Keynote talk with artist David Rosetzky

Expanded Portraiture – Collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches to representing the self, identity, and interconnectivity

Friday 24 April, 5pm

We recommend arriving by 4:30pm for a self-guided tour of the exhibition and to view Rosetzky’s video artwork prior of the talk. The talk will run for approximately one hour, including opportunity for audience Q&A. Catering will be provided. Presented as part of Youth Week 2026, with take‑home goodie bags available for young people attending.

Free event, all welcome.

David Rosetzky’s video artwork Gaps (2014) is currently showing at SECCA as part of Interfacial Intimacies – an exhibition of photography, film, painting, installation, textile, and performance by artists who hold and express tenderly the multiple aspects of their selves through a series of portraits and anti-portraits.

Gaps embodies Rosetzky’s ongoing exploration of personal identity and the relationship – or ‘gaps’ – between self and other through speech, movement and dance. Rosetzky’s collaborators on Gaps include choreographer and performer Stephanie Lake, cowriter Anna Zagala, and performers, Jessie Oshodi, Lee Serle, Rani Pramesti and Dimitri Baveas, and sound design by long-time collaborator David Franzke. Drawing from material Rosetzky gathered conducting interviews with his cast, this video work is an oblique survey of the transition from rehearsal to performance, in both art and life. The artist’s process involved in-depth workshopping of the Rosetzky during this rehearsal period.

In this keynote presentation, Rosetzky will discuss the ideas and processes behind the making of Gaps, as well as his broader artistic practice, and outline his attitudes to portraiture, collaboration and the ethics and politics of representation.

About the artist:

David Rosetzky is a Naarm/Melbourne-based artist and educator with an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to art making. Often working with practitioners from the fields of theatre, dance, and film and community groups – he creates videos, installations and photographic works in which identity is intimately observed. With an extensive exhibition history both in Australia and overseas, he has presented his work in over 40 solo exhibitions and 70 group exhibitions. His Portrait of Cate Blanchett (2008) – commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra – was exhibited in The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video at the International Centre for Photography in New York. Rosetzky’s works are held in numerous collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. He has a PhD in Visual Art from Monash University and currently teaches in the Master of Photography program at RMIT University. He is known for the elegance and aesthetic rigour of his art, which draws on the visual languages of contemporary advertising and cinema. David Rosetzky is represented by Sutton Gallery.

Interfacial Intimacies is being showcased at SECCA from 14 March to 23 May 2026. This exhibition has been curated by Caine Chennatt, developed by the Plimsoll Gallery and toured by Contemporary Art Tasmania.

This public program has been developed in collaboration with FLING Physical Theatre to coincide with Youth Week 2026. The NSW Government proudly supports this community-led partnership with funding provided under the Youth Week Grants Program.

Images: (left) David Rosetzky, photo supplied (right) David Rosetzky, Gaps, 2014, single channel moving image, colour, sound, 35:07 min. Image courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.

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