Come to the goddess: Bec Mac asks tough questions with fluffy pink mic

REBECCA McINTOSH, aka Bec Mac, is a Brisbane-based artist, journalist and creative director of arts org Chrysalis Projects. Sometimes she dresses as the goddess Aphrodite

What came first: the artist or the journalist?
I was an artist who became a journalist when I started doing my project Love TV, which has been going for 20 years. I was dressed as the goddess Aphrodite, inside a huge clam, and I interviewed people about love. It was an arts-based project, but because the core of it is conversation and interviews, I really developed my journalistic skills, querying people about their love lives.

Does this give you a licence to ask things that other journalists can’t?

Yes, I think … For Love TV people come into a large hot pink TV on wheels. They enter my clam. So already there’s a certain energy that sets the tone of the interview. Once inside the clam, people really do open up.

Recently you invited people into the clam to ask them about consent …

I’ve been working on a project that’s arts against gender-based violence called Your Inner Circles, for my (arts regeneration initiative) Chrysalis Projects. I’ve rolled out Love TV for the first time in a long time, asking questions about love, but also about consent. What does healthy loving look like? What does a good night look like when the space is safe? At the recent QMusic Summer Block Party, I was interviewing musicians, punters, audience members, and you could tell that the conversation of consent really has evolved. You would not be able to do that even two years ago; that would be a really hard question to put to a general public audience.

So, Your Inner Circles has also been raising awareness about how some artforms can glorify violence against women?

I’ve been working with Opera Queensland to examine the innate misogyny of the opera narrative. In nearly every opera, a woman will be the murdered, take her own life or go insane. Opera Queensland have been so proactive in really examining the canon of the work they’re working within, digging deep into this innate misogyny, and finding a new way forward that is relevant to today’s world … Queensland is leading the world in building this new way forward.

To play devil’s advocate, why do we care about changing fictional stories, many of which provoke conversations about gender anyway?
I think it’s the way you frame it, consider it and deliver it. Some of these stories are 300 years old. If you put in the word “rape” (in the online catalogue) of the Met Museum in New York City, it comes up 183 times. So there’s 183 works that have “rape” in them. If we are our stories, then we need to re-examine these stories and come up with a more relevant positive understanding of them so that collectively we can change the way we represent women, the way we relate to women and women’s power and agency in the world.

Chrysalis Projects encourages people to give to the arts. How do you get people to part with their money?

During a pandemic! Oh my God! Chrysalis came out of the pandemic and we recognised that artists needed to work, small businesses needed to be revitalised and communities need to be united. So we wanted to make 10 projects with 10 artists that created 10 experiences. We went to our local bookstore in the West End of Brisbane and said, ‘What could we do to help you?’ They said we could ask an artist to create a mural for them. We now have Vernon Ah Kee wrapping the whole of Avid Reader bookstore in all the names of Brisbane authors, including First Nations authors. We raised $65,000 for this mural. People want meaningful projects that reflect who they are.

Where are you and your fluffy pink microphone going next?
That’s my other hat. I’m so busy! Popsart Media is where I interview artists live from their events. I have posted the interviews I have done with artists at APT10 (the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at GoMA in Brisbane) on my website and there will be more on my Instagram.

Information about Your Inner Circles can be found at @chrysalisprojects;popsart.com.au