Fiona McGregor – University of Western Australia Press ($24.95)
Fiona McGregor has published two novels and a book of short stories. She is also one half of the Sydney-based performance arts duo senVoodoo. The other half is her ex-lover AnA Wojak. McGregor’s writing and performing passions combine with her love of literature, art and history as she writes about senVoodoo’s performances in Poland, where AnA’s family is from. Her very personal journey lets the reader share the pleasure and the pain of Arterial, their very confrontational performance in which the two of them bleed into white shrouds. McGregor states that she pushes herself a little further with every performance, and she takes the readers on the same journey to step outside their comfort zones. In many ways, her narrative takes the reader on a journey through geographically and philosophically alien lands.
McGregor draws parallels between her daring performance where the participants actually wound themselves and the wounds inflicted by countries and cultures. In part, Strange Museums is an intellectual travelogue that reflects on legacies of communism and World War II as well as philosophies of European writers and artists. As McGregor visits bars and museums, she writes about the paradoxes of politics, religion and history and the prejudices that have resulted. She points out the contradictions between the conservatism imposed by religion and the innovation existing in artistic pursuits, and reflects on Australia’s stifling “vision of ordinariness” that currently fills the horizon.
