Mixed Business 5

In 2020, ‘mixed business’ was invoked as a title for Pari’s annual community group show, to announce the hopeful mode of operation of the newly-born artist-run initiative. Like those corner shops housing mismatched items on rickety shelves, this space could also make room for the multiplicity, exchange and plurality at the heart of Western Sydney.

Reading back on five years of writing from previous Mixed Business shows, it was clear that Pari, from its inception, has aspired to be a space offering a balm, a site for building solidarity to digest and respond to the systems that render us in an endless state of crisis.

For Mixed Business 5, we are holding space for joy and grief simultaneously. As we celebrate half a decade of Pari, we rejoice in the community, both new and old, that Pari has cultivated, whilst recognising the collective suffering that is ongoing, here and across the globe.

The graphic for this year’s exhibition takes inspiration from the bright and loud shop signs that hang from the ceilings of covered sidewalks in Western Sydney. In many languages, many colours, designed to speak directly to the communities they are situated in, these kitschy shop signs reflect the spirit with which we hope Pari leaps into the next 5 years.

Let this be an opening to gather together and refortify our roots at Pari, so that we may continue to take care of each other and our communities in the times to come.