Presented by Crack Theatre Festival, This is Not Art 2015
With the support of Metro Arts’ Work In Residence 2015
Creator M’ck McKeague
Associate artist Nathan Stoneham
Production manager Matt Seery
Mentor support Kieran Swann and David Fenton
NEVERLAND (well, this is embarrassing) reimagines J.M.Barrie’s Neverland as a late 90s / early 00s teen bedroom. Suspended between worlds, Embarrassing is an immersive installation in which the present bleeds into the past and magic invades the mundane.
Picking through nostalgic detritus and artefacts from M’ck McKeague’s real teen bedroom in Central Queensland, audience members are free to explore, indulging in and reflecting on their own histories while uncovering the thoughts, secrets, dreams, fears, traumas and magic of adolescence that are usually packed into boxes and hidden in the dark corners of adulthood. Nothing is off-limits to the audience.
Using personal experience as an entry point for the interrogation of dominant transgender childhood narratives and their impact on mental health, NEVERLAND aims to dig into the grittier implications of normalised contemporary understandings of gender diversity while shamelessly sucking on a Push Pop.
This project has been assisted by Access Arts and the Australian government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Special thanks to our Pozible supporters: Abe Mitchell, Alex McGovern, Carl Dempster, Carl Rocco, Catherine Garner, Clare Towler, Dave Sleswick, David Megarrity, Dettie Browne, Ellen-Rose Sorensen, Erin Groenenboom, Fiona MacDonald, Fiona McKeague, Grace Kevill-Davies, Jade Lillie, Jana Penshorn, Jeremy Neideck, Jillian Mckeague, Jim Gleeson, Jo Clapham, Karen Batten, Katherine Quigley, Kieran Swann, Kirst St Girk, Lauren Clelland, Leigh Coonan, Liz Ahern, Lucas Stibbard, Meghan Bourke, Meredith Walker, Nicki Llew, Paul Matthews, Polly Sara, Peta Ward, Rommii Fulton-Smith, Samuel Boyd, Susan Stoneham, Thom Browning, Thomas Quirk, Tyza Stewart and Witt Church