By Callum Ludwig
An 18-year-old Wesburn resident’s works will be taking over Warburton Netball Club rooms for a weekend this month in a celebration of punk culture.
Little Yarra Steiner School student Zali King’s ‘Maggot – A Punk Art Exhibition’ will be on display between 10am and 4pm on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 October.
Ms King said she has always been drawn to art as a way of self expression and I am fascinated by punk culture, the rage, the advocacy and fashion of it all.
“I have tried to capture this in my artworks many include the typical punk imagery spikes and all, but I also chose to explore the more subtle aspects of punk like the ideology and what punk looks like for my generation,” she said.
“My interest in punk started about when I was around 14 through music, from that my interest grew into the history of punk and eventually based my whole year 12 independent project around this topic,”
“Art has been a constant in my life since I could pick up a pencil so the progression to punk art came naturally, combined with my passion for advocacy meant that I was able to create political messages through my art and allowed me to delve further into what I value and what interests me.”
Ms King has put together the exhibition for her Year 12 Independent project which some students at Little Yarra Steiner School complete over the course of the year.
Ms King said doing this for her Year 12 independent project gave her a way to complete Year 12 in a way that suited her.
“I was able to embrace my self-expression and creativity and have a product to show for it at the end of the year which I have found to be very fulfilling for me as opposed to doing the exams,” she said.
“Having the opportunity to display my work at the netball community centre has been great, I have been able to fill and curate the space how I would like and share it with my community.”
Another source of inspiration for Ms King has been her diagnosis with autism late last year.
Ms King said one of the main focuses of the exhibition is her experience with autism as a woman because being able to advocate for issues that directly affect her was a really important thing for her.
“Some of the messages I wanted to convey I felt an artwork could do justice, so I made a zine [a small handmade self published magazine also known as a fanzine] for the exhibition as well, expressing a depth that I couldn’t capture through symbolism or imagery and I spoke about feminist issues, aspects of the autistic experience and punk fashion,” she said.
“I hope that people would come back from my exhibition learning something new, or seeing a different perspective on an issue than their own, I would love it if people came away from my exhibition with a new perspective about punk culture and see that the punk scene is still around.”
