A Road Trip to Headlands [1997-2025] | Queer Life Writing 1964 to Now
Road trips to the ever-fabulous Headlands Chalet artists community were a common occurrence during the 1989-2015 period. Friend, artist, and community facilitator colleague Marshall Malouf created a paradise of resistance, creativity, sociality, and artmaking on the hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Using a single-frame exposure – time lapse photography – technique this experimental short depicts aspects of a very queer road trip from Bondi to Headlands Chalet in 1997. A moment when artist friend Luke Roberts and I arrived at Headland’s Chalet on Minjerribah one summery afternoon.
Marshall and friends were putting painterly adds and touches onto the pool mural artwork made by artist Di Ball a year earlier in 1996. This video artwork was made in 2025 to accompany the Headlands Revisited group exhibition at Redland Art Gallery. Extra special thanks to my friend @Soggybreadissad
Super 8mm time-lapse photography involves capturing a series of still images on Super 8 film at intervals, then playing them back at a faster speed to create a sped-up effect. This technique, which can be achieved with Super 8 and 16mm motion picture cameras, allows for capturing extended periods of time in a compressed format.
In my explorations, this technique can be slowed down in the digital space to evoke a sense of queer time, where the concept of queer time refers to how queer individuals experience and relate to time differently than the conventional, linear timelines. Timelines that are often associated with heteronormative life paths.
Queer time acknowledges that queer lives may not follow the same progression of milestones (marriage, family, career) as those assumed by mainstream society. This can involve a sense of being “behind” or “stuck,” or a feeling of one’s experiences being artful, resistant, compressed or expanded compared to cisgender and heterosexual individuals.
