FAFSWAG is a collective of Queer Indigenous arts practitioners and activists who are committed to social change through art and innovation, producing bespoke cultural activation, interdisciplinary arts and community-driven events that are cutting edge, culturally responsive and socially relevant.

The precarious nature of our changing world has seen displaced Indigenous populations struggle with contemporary notions of ‘quality of life’, of which the practical realities are determined almost exclusively by those situated in both figurative and literal centres of inherited intergenerational power and control. The challenges of rethinking and re-centring the needs of communities is a provocation for all artists committed to the task of decolonisation.

It is evident to those of us sheltered by the fringes of society that these contemporary conditions of economic instability, environmental erosion, globalisation and neo-colonialism, continue to separate people in an otherwise globally connected online world – shifting the responsibility of problem-solving and creating tools for survival and healing onto those with the least political and social mobility.

FAFSWAG by virtue of our kaupapa and ethos has defined the Edge as a pressure point for incubation & collaboration, a social conversion point for shared knowledge, collective disobedience and life-giving agency. In approaching the themes of the 22nd Biennial of Sydney, we’re invested in scrutinising the conditions that continue to perpetuate these symptoms of life on the edge. Demonstrating our core principles as a collective and what it can look like when artists are invested in and committed to re-learning re-imagining, and re-creating.

For the 22nd Biennial of Sydney FAFSWAG seeks to generate a cultural centre, positioning our practice of community-building and engagement within a context of occupation, collaborative making, knowledge-sharing, cultural activation, public programming and performance. Presenting new site-specific works that respond directly to the Indigenous people of the land and the wider surrounding communities, this collection of artworks, public programs and performances frames our positionality as artists and activists operating within a global community of Indigenous LGBTQIA+ people.