Lynn Hershman, A Dream Weekend – A Project for Australia

About the exhibition
The Exhibition Gallery, Monash University, and The Ewing and George Paton Galleries, Melbourne University Union, joined forces to bring American feminist artist Lynn Hershman to Australia for this exhibition and extensive associated programming. Hershman presented a survey of recent works at the Exhibition Gallery and a program of lectures and film screenings across both galleries. In addition, the most significant component of this multi-faceted project—the newly developed three-day installation and performance—was held at a Merchant Builders’ display home on Burwood Road in Vermont Park. The recently completed display home was one of three in Vermont South intended to promote the new housing estate. Taking the display home as both found material and an exhibition site, Hershman’s site-specific interventions explored themes of Australian suburbia, the middle-class dream home, the nuclear family, and domestic aspirations and expectations from a feminist perspective.

Reference: Karen Burns and Alan Pert, ‘The “Dream Weekend”: Feminism and the domestic interior at the Merchant Builders display home (1977)’, Fabrications, 33:2, pp. 378–406.https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2024.2319938

Program
Three Dream Homes: Burwood Highway, Vermont South, Victoria
16–18 September 2025

MUMA Online Exhibition Archive
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^{Image: Lynn Hershman, Study for Day 2: The Dream Becomes a Cage, Australian Dream Weekend 1977, architectural sketch}