Interventions
A man stands in front of an advancing column of military tanks after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.1 As the tanks move toward him, he waves two plastic shopping bags to ward them off. He climbs on top of one of the tanks and talks to the driver. The tanks turn off their engines and the man climbs down. But they start the engines again, so he resumes his protest, moving this way and that, blocking the might of the State with his shopping bags. He becomes an international symbol of courage against tyranny.
Deborah Kelly has worked across a range of media since 1983. Working solo and in collaboration, she uses the internet and social networking to generate political protest, with people signing up to perform actions around the nation and sometimes the globe. Tank Man Tango (2009) was performed in twenty cities and towns across the world as a memorial to the Tiananmen Square protests in China.
Working with the choreographer Jane McKernan, Kelly created Tank Man Tango and posted the video of performance artist Teik Kim Pok dancing the steps onto You Tube. The footage included a short narration which ended by inciting people to ‘forget to forget’ the original protest and do the tango on 4 June 2009.2 There are numerous versions of the dance now available on the internet with dance instructions in various languages.
Kelly also works with the art collective boat-people.org who have systematically created public performance events and installations to bring attention to the repressive policies of successive Australian governments concerning immigration.3 In 2010, in response to a federal election campaign, boat-people.org invited people to join a... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
Deborah Kelly, Documentation of Tank Man Tango, a Tiananmen Memorial, in Sydney, 4 June 2009. Photograph William Yang.
Anne Graham, The Silk Plaza Restaurant, 2000. Echigo Tsumari Triennial. Photograph S. Anzi.
