- Title:
- WHEN IT IS FINISHED, Deanne Butterworth
- Author:
- Georgia Banks
- Date:
- 06.11.25
The beginning of five pieces of writing on Deanne Butterworth’s
WHEN IT IS FINISHED
because nothing is finished
until when it is finished
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
BEGINNING ONE
Deanne Butterworth is like a map…
… the way that she speaks about place and connects herself, her memories and experiences to the physical space—to addresses and views out of windows, to the placement of desks, lamps, a bulge in the wall, the boundaried edges of a floor, is written all over her work. While speaking to her about her life and her practice I am tempted to take a walking tour of all the places that are described to me, I feel like I could place push pins into a drawing of this city and create a portrait of her, a sort of biography of her life. She is like a snowball, rolling from location to location, bringing each one to the next one, accumulating them, absorbing them into her framework. These are some of the places that come up during our conversation:
Melbourne Town Hall: I remember being on the balcony of the Melbourne Town Hall, looking across to Manchester Unity Building and the Century Building going, I really like the city / Women’s Gallery: which was in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy and it’s now a shop on the corner of Rose Street and Brunswick Street / Temperance Hall: before Philip took it over, we knew it as Napier Street / Extensions: which actually RMIT owns now. But [Shelley Lasica], it was her mum’s studio and she taught there / The State Library: I worked in the Art, Music and Performing Arts Library, the Queens Hall that’s a function space now / Gertrude, both Glasshouse and Studio: But I also had to mark it out on the floor with tape of what the studio was because I couldn’t, even though it was relocated, I couldn’t relocate it without knowing the space.
This new work is no different when it comes to collecting and consolidating place; WHEN IT IS FINISHED…
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
BEGINNING TWO
I misread the shirt Deanne was wearing in the video of her dancing at the DESA residency. I thought it said BALI…
…when in fact it said BIENNALE. Deanne had gotten that shirt when she was in Venice performing in an LGI (Lucy Guerin Inc) piece, creating a rather pleasing analogy of artist as tourist, both at the Biennale and in Bali. Funnily enough I would consider myself a tourist within Deanne’s work, having taken her classes for many years now. She has taught me a great deal and I think on those things sometimes when making my own work, such as the relationship between energy and the body, and our capacity to follow it like a thread or to subvert and abrupt it. I know that when she teaches phrase she describes steps with a series of sound effects and when I see her dance, I can hear the sounds that accompany each movement and I can remember my own body moving like hers, under her tutelage. It’s interesting to think about this unique position when sitting down to write about WHEN IT IS FINISHED...
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
BEGINNING THREE
Deanne’s showing, WHEN IT IS FINISHED A SHOWING OF A WORK IN PROGRESS/PROCESS...
…begins with presence and absence. She is absent, the performance impending and she is present through two video depictions of her body dancing. When we speak about the work I comment that the videos have a low-fi diary-like feel to them, there is something voyeuristic in watching them; she confirms they weren’t necessarily made to be shown, but more for herself. The presence of absence then transitions, as we transit space and enter a new room to see a new work, or a new showing of an old work, or a reworked work, an ongoing conversation between Deanne and herself and now us. This work is a series of transitions, of contradictions and conversations: it moves forward and then back, slowly in on itself then out in bursts. Deanne in turn gathers and then expels herself to her furthest points, across all of her planes and axes. She is almost like an optical illusion at points; early stop motion film comes to mind as she seems to be moving away from us while also becoming larger. She manages to fill our field of vision from the periphery, a perfect oxymoron. Speaking of oxymoron’s, the title of this work, WHEN IT IS FINISHED…
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
BEGINNING FOUR
When I told Deanne I was going to be writing about her show I remember she was confused…
… she said she didn’t have a show in September? Oh, well perhaps it’s about your work more broadly? When the interview came around we located the cause of our miscommunication; this was a showing not a show. Meaning, it was unfinished, or more accurately, it did not have the finish of a finished show. Deanne spoke openly about her perceived struggles with acquiring funding and opportunities. It was refreshing, as so many artists strive to hide this reality of work-making. It struck me that here the idea of something being finished becomes a double entendre—the idea of something only being finished when it has a certain finish that institutional support and faculties can provide. Deanne jokes that WHEN IT IS FINISHED is showing the showing, the show, the showing, informal working program showing. What is this distinction we make, between a showing and a show? Is it inherently linked to the idea of finish? I ask Deanne when, if ever, will this work be finished? What does it mean for something to be finished? Is any work ever finished? Deanne says, I made choices. And here we are. This is not finished. The idea of finished permeates the text accompanying WHEN IT IS FINISHED…
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
BEGINNING FIVE
Upon entering the space you encounter two videos, taken a year apart. Between them is time spent in Deanne’s life, connecting them like a thread…
… I tried to dream up what may have happened to Deanne during that time, not necessarily directly related to the work, but that had ultimately shaped the work. I wondered if there was anything that happened in the unaccounted for time nestled between these video works, that shaped her as an artist, as a dancer, as a person? Here are some things that happened to Deanne that are not in the work (but of course are in the work, as all of our time and our experiences push us in slightly different directions and inform our practice in ways we may never understand): Deanne began and completed a qualification with a mind to sustain her life alongside her practice, a constant and tenuous tightrope all creatives must try to stay balanced upon. She got a job, where she became fast friends with another staff member, somebody whose life would not likely have intersected with her own without this need for supplemental income. This new friend and Deanne would chat in the quiet hours at the store, about their lives, from the bitty and banal things to the lofty and large, with Deanne’s work and practice becoming a conversational mainstay. This friend then made their own series of big and small choices that led to a sudden loss. All of these things are all present in Deanne’s work, as things that have happened and as things that are yet to happen. Deanne wrote: She made a choice in that moment which changed the course of everything. Deanne made a million choices in a million moments which changed the course of a million things. And they are all a part of this aptly named work, WHEN IT IS FINISHED…
Deanne Butterworth, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, 2025, performance documentation, Temperance Hall, Naarm Melbourne. Photo: Gregory Lorenzutti.
Georgia Banks makes performance art even when you think she doesn’t. Her most interesting work won’t happen until after she's dead - she hopes it’s good but will never know. Banks has been banned from Tinder, sued by the estate of Hannah Wilke and awarded Miss Social Impact in a national beauty pageant. She would like to go viral, break a Guinness World Record and be in an actual episode of Black Mirror instead of making her own. Banks’ never had a filling nor broken a bone (although she has been crucified) and once was convinced she'd accidentally sliced away a part of her labia during a performance (she hadn’t).
In 2025, Performance Review and Temperance Hall are partnering to bring you written responses to Temperance Hall’s Front Studio Residency. This program offers six choreographic artists two-month studio residencies across the year and includes a stipend, public showing and photographic documentation.
To complement this, Performance Review is publishing a series of written responses on the public outcomes of this program, penned by emerging arts writers and grounded in conversations with these artists. The aim of this collaboration is to mutually develop critical reflection on the practices of local choreographic artists and build performance literacy in arts writing.
These responses have been funded by Temperance Hall through support from Creative Australia and independently commissioned by Performance Review. The writers in this program have been mentored by Anador Walsh, Performance Review’s Director.
The 2025 Temperance Hall Front Studio Residents are Tony Yap, Chung Nguyen, Geoffrey Watson, Deanne Butterworth, Gabriella Imrichova and Fleur Conlon.
This piece by Georgia Banks has been written in response to the public showing of Deanne Butterworth’s WHEN IT IS FINISHED, presented at Temperance Hall on Friday 5 September 2025.