Runway x Outer Space: Should I stay or should I go?

I’ve had this conversation about staying, or leaving Brisbane with friends, family, peers, and colleagues time and time again over the years. As such, I was really excited when we initially spoke of your idea for All my friends are leaving returning to Brisbane. It was such a fitting exhibition to launch our new gallery in the Judith Wright Art Centre in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, particularly given the last year. The show featured Mia Boe, Sam Harrison, Chris Howlett, Archie Moore, and Elizabeth Willing and you borrowed the title and the conceptual starting point from the 2007 indie film All My Friends are Leaving Brisbane. I have such a vivid memory of watching this film as an art student, and I rented the DVD from the Fortitude Valley Blockbuster Video, which was located just up the street from Outer Space’s new location (they had one of the best collections of movies in town, which was so beautifully arranged).

Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to start this project?

I love that you rented All My Friends are Leaving Brisbane from Blockbuster Video. My story similarly begins in Civic Video in West End, where I remember seeing the movie and thinking how relevant it was for me at the time. Back then I was a teenager with hopes and dreams of getting far away from Brisbane. So, the theme of the exhibition is something I have thought about for a long time. Before COVID-19, conversations with my friends were always about where we were going and for how long. It was about finding something outside of Brisbane. During COVID-19, it was as though a haze had been lifted and I started to see my city differently. I started appreciating it for what it was, not for what it was not. It also helped a little that my friends started returning to Brisbane. With this came a hopefulness that we might be able to make it work back home. 

I wanted to see how artists in the Brisbane community were thinking about this theme. Was it something they thought about and spoke about with their friends? I also wondered about how comings and goings in a city influence the cultural landscape. I wanted this show to be a place where people could have conversations about the experience of leaving and returning to Brisbane. Due to the nature of a show about friendship, the process of selecting works became collaborative. I invited three Brisbane artists Elizabeth Willing, Archie Moore and Sam Harrison to each invite a friend who had left and returned to Brisbane or was considering returning. The duos became Elizabeth Willing and Chris Howlett, Archie Moore and Alice Lang, and Sam Harrison and Mia Boe. As an artist yourself Courtney, what impact do you think friendship has had on staying or leaving Brisbane?

While my friendships have shifted and changed as people have left, returned to, or just arrived, it has primarily been my daughter (who just turned 21) and my partner, who have been the main influence on my staying in Brisbane all these years. While I knew my time would be longer than many of my peers, I knew that if I stayed, I wanted to contribute. And I now reflect on the fact that my time here has allowed me to grow, and love, and appreciate the sense of community we have here. There are fantastic artists and arts workers who reside in this city, and such care and concern shown.

I’m really interested to know what has kept you here, particularly given the fact that you completed your Master’s dissertation through a Melbourne university. You completed that degree via distance education, didn’t you?

I completely understand what you mean about how it takes time to appreciate and love a city for what it is. While I received my Master’s at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, I completed my dissertation cross-institutionally through Deakin University in Melbourne. I was prepared to move there at some point, but something was always keeping me here. As you say, the arts community in Brisbane is pretty damn special. Even though I studied in Melbourne at that time, Brisbane was still my home base. In one of the letters in the exhibition, Elizabeth Willing writes about Brisbane as a place of memory, where we can experience other places we have been. I feel similarly about our beloved swamp town — a place to discuss and share experiences.

Many of the artists in the show grapple with the complexity of decision-making when it comes to leaving or returning to a place. Hey, I hear that you have recently decided to leave Brisbane. Say it ain’t so?!

It’s really tricky. There are so many things to love about living in Brisbane. I agree that there is a forged connection of simply being here, and thinking these thoughts, separately, but together. The questioning, and looking outward, is something that connects us, along with our choices to stay, leave, and/or return.

I’ve also always connected with the idea that some of the most interesting things happen from the periphery, and I firmly believe that to be true of the arts here in Brisbane. Each time I leave, even for a short period of time, I am reminded of the tremendous quality of people and art that is produced here.

And yes, it is so! It is time. I’m getting ready to head off to study, and focus on my practice in Bergen, Norway (if things go according to plan, that is)! I’m not sure where the road will lead after that, but we remain open to returning. This place has been good to me in so many ways, and has a piece of my heart. While I know that now is the right time to go, it is not without a range of complex emotions.

How about you? What is your current position re: staying and leaving?

I think that the energy and momentum to go can often be the leading force in deciding whether to leave Brisbane. Then follows, as you say, all of the complex emotions about leaving home. I remember us talking about a feeling of guilt attached to leaving Brisbane. I have felt it too when I have been close to leaving. I have been thinking that when we depart, we are not giving up on our city. 

When I was talking to one of my friends about this exhibition, she said that her reasons for leaving Brisbane were different from her reasons for staying in London. We build new homes in places, which is always hard to conceive when we have been in a place for a long time. Right now, I am intent on making things work in Brisbane. I feel as though there is more for me to learn here. I do wonder about the future though and if our friends will start leaving Brisbane again. I know it is very difficult to say but I would love to know what you suspect might happen. Do you think those who have returned will leave again?

It’s so hard to know the answer to that question. I think that maybe it’s not about staying or going at all, but more about loving Brisbane hard and contributing to what makes this place unique while here. Perhaps this underlying question is one small part of what makes our community here so special - that staying, and leaving is a choice, which always includes the option of returning.