Queer Discussions: Pivotal moments and reflection

QUEER DISCUSSIONS
LET’S TALK ABOUT QUEER
GREAT HALL, NGV INTERNATIONAL

Take a journey into queer culture and community through a series of discussions exploring how and why the language used by and in reference to queer and LGBTQ+ communities has developed over time. This five-part series will explore the importance of language within queer communities, through the lenses of art, literature, history, culture and community building.

PIVOTAL MOMENTS AND REFLECTIONS

Join NGV curator Dr Ted Gott in a discussion with Kenton Miller that will explore Miller’s experience as a cartoonist and activist, working through the HIV/AIDS epidemic, unpacking how his work reflected life in the 1980s and 1990s, the growth of our understanding of safe sex and surviving being gay at that time. Miller’s regular cartoon in OUTRAGE, ‘Bent at the Knees’, was one of the first to have an openly HIV+ character, allowing people to process the challenges, and loss and grief that permeated those years.

Information for people who are deaf or hard of hearing

Speakers
Ted Gott, Senior Curator, International Art, NGV.

Kenton Penley Miller is a gay man who cartooned for papers in Victoria, Queensland, NSW and SA but was best known for his work in the national magazine ‘Outrage’ including his “Bent at the Knees” on-going strip. He worked in the HIV/AIDS sector for around 15 years, before moving on to other public health and social justice roles. At the peak of the HIV epidemic, he delivered condoms to brothels, taught people to shoot up safely, and volunteered in gay activism – and did oral sex nationally, among other sexual health social marketing campaigns. He has volunteered and worked in LGBTIQ+ roles for decades. He also drew the YouTube ‘animations’ for the NICHE Your Story videos and continues to illustrate books and manuals in his spare time.