Courtesy: Charlie Cummings and NAS Galleries, Sydney.

The National Art School presents Queer Contemporary, the visual arts program for Sydney WorldPride 2023 and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. As part of several exhibitions and a suite of public activities, key community partnerships, and site activations, they will exhibit the group exhibition Fulgora, curated by video artist and independent curator EO Gill.

Fulgora presents a suite of commissioned video works by 5 Australian-based artists that are punctuated by a selection of films programmed in collaboration with LA-based collective Dirty Looks Inc.

The fulgora, more commonly known as ‘the lantern fly’, is a species of winged insect with a large, bulbous proboscis. Originally thought to produce light, the proboscis has no obvious practical or survivalist function. The entomologist Roger Caillois uses the useless proboscis to define insect mimicry as a ‘luxury’ rather than something to do with natural survival. The fly’s unique endowment points to a decadent excess of evolution.

The fulgora symbolises figures of luxuriance, characterised by delight in perversion, indulgence and pleasure on the one hand, and evasion, disappearance and deception on the other. By extension, Fulgora speaks to luxuriant video practices that disrupt conventional acts of looking and force us to ask where our pleasure begins.