that's one of the other reasons I think Fairfield had that special quality about it. You know about the peacocks of course, I mean they used to shit everywhere, but they were pretty, you know, and it added to the sort of unusualness or specialness or whatever the word is.

It was – you can walk down, down the back, down into the almost to the riverbank, actually, because it was a Yarra riverbank. Um, you could do that. And we developed our own park, as you know, the AIDs Garden. I actually planted a tree there. It is the tallest tree almost in the garden. And it has no foliage until the very top. So it's the skinny tree which people say lets you take it. It's taken you off. And I don't know what year I planted it, but I planted it to sort of acknowledge that it was the AIDs garden, and that people like myself, who were survivors, appreciated the fact that this was a soulless space. That we could go down there with friends and, you know, because we were losing a lot of friends and you went through really sad times. And we did, you know we're not supposed to talk about this, but the truth of the matter is, we had quite a lot of funerals down there. We were told not to, and we're told not to spread ashes. But of course, you know, we were people of that particular vintage, we weren't going to follow any rules. And well that's what happened, you know, there's ashes spread all over the garden. And that was what we were acknowledging by putting that tree there. We weren't saying, look, this is in memory of all the people we know. Ashes have been put in this garden. But that's what we decided.

It was our own space, you know, like, the HIV community meant something. I think it still does. But then for people like me with HIV, to have other people who accepted us that wanted to spend time with us, that wanted to do things like share our funerals or share our birthdays or whatever. It was like, it was an acceptance into a community. In the early 90s, maybe
1991, the government thought, look, it's an expensive hospital to run. We're thinking that current
hospitals like The Alfred and the Royal Melbourne can do the infectious disease just as well. Why are we putting all this money into a special infectious disease hospital? Because, you know, hospitals now know how to manage infectious disease. And so, because people like myself, and Susan, and others really relied on that hospital for their sanity, really, as well as our good health. We weren't prepared to just lie down and let that happen. And so we did a march to the steps of Parliament House and made a big fuss and made Maureen Lester cry and say, “all right, well, we'll, you know, keep it open a while longer.” And we kind of knew we were a bit on borrowed time, but, you know, we made such an impact and the AIDs Council was behind us. It wasn't a small group of us. It was the AIDs Council and all their volunteers and everybody trying to make sure it stayed open. So, it really lasted to maybe 1994, I can't remember, but we made a huge fuss a second time as well. But we lost this time. They closed it.

Susan Paxton

I am a passionate advocate for the rights of womfen. In the early 1980s established one of Europe’s leading women’s theatre groups, Scarlet Harlets.

When I was diagnosed with HIV, I was afraid to be open about my status as I had a young son. In 2000, with his blessing, I went public by carrying the Olympic Torch on behalf of people with HIV in Australia. Since then, I have worked in over twenty countries in Asia and the Pacific carrying out research with, and developing leadership skills of people with HIV.

I conducted the first regional documentation of AIDS-related discrimination (which led to GNP+ Stigma Index). My publications include “Lifting the Burden of Secrecy", a positive speaker’s guide, based on my PhD research on the impact of people living with HIV speaking out and changing attitudes, and "Positive and pregnant - How dare you", highlighting violations of HIV-positive women's rights.

In 2011, I began painting for the first time, and I find that it brings me immense calm. It is the first time since I contracted HIV over 35 years that I have allowed myself to “play”.

SUE'S TRANSCRIPT

It was like – it felt like the only place in Melbourne where you could go and not face any discrimination, because it was only for HIV positive people. It had that unique character to it even further, so that we knew that we were all in it together, kind of. When it eventually closed down in the mid 90s, would have been, it just seemed like we were being deprived, you know, being ripped up of our identity almost. It was a sensible thing to do to, to put Fairfield Hospital into within a larger infectious diseases, um, hospital. But it felt – it felt like we were losing our identity when that happened.

It was a unique, um, hospital. It was incredibly caring. Um, and I think that the people within the HIV sector in those days were the most compassionate healthcare workers around, because they face a lot of stigma working with us. A lot of people thought, oh, you can't work with those, you know, AIDs people. You get you know, you get AIDs yourself. Fairfield was like a sanctuary in a way. It was a scary place because often people went there to die, but people didn't treat you with any stigma. And that was the, that was the unique thing that we were all bonded in our freaky-ness, in a way.

And it was strange for me because there weren't many women around at all in those days. It was like one sphere where I felt completely comfortable with my HIV. I mean, there were very few gay men that ever ostracised me. Couple did, as if to say, what are you doing here? It's like, sorry I’ve got HIV too, it does happen to women. Um, but on the whole it was always a very welcoming place. It was also a place where we had a lot of, um, a lot of joy and a lot of sadness because so many people did die. And, um, I remember during the period when Fairfield Hospital was going to be closed down and, um, people, we were doing, um, protests at one point was a couple of guys, one of them's passed away, I don't know what happened to the other one. But one of them rang me and said, “Oh, we're going on the roof of Fairfield tonight to protest.” I said, “Who, you and Robert? No,” I said, “Don't do that. The two of you by yourselves aren't going to achieve anything. Hang on. We'll get a whole group of people out there.” So there was a lot of activism around in those days because it was kind of like on the tail end of Act Up. I came on the tail end of Act Up. The Garden started later on. It was almost towards the end of Fairfield's life.

But the thing that I enjoyed about Fairfield, it sounds weird that it was a place of so much death, was also a place of so much solidarity. Um, Positive Women had got their first office space there. It was called the, uh, Matron’s Cottage, that's right. It was a lovely little space. And I remember going in there and being the first one to write down minutes by hand with our meetings and try and start, you know, creating a, um, uh, filing system and stuff. And just people started popping in. So, it was really the beginning of developing that Positive Women's community for us, for sure. Having a physical space where women could pop in
made such a difference.

As a person who’s not religious in any way; I think it's important to keep the memory of those who've inspired us alive, to be able to tell other people how inspiring this person was, to go and remember. It's also about creating pride in where you've come from, pride in the community that have, you know, moved us along to the point we are at now. I mean, I think a lot of those guys who were the early legends, I mean, my God, they could never have imagined the future that we're living in today.

Richard Watts

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024.

THE TRANSCRIPT

This area has changed a lot since the 90s. Smith Street, for example, used to be very, very, uh, smack heavy. So, when Hares and Hyenas opened up a shop on Smith Street, in fact, uh, they closed a relatively short time later, I'm told, because visitors said they felt unsafe coming to the shop. Uh, and even when I moved into the area in 2000, I felt nervous walking home down Gertrude Street alone at night because it was still a bit rough. Yeah, when we opened Q&A at the Builders Arms, there were vacant blocks in Gertrude Street. There was literally a vacant block a couple of doors up from the pub where people would sneak up the laneway and go up there to smoke their joints out of sight or something like that, or probably do other things out of sight as well. Um, so the area's changed a lot. Uh, and to go back even further, when Q&A started, it was initially at what is now Max Watts in the city. So it started as a fortnightly club alternating with a goth industrial club that I also helped run with a different group of friends who kind of began to overlap. And after a while we just went, “Oh, the other club wants to go weekly on Saturday nights, our club isn't quite working in this environment.” So, Pete Kuhn – who was one of the co-founders and one of the DJs with me – and I said, “Oh, look, I already DJ at The Builders on, uh, Fridays and Saturdays. They've got a Thursday night free. Let's see if we can take it there.” We took Q&A – Queer and Alternative – to The Builders Arms, and it just went off. I think it was, it was the right place, the right time. There were still plenty of students living in Fitzroy because they could afford to – they can't anymore. Uh, and I think there's a documentary film called something like 1996, The Year of Punk Broke, which was about the waves of bands like Sonic Youth, Nirvana and so forth, and that was just the time that Q&A started. And so we rode this wave of wild alternative music. Well, wild to some people, to me going to be very, very familiar.

A good way to describe it was, uh, share house grunge. So lots of, uh, op shop couches and very much an old school Fitzroy pub. In retrospect, we were part of the gentrification of Fitzroy, which we didn't realise at the time because, uh, The Builders used to be – like a lot of pubs in Fitzroy in the 60s, 70s, 80s – rough as guts. A friend of mine moved on to Gore Street in 1985, and a sex worker was stabbed and killed at the front of The Builders arms within a week or two of him moving into the area, and he's like, “Oh God, what have I done?” By the 90s that gentrification had started, but it was an old school pub, it hadn't been done up. Beautiful old tiled bar, with a floor that I presume was originally designed to be just hosed down after the 6 o'clock swill. Uh, and I remember sitting at the bar one night and a taxi pulled up and three guys got in – they've obviously already been in a bit of a pub crawl –they came in, they ordered their pots, they sat down and they looked around and slowly started to realise that the pub had changed a bit. Turns out they'd all just got out of Pentridge earlier that day and they'd come straight to The Builders after going through a couple of other pubs as well, because it was one of their locals and they looked around and went, “it's full of people with blue hair and Goth boys kissing each other.” They finished up their pots and left. They were what The Builders used to be like. And as I said, it was a grungy Fitzroy pub, the equivalent of a punters club. I think one of the reasons Q&A worked so well at The Builders was because it was at a time when the gay and lesbian scenes were quite separate, and we were in an inclusive venue that was for both men and women, guys and girls, and everyone in between. I think our original flyers, for example, said, “dress up, down, or sideways.” So, it was the kind of place where straight people could bring their queer friends, queer friends could bring their straight people. Everybody mixed together, everybody mingled together. As long as you weren't an arsehole, uh, and you weren't up yourself. You would be absolutely fine.

And I think that's why it worked. And as I said, musically, it happened at just the right time. Because the reason we started it was like I was listening to punk and grunge, Pete was listening to Britpop. We would go to somewhere like The Laird, or the Peel, or God forbid occasionally go to the Southside to Commercial Road. Um, and the music, not just the music was not our thing, but the style was not our thing. The whole ‘Cult of the Body Beautiful’, uh, the fashion, everything that went with a so-called ‘gay identity’, which to me at the time felt like a commercialized identity, something that had been co-opted, something that had gone from being rebellious and dangerous in the 60s and 70s to being completely co-opted and mainstream in a way. Uh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's why we called it ‘queer’. It wasn't a gay club; it was a queer club. Um, and it turned out there were a hell of a lot more people than we realised outside of our immediate group of friends who were queer and also liked punk, and grunge, and Britpop, and indie, and old rock, and wanted to throw themselves around the dancefloor with gay abandon.

Yeah, I think AIDs – the pandemic – started to bring people back together. And then, uh, in the 90s, definitely, I think maybe it was more of a us against the world sense again, um, which helps unite people. Let's face it, if you have a common foe, i.e. an oppressive and a heterosexual world, then that does tend to bring people together a little bit more, to fight a common foe. And also, uh, at the time Q&A was formed. We're talking not long after groups like Act Up had come together as well. So, uh, coalitions were very much of the time. One of the reasons Q&A worked was because it was at a pub; it wasn't a nightclub. People didn't get dressed up the way you do, get dressed up to go to a nightclub. It was just a social night at the pub. And yeah, some people always got dressed up. But they got dressed up in their own unique way. Once we moved to a bar called Barry, it became a club and it meant we were open later, there was a larger crowd, and the demographics started to change. And part of that is because it was now a nightclub, not a pub night. And it was because, as I said, people had moved out of Fitzroy, And so we started getting more – we started getting the occasional group of bitchy drag queens dropping in or uh, the Southside gay boys, um, who were coming because they were told it was a cool place to come to, not because they were into the music. Uh, and that's one of the reasons we killed it off. It had changed enough that it stopped feeling fun, and it felt more like a job. And myself and Pete and Helen – who by that stage was the third regular DJ and promoter – we just collectively went, “let's kill it while the going's good. We could keep milking this and keep it running for several more years, we’re getting full houses every night, big queues.” But things should stop when they stop being fun, and that's why Q&A ended when it did.

Melissa Williams

Melissa began her professional career as an Early Childhood Educator, working in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Since 2008, she has been volunteering and working for Positive Attitude Inc., an organisation providing social and practical support for people living with HIV and the LGBTIQ+ community.

Melissa's work was inspired by former President and founder Yvonne Gardner; and upon being nominated, she agreed to take on the Presidency following Yvonne's passing in 2018.

Melissa is responsible for coordinating a team of volunteers, engaging community support, providing weekly lunches, advocacy and fundraising at Positive Attitude.

She is an enthusiastic collector of Art Deco era glass and worked as an antique dealer for a number of years. Melissa is a writer, who understands the power of words to inspire and change people's hearts and minds. She enjoys writing stories for children and has had several articles published in the Queer press. She is also passionate about social justice, promoting respect for older LGBTIQ+ people and preserving Queer history.

Melissa currently has a role in Media and Communications where she enjoys engaging service providers and community members in the work of Celebrate Ageing.

THE TRANSCRIPT

Yvonne founded Positive Attitude to 83-84 - 1983/84. Um, there was a real need, you know, it was the height of the AIDS crisis. And most of the guys, the pos guys had gone into public housing. They'd been told, you know, “well, you've got AIDS, you're going to die.” So they cashed in their super and sold it, and blew all their savings on first class trips to Paris. Some of them didn't die. And so they were here on pensions and struggling. So Yvonne thought she'd help them out with some meals, so she'd cook up some big pots of soup and put them in the back of her car, ‘The Golden Holden’, as she called it. And, uh, drive around with these big pots of soup around to The Ministry of Housing places in, um, Carlton, Fitzroy, uh, yeah, all around inner north. And, uh, then she sort of got to realise that so many of the guys are living alone and that she'd literally, you know, they'd be floors away or a street away and that sort of thing and experiencing this isolation and loneliness. So, she started saying, “oh, you know, like her next week, so-and-so lives just around the corner. Meet me at his place. It'll save me coming up your stairs,” or that sort of thing. And so she'd introduced these guys, you know, and so friendships were formed and, you know, she saw the importance of not only a free feed, but this social connection as well. Then she got space at Saint Marks In Fitzroy, the church hall there, and they'd have the lunch there and then that was the way for everyone to actually get together and meet up. And, yeah, and so it just sort of evolved from there. City of Yarra have always been, um, really good, uh, supporters of Positive Attitude. And we now run from the Edinburgh Gardens Community Room every Friday. We yeah, still, still do a free lunch, and in this post lockdown era, you know, we all realise how important that social connection is. And most of these guys now, they're long term survivors, they're all older men and, um, so many of them are still experiencing this social isolation, so much more than just a free lunch.

And Yvonne. Ah, well, larger than life, absolute snazzy dresser, full of incredible style. Like, you know, she do the the big Preston market shop on a Wednesday for the Friday lunch and you’d come to pick her up and it'll be what outfit’s she gonna wear today? And she'd be dressed to the nines hat, all the jewels, you know, just to go shopping at Preston Market, absolutely resplendent in all this finery. And of course, everyone knew her at the market. And, um, which was amazing because after she passed away, it was good that I knew the particular places where she bought things from. So, like a Christmas time for our Christmas lunch, I went to the chicken shop guy and said, I remember, you know, the lady I used to bring here, and she passed away - and they're all very sad to hear that - and but it was great because they honoured her memory. They gave me fantastic discounts on buying a turkey for Christmas and various things. So that was really good. But yeah, it was um, absolute huge loss. She also, uh, yeah, more than a free lunch ethos and was always on the end of the phone for people and, um, always the life of the party. She loved- the stamina she had, you know, in her 70s, was just inspirational to me. And yeah, at her funeral, you know, as the hearse drove off, we broke into song, this spontaneous sort of cabaret. You know, what use is sitting alone in your room? You know, she was just always out. Any opportunities she got; Yvonne was there. As always dressed to the nines. Concerts, you know, parties. She loved music. Uh, a real bon-vivant, as they, they say, you know, loved life, loved a good party.

I think generally, on a whole, it has got better. I think sometimes, one of the guys said to me recently he wishes they'd do a bit of the U=U campaign in our own community because they're finding that there's still a bit of stigma out there. Uh, you know, in regards to even though PrEP’s around now, and there's all these amazing things that help people live long lives and, you know, um, have no viral load and that sort of thing. There's still a bit of ignorance in the queer community around that, and a bit of stigma. So, but look, I'm not a gay man, so how can I know? So anyway. But, um, yeah, I think it's definitely improved. I mean, at my age, I was around from the beginning of it in the 80s, and it was horrific in those days and even into the 90s, all those obituaries, all the death notices in the queer press every week was just, uh, unbelievable. But one amazing thing was, though, they started to get less and less as we got into the mid 90s. And there also alongside those, there were birth notices because the lesbians were all having babies, which was really lovely, and it was a really nice sort of circle of life thing. And it was a great day when those, those obituaries really were just few and far between.

I started volunteering with Yvonne about 17 years ago, and mainly because, you know, I have a son, donor conceived. And we're not religious in any way, but I wanted him to have some sense of community and volunteering and helping out- the rent we pay for, for being on the planet sort of thing, you know, helping people out. And, the community, you know, they're all I look at- they're all my gay brothers. We all look after each other in our community. We've got a very proud history of that. And so, yeah. And Yvonne had there was an ad in one of the street press, that Yvonne needed Volunteers for Christmas. So I phoned her and it all started from there. And Riley and I would go along on Christmas Eve every year and help do the setup and prep for the Christmas Day. And then once Yvonne found out, you know, that I was willing to help her out more, I'd get these phone calls about taking her to do the shopping and this and that, and it sort of grew from there. And, I could see how important it was to the people that come to these lunches – Christmas Day says it all. You know, the amount of people that still have nowhere to go on Christmas Day and spend the day alone. Um, it's really important what we do. So, yeah, I think Yvonne would be proud and really chuffed that we've continued it on. These amazing volunteers that come along and help every year that just feel privileged to be able to do it, which is wonderful. Um, and yeah, and Yvonne was my friend and it's, you know, it's a really important work and I did have a lot of encouragement, like, they're very big shoes to fill and I don't think I'll ever feel them. But, you know, people encouraged me that, you know, you could do it. I've always suffered badly from imposter syndrome. And, you know, Chris Driscoll – Sircuit, he's probably my biggest, greatest champion. And he really encouraged me so that I could do it. And yeah. And so six years on from Yvonne passing away in 2018, this year, this is my sixth year doing it now, running the show. And yeah I think I think we're doing okay.

Angela Pucci Love

Angela Pucci Love is a marketer living in Naarm with her husband and daughter, and is the sister of Bridget Flack.

Through the immense loss caused by Bridget's passing, Angela has learnt so much about the trans and gender diverse community and has become passionate about furthering her own education on the issues that affect this group. This has lead Angela to return to university to undertake a Juris Doctor. Angela hopes to combine lived experience and further education to become an advocate in an effort to carry on Bridget's memory, and also ensure that others don't have to experience injustice, inequality and pain.

THE TRANSCRIPT

I remember the day Bridget was born. She and I have been together, always. She was, you know, she lived with my husband and I through her teens, and our mum died when she was quite young. Um, I'm 12 years older, so we had a very, um, caregiver type relationship rather than a traditional sibling relationship. So I've always – be it she wanted to change schools, looking at schools, or she wanted to learn this instrument, or she wanted to go on this holiday or, um, what uni course etc. – I've always been part of it. We spent a lot of time together, so, you know, I've lost that. Um, so there's, I suppose there's two elements of life since then, there's the element of just the immense grief of not having someone you love so much in your life and that toll that that creates. But then there's been the other side of the, um, anger and the frustration and disappointment in, um, kind of how it all came out. And then, you know, the going through a coronial inquest, which we embraced because, not because we wanted to relive everything so often, which is what you have to do to go through a process like that, and publicly as well, but more because we feel this immense, I don't want to say anger. Anger’s not quite the word. Maybe frustration is better, but this absolute frustration at the injustice of it all. And this genuine desire that I don't want anyone to ever sit here and feel the way that I felt.

Bridget had been seeking impatient, um, psychiatric care. And wasn't able to get it. Um, and so we had been trying very hard to get her some help. Um, so then, you know, daily, hourly, trying to sort something out for her. And then it was, yeah, that week that she just went for a walk and didn't come back. And so I suppose if you think about it objectively, it kind of wasn't surprising. Um, but at the time it was like, you know, how could this happen? Where's she gone? What's going on? Um, and I think, there were two things that happened at the same time for us. We had the people who I have grown up to believe are there to help and to do all the right things and do what you expect them to do, and my expectations were, “Help us. This is not this is not right.” Um, but then at the same time, there was a group of people who I had no, um, I suppose, personal connections to, no knowledge of most of the people, um, but this whole collective of a community who said, “well, we're here to help.” It was this tension between what I thought I knew and then something else coming out of it, because I still fundamentally believe, despite having hundreds and thousands of people who were concerned and wanting to do anything they could to help, um, I also knew that the people with the resources who should be helping weren't. Being police, search and rescue, whoever that may be. Um, so that was when I kind of, I suppose, went down the media path of just trying to make noise, to say this isn't right, and to get some actual help, because it's great that you've got hundreds of people volunteering to walk around. But number one, that's not their job and you don't know what situation you're putting someone in. And number two, there's people who are actually we're all paying to do this job and actually have resources that none of us have access to, who should be doing a better job of it.

I very much had it in my head that a traditional funeral would not suit Bridget. Um, and I also was acutely aware that there was this huge amount of community members who had been on this journey with us be it: following the news stories, or out physically searching or, you know, anything, um, you know, calling if they had sightings or thought they had sightings. So, um, I needed to make sure that it was somewhere, um, that plenty of people could access if they wanted to – I wanted it to feel like a really inclusive space. I knew that a lot of people were struggling with different feelings. I knew that there were people who knew her, obviously, who were struggling with feelings, but I knew there were people that identified with her, had never met her, didn't know anyone she knew. And I knew that I wanted to create a space to give people that opportunity to come together. Um, so we had it in Darling Gardens, which obviously down the road from where I live. And Bridget lived with us in Abbotsford. So we've always been in this area. Um, and I think, I hope that it felt like a really safe and inclusive environment for everyone who wanted to be there. Um, I loved, you know, that her friends came together to play her music. Um, her work was involved by, you know, providing some tables and chairs. It just felt like a really beautiful … all parts of her life coming together to truly celebrate her, but also to give everyone else that moment of comfort and reflection as well.

The outcome of the coronial inquest, you know, said it perfectly like there were grave failures in the response from Victoria Police. They hid behind a few things throughout the inquest, but ultimately they did not hear us. We said, “Here is a person who is vulnerable and who is at risk. They are at heightened risk of potential violence and discrimination in the community, and they are at risk of themselves– to themselves.” And none of that was heard. Didn’t care. Um, and so what we know now that with 99% certainty, that had Bridgett been found even three hours after she went for a walk, the outcome would have been the same. She would have passed. Having said that, though, did we need to live through 11 days of sheer hell? Did she have to be found by community members? Did it have to create so much unease and tension in the community? Um, no, I didn't, and it was because of that inadequate response. They all knew that Bridget was more likely to have harmed herself than to have been harmed by someone else. We had 11 days of people thinking there could be someone out there who's targeted a transgender – a young transgender woman. Um, because it happens. She passed December 2020. Um, I think they had an internal investigation in December 2021. Mind you, no one has ever contacted us. No one ever asked our opinion. No one ever asked. We still to this day, have never heard from anyone. No one said, “Oh, you know, we realise that this could have been better – or what do you think?” There had been no consultation I think I'm trying to say, which is bizarre to me. Um, and so they had this internal investigation, which to me says they potentially had an ’Oh Shit’ moment where like, “Oh, this might get a bit more traction still, let's cover ourselves.” I don't know, that's very, um, skeptical. But um, and so they did a thorough review and they've made some great recommendations. Um, but as the coroner said on the 29th of August 2024, not one of them had been implemented. And she was quite scathing in her thoughts on that, the fact that that hadn't happened yet, because some of them are really simple changes. There is no good reason for what we experienced. And so, um, there's also this fire in me now that I need to make – I need to make things happen. So we've got the recommendations from the coroner, we've got the recommendations from police. And so we went on this journey to get to this stage, but now we're very much – okay, but they're still just recommendations. So now the next step is, how do we make people be accountable and actually implement the recommendation?

Miss Katalyna, a proud Pasifika, Fa’afafine, Transwoman is a powerhouse with experience that extends back 30 years in music, activism, and community leadership. Starting her journey at 16 as a songwriter, performer, and producer, she honed her craft creating mixtapes and collaborating with artists worldwide. A celebrated DJ who has performed at All The Queens Men, Sydney Mardi Gras-Kaftana and closing of the Sydney Mardi Gras PARTY, Sydney Opera House's Blak & Deadly Gala, Sydney World Pride, and closing Midsumma Pride March. Jessi Ryan gave Miss Katalyna her first night club gig and she’s continued to perform locally and nationally.

Beyond music, she is a fierce advocate for LGBTQIA+ and QTIPOC communities. Co-founder of Trans Pride March Melbourne and the Trans Pride Concert, co founder Trans Sisters United, founding member of PacifiqueX, she has created vital spaces for trans and POC voices has often and continuously passing the mic. As the award-winning host of The Bent Spoon (Thorne Harbour Health) a queer multicultural cooking show on Channel 31, she blends culture, advocacy, and culinary passion with featured special guests.

THE TRANSCRIPT

Miss Katalyna: What actually made you decide to do this project?

Jessi Ryan: Yeah it's a really interesting one and I could crack a joke like, we always talk about the inner north being a gay heartland, and I guess I wanted to kind of understand a little bit more why it is that way in Melbourne.

And what I have discovered is there are so many grassroots, kind of organizations and movements that have started from the City of Yarra area. So, to kind of unpack those and the intersections of my own identity, as, you know, non-binary, HIV positive, queer, performer, activist and writer. It's been really amazing to also understand a little bit of my lineage in the queer community.

Miss Katalyna: Did you find that you are connected with each story, or were there stories that you learned something new that it sort of inspired you?

Jessi Ryan: Yeah. So, some of them are very personal to me, particularly the seventh story in the series, which is the disappearance of Bridget Flack, which is also coincidentally how we kind of met, well, that year. And that one was incredibly personal for me and being able to unpack what it was to be like the first journalist on the ground to cover that story and what the community went through in those 10 days as well.

But it's interesting that you mentioned inspiration as well. As the people who are listening to this will see in the gallery, all the paintings here and all these murals and even the material that we've used in the application have been entirely inspired by Keith Haring.

Now, when I started this project, I knew that he had his visit to Melbourne in 1984 and did the two pieces. So the one that's important to this story is the old Collingwood Tech on Johnson Street. So I had this really interesting idea of painting the whole gallery black and doing these white line murals. And then I met with two of the head curators at NGV during the process of this project, and then they handed me all these pieces of like information. And what Keith Haring did in the 1980s before he came to Melbourne, was that he used to actually do the white line drawings on all the black paper that used to cover the advertisements in the New York subway.

So it was really interesting that that was my aesthetic to begin with in this project without even knowing how connected it was to these stories and the people within them, and that was really exciting. So instead of painting the walls of the gallery black here today, you'll notice that the whole walls are covered in black paper and that's very much Haring. And I'm so inspired and just in awe of his craftsmanship, his magnetism, the way that he always wanted to work with children as well and inspire the next generation.

And as someone who has been HIV positive since they were 19; it's a huge thing because we lost so many people, and there's a little bit of survivor's guilt there. How do I get to continue my practice and, you know, live a healthy life on antivirals and the rest of it? But these artists, these forefathers of our community couldn’t.

Miss Katalyna: And with all this lived experience of all these amazing people, where do you think, or how do you think people will connect to these beautiful stories?

Jessi Ryan: Look, I think, just, I think we just we owe so much to so many of the people that are in these interviews like David Menadue and Sue Paxton, you know, who have been long-term activists and survivors of HIV. Their work around Fairfield Hospital and the, you know, infectious diseases department now at The Alfred.

But then also like Barb Creed, like fantastic, amazing woman that I interviewed first in this project. Now, she was out doing vox pops with a microphone and a camera on Swanson Street in the 1970s asking people on the streets what they thought of homosexuals. But when you think about it, that was really dangerous back in the 70s, there was still a lot of like, pushback against the community.

We owe people in these stories so much, you know, even Angela Pucci Love - Bridget’s sister - like her advocacy now and how she stepped into these roles, like so much admiration and respect. Like, you can't help but feel connected to these people because without their efforts and what they've gone through and what they've given us, we wouldn't be in the position we are today.

Miss Katalyna: Did you find that when they were sharing their story, was there anyone that was kind of like reluctant to share? Or you know, just a bit um wary of sharing their story? Because, you know, a lot of members of a community don't want to share, because some stuff is like a trigger, or they’re traumatized from the past.

Jessi Ryan: What I've been really inspired by is also the generosity of story here. There's a lot of things that are hard to talk about. But I guess because of my relationship with the community and my work as a writer people tend to trust me with their stories, and I have so much gratitude and respect for that as well. And, you know, there's a spirit of generosity in this exhibition. Like when you go around and you listen to all these stories, yeah, it's a generosity of spirit there.

Miss Katalyna: And for younger people, and particularly younger people who are going to see this, what is like one or two things that you really want them to walk away with?

Jessi Ryan: Ooh!

Miss Katalyna: I mean could be more, I guess.

Jessi Ryan: Yeah, I think two things: don't take what we have right now for granted because every single right that we have earned can be easily taken away from us in a heartbeat. And also the second thing is I think like you're not alone. You're not alone, like we are a community. We can be a bit fractured, we can fight with each other, but we're like a big family, and no one is alone. No one has to feel alone. No one has to feel like they have to take their own life because they don't have people around them. That's what I would stress, because we see too many young people take their own lives because of ostracization of all these things. You're not alone, there are people who care and love you for who you are.

Miss Katalyna: Like for me when I see this, all these wonderful, amazing people, they've really have- they're elders, and they've really set the tone back in their time. Do you feel that there are people or groups and organizations that are carrying on their legacy? Like, do you feel like their legacy is- because you don't want their legacy to be, you know, done and dusted and done in vain, um-

Jessi Ryan: That was one of the biggest things. Like, I'll get back to the point in a second, but I was very against the idea of having really record of this exhibition, like capturing these elders' voices, you know, because we're losing we're losing so many of our elders. We have during the 1980s and the AIDs epidemic and the elders that we have left now are getting older. They're passing, because we've lost so many recently. We lost Miss Vic, you know, Yvonne Gardner a few years ago, all these beautiful people, you know, and once they’re gone, they're gone.

Miss Katalyna: Yeah, exactly.

Jessi Ryan: And that's really sad.

Miss Katalyna: Yeah.

Fairfield Hospital, um I don't think people- I mean, that's the first time I've ever heard about Fairfield Hospital. And I was like, wow. So, I think there's going to be a lot of people in that same position as well.

Because in that interview they mentioned that even though there's less, you know, people afflicted with AIDs and HIV, but the education… where do you think- or education: is it needed? Do we still keep going?

Jessi Ryan: Yeah, look, there’s stigma around HIV, we definitely need more education in that field. Like, we had the U=U campaign and I'm going to go out a limb here and probably get shot down for it; I don't think the U=U campaign was very effective within the queer community. It hasn't really broken down stigma. And yeah, look, I think the stigma still persists. The HIV positive community is very staunch. You know, it's a staunch community. It's really hard for me to speak on this, but the stigma is still there for sure.

Miss Katalyna: We know First Nations people have always existed, you know, here and especially here in Fitzroy, but um the Blak and First Nations queer history, tell me more about that?

Jessi Ryan: Yeah, so there's a really interesting correlation between, as you mentioned before, the Q&A parties and the Blak queer history, because The Builders's Arms on Gertrude Street had long been a Blak pub, but then it kind of morphed into like Blak queer pub in a little while there.

So, I love Bryan Andy, a Yorta Yorta man from up Cummeragunja way, which is in Shepparton if people don't know it. We met working at the Beyond Leather parties back in the day, I think working with the cloak room together. But we have to honor that legacy as well, we had Uncle Jack Charles there, we had Vicky Liddy. We've got a whole lineage of like local queer Blak Mob that you know, it really focuses on the 1970s through to now this project, but it doesn't as well.

The thing about like Bryan Andy's story and how it opens the exhibition is because these stories and this queer lineage has been here long before colonization has, um and we can't talk about Fitzroy and we can't talk about these areas without talking about, you know, Aboriginal Mob, you know, the parkies getting sent up to the missions and then coming back into the city and how that kind of fluctuation still happens, you know.

Yeah, look, I think Bryan Andy's is probably one of my favorite, favorite pieces in the whole puzzle here, because again, unfortunately, within the queer community as Bryan Andy said, it was really validating for him as a Blak queer man to win marriage equality. But then a few years later to be kicked in the guts, when all the Blak Mob kind of voted for marriage equality, but then the majority of the country didn't vote for a Voice to Parliament. It's those kind of intersections that we really need to like hone in on and like really-

Miss Katalyna: I think you are doing a wonderful job, you know, you're bringing people that I've never heard of, that are actually important to our community. So, that's really important that we get to know these people, no matter who they are, they've done some amazing work. Um so, I mean that's not even a question, it's just me telling you that.

Jessi Ryan: Yeah no, it's gorgeous, yeah

Miss Katalyna: Just wanted to remind you. You know, because I mean you've actually put all these stories that nobody has even heard of, you put it in one place, and we need that.