The art historian's interpretation of Australian surrealists paintings in the Agapitos/Wilson collection, highlights the representations of their dreams and unconscious fears and anxieties about both the 1939-45 war and their repressed sexual desires.
Today our fears are activated by the negative effects that the economic processes of the global economy has on our localities and regional way of life.
We fear the wrecking ball that throw us out of work into unemployment and onto the scap heap that we experienced with the on-going process of de-industrialization that started in the 1980s, and then the global financial crisis around 2007. The last forty years of neoliberalism have resulted in massive increases in inequality, obscene wealth for a tiny few, but no greater happiness for the many. We find ourselves somewhat periously situated.
We live with an unease about the break down of civil society, the growing distrust and increasing violence, joblessness and stagnating wages, and the rising costs of living, even though Australia is doing okay compared to Europe and the US.
