Elsie (and Minnie), an exhibition of new work by Zanny Begg, reflects on the origins of the women’s refuge movement in Australia and the ongoing crisis of gendered violence today.
17 June – 5 September 2025
Opening: 19 June 5.30-7.30pm
UTS Gallery
Elsie (and Minnie), an exhibition of new work by Zanny Begg, reflects on the origins of the women’s refuge movement in Australia and the ongoing crisis of gendered violence today.
Zanny Begg is an artist and filmmaker whose socially engaged practice employs documentary filmmaking, performance, and printmaking to explore issues of social and environmental justice. Her previous works have examined social histories of migration, feminism, gentrification, radical architecture, global trade, and ecological precarity across Australia. Begg’s work often involves collaboration with communities, as well as amateur and professional performers, utilising modes of re-enactment alongside documentary and archival techniques.
The exhibition features the single-channel film Elsie (and Minnie) and a three-channel video installation, The Yellow Wallpaper. An archival display, presented across UTS Gallery and UTS Library (Level 7), traces a chronology of key moments in the establishment of Elsie and showcases important material related to the Australian Women’s Liberation Movement, with a focus on historical Sydney groups. The display expands on themes in the exhibition and makes accessible to the public important audio and print materials never seen together before.
Elsie (and Minnie) also includes a rich public program series featuring significant contemporary and historical voices from the Australian feminist and women’s refuge movement. Further details to be announced.
About the artist
Gallery directions
This project was generously supported by VACS Major Commissioning Projects (Individuals and Groups) grant from Creative Australia.
Elsie (and Minnie) is a UTS Gallery & Art Collection commission, presented in partnership with UTS Library, UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, UTS Business School, and UTS Media Lab.
Banner image: Elsie: A Study of a Collective, 1975, film by Lis Rus and Tina Słoń (still). © Lis Rus and Tina Słoń 1975.