VERS: On Pleasures, Embodiment, Kinships, Fugitivity and Re/Organising is a two-day, live event that privileges queer ways of doing and being, and centres creative practice and conversation.

Initiated by MUMA, the event takes place on Kaurna Yarta in Tarntanya/Adelaide across two venues—Samstag Museum of Art and ACE—and involves performances, readings and a rolling discussion held over the course of an afternoon.

Short for ‘versatility’, VERS asks: is ‘vers’ a demand placed on us, an exhausting mode required for meeting expectations of productivity? Or is it a modality that opens towards new capacities for surviving and growing pleasure in our work?

A group of ‘attendants’, including arts workers, artists and curators from across Australia, have been invited to come together to reflect on these questions and the title themes of pleasures, embodiment, kinships, fugitivity and re/organising. Audiences are invited to listen, contribute and come-and-go during the event, as attendants explore how their own practices touch, expand or refute the proposition.

VERS was developed by a curatorial panel consisting of Frances Barrett, Archie Barry, Arlie Alizzi, Léuli Eshrāghi, Jeff Khan and Melissa Ratliff, and emerges as a response to their collective discussions and deliberation on queer artistic and curatorial practices.

VERS will be audio recorded and made into a podcast after the event.

Program:

Saturday’s program is being audio recorded and will be available as a podcast after the event.
*Coinciding with VERS, Daniel Jaber’s living installation Rot takes place over 73 hours between 18–20 June at Samstag (Gallery 2).

Access:

This is an Auslan interpreted event. Samstag Museum of Art and ACE are located in the west of the city within 400m of each other and are accessible by wheelchair and pram. Both venues have accessible toilets.

Samstag Museum of Art
55 North Terrace, Adelaide
University of South Australia City West campus
Corner of Fenn Place and North Terrace
Entry ground floor Hawke Building
Galleries over 2 floors, lift and stair access
Venue access information

ACE
Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace, Adelaide
Entry from either North Terrace or Morphett Street
Access ramp in front of neighbouring JamFactory
Venue on one level
Venue access information

Arrive by:
Free city trams (exit at the City West stop, 100m from Samstag, 70m from ACE)
Adelaide Railway Station (10 minute walk or 600m from Samstag and ACE)
Bus (the closest bus stop is X1 North Terrace; various Grenfell Street bus stops nearby)
Bike (bicycle parking on Morphett Street at the Lion Arts Centre precinct entrance, in front of JamFactory and Mercury Cinema)
Car (Samstag has 4 access car spots directly out the front; ACE has an access spot located at the Lion Arts Centre’s Morphett Street entrance; limited amount of ticketed on-street parking; Wilson Parking located one block away on the corner of Hindley Street and Clarendon Street; other commercial car parks located on Hindley Street)

^{VERS identity: Hana Shimada}

Acknowledgements:

Commissioned by Monash University Museum of Art, Narrm/Melbourne, and presented onsite and in association with Samstag Museum of Art and ACE, Kaurna Yarta/Adelaide. This project has been supported by the City of Adelaide.