Exhibition opening Thursday 18 September, 6-8pm
‘I wish that there was a way that I could completely prevent my body’s need to defecate’, writes Darwin-based artist Catherine McAvoy whose latest documentary project takes not only self-portraiture as its subject but self-portraiture through the lens of a public toilet, or more directly, the toilet bowl. ‘For a long time I was never able to crap in public toilets or other peoples’ toilets’, McAvoy writes, introducing her Parcopresis project (‘parcopresis’ being the term used when a person is unable to defecate unless they have a certain level of privacy) through which she has confronted her public toilet phobia through a series of photographs documenting her presence in, and use of public toilets in a wide range of locations – around Darwin, on planes, and elsewhere. Though she regards this documentation as ‘a futile attempt to be more comfortable with this bodily function’, it constitutes a confronting portrait nonetheless, with her series presented in the context of NCCA’s own public toilet and thus blurring the lines (or muddying the waters) between public toilet and contemporary art space.