Maximum Madness is curated by Jonathan McBurnie, Director, Rockhampton Museum of Art (RMOA). A selection of artists were invited to respond to George Miller’s Mad Max film franchise. First exhibited at RMOA in 2024, Maximum Madness will tour to Caboolture Art Gallery (2024-25), and Artspace Mackay (2025).
Artists include Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Karike Ashworth, Cigdem Aydemir, Martin Bell, Penny Byrne, Patrick Connor, Rod Coverdale, Alex Cowley, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Robert Fielding, Emma Gardner, Shaun Gladwell, Franck Gohier, David Griggs, Rosemary Lee, Reg Mombassa, Adam Norton, Phoebe Paradise, Brian Robinson, David Sawtell, Ian Smith, Karen Stephens, Brendon Tohill and Paul White.
For the Maximum Madness project, I was thinking about Mad Max through a gender lens. At the time, the four films covered the period 1979-2015. Attitudes towards women have changed over this time but not as much as we might think. Despite its apparent feminist storyline, sexualised or overtly violent and hateful misogynistic references and behaviours towards women in Fury Road outnumber the earlier films. In the earlier films these types of references were subtle—invisibilised—but in Fury Road they are blatantly on display for our viewing pleasure. In studying these films, the artist is asking questions about whether this is an improvement or not.
For this body of work I wanted to consider the growing popularity of the self-care industry and the mainstream feminist rhetoric that engulfs it. My primary line of inquiry was whether self-care is supposed to the antidote to misogyny? Also, what is the relationship between misogyny and self-loathing for women? What do I think about self-care? What are the problems in the system that force women to have to self-care? Why is self-care directed at women primarily? Is it good or bad that women ‘should’ self-care? Why are women expected to self-care now more than ever? What if women don’t practice self-care, does that mean they are lesser than those who do? What are the consequences of NOT self-caring?
Photos: Amble Folk and Maddog Productions.