Panel Talk on Masculinities

What is masculinity and how does it shape our lives? Join us for a panel talk that explores masculinities in the every day.

In Teo Treloar’s work male-coded figures in crisp white shirts and ties pull levers and populate mazes in a surreal dystopia of finely rendered grey space, reminiscent of the mundanity of governance and labour in the information economy. They are the “middle-men of history” – both operating the system they are in and being trapped by it.

Inspired by the work of Teo Treloar in A Void A Maze and in keeping with Pride month, this panel brings together the artist Teo Treloar and local panellists to discuss the definitions and roles of masculinity in our immediate contexts.

As Dr Raewyn Connell writes:

“To speak of masculinities is to speak about gender relations. Masculinities are not equivalent to men; they concern the position of men in a gender order. They can be defined as the patterns of practice by which people (both men and women, though predominantly men) engage that position.”

In this talk, we begin to map the patterns of masculinity in its obvious and covert manifestations to understand its everyday effect especially in the ways it remains invisible (or not) and shapes systems of labour and bureaucracy.

Image: Teo Treloar, Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K (detail), 2023-24, graphite pencil on paper, 110 x 75 cm. Collection Wollongong Art Gallery.