Event

Dream Sequence: Justine Youssef

26 May 2021
Justine Youssef
Dream Sequence: Justine Youssef

Lovesick Puppy

You can download a transcript of Episode 9 - Justine Youssef here.

Lovesick Puppy is an experimental film, researched and created within the 2 week Utp Dream Sequence residency. It uses rhetoric from land and zoning legislators and property developers as a means to interrogate longer histories of settler relationships to land and aspiration in the Australian colony.

Filmed outside a construction site in Guildford West on unceded Bidjigal and Darug Land, the work directly quotes The City of Parramatta's Cultural Development Plan; property developer and former deputy mayor of Sydney's Auburn City Council, Salim Mehajer; and Bow Wow's 'Too Real'. In 2015, Mehajer's infamous wedding opened inquiries into the links between local councils and private developers. Bow Wow's 'Too Real' film clip was recorded inside Mehajer's luxury home in a recently rezoned area in Lidcombe, and is a song that laments possessive desire for two people. The title refers to Mehajer's lawyer who in 2017 described him as a lovesick puppy who was "only guilty of loving his wife, not guilty of intimidation".

Further Information

Head to Utp's IG account's Lovesick Puppy stories highlights to see Justine's Q&A with the audience.

About Justine Youssef

Justine Youssef’s practice is site-responsive, interested in what is warped through displacement, and focuses on moments and places that reconfigure authoritative realities. She is currently based across Dharug and Gadigal lands and is an artist in residence at the Parramatta Artist Studios.

Image Credit

Courtesy of Sydney Hummer Hire

Partners and Supporters

The program is made possible through the generous support of Create NSW.