Tactical Bodies, on view at Hillvale Gallery in Brunswick, from 16 May to 15 June 2025, is a powerful new exhibition by Meg De Young and Gabrielle Hall-Lomax that investigates how gendered expectations are embedded in the way women move, inhabit space, and carry their bodies. Developed through a research-based, collaborative process, the project explores self-defence not just as a set of physical techniques, but as a lens for examining power, social conditioning, and the possibility of unlearning fear.
artists Meg De Young and Gabrielle Hall-Lomax confront the silent choreography of caution that shapes the way many women move through the world. This powerful exhibition, now showing from 16 May to 15 June 2025, presents a collaborative, research-driven exploration into how gendered expectations are physically learned—and how they might be unlearned.
Born from a shared awareness of threat in public space, Tactical Bodies begins with a deceptively simple question: How are our bodies trained to protect themselves, and at what cost? De Young and Hall-Lomax draw from personal reflection and feminist theory to explore the socialisation of fear—how women often carry themselves defensively, shrinking or anticipating violence in subtle, embodied ways. These gestures, shaped over time, become almost unconscious performances of femininity.
Through a striking series of performative photographs, the artists stage and restage scenarios that mirror self-defence drills—some practical, others abstract or absurd. A woman falls, another grips an imaginary weapon, a stance shifts from passive to combative in a moment. Each image is dense with contradiction: power and parody, control and vulnerability, poise and panic. Their methodology draws on Judith Butler’s theory of gender as a repeated performance, suggesting that even defensive behaviours are learned scripts, written by culture and rehearsed over a lifetime.
But Tactical Bodies does more than expose these internalised patterns—it seeks rupture. By engaging in physical re-enactments informed by feminist scholars like Emilia Aaltonen, the project reframes women’s self-defence not as a final solution but as an ongoing, conceptual tool for resistance. Aaltonen critiques the idea of ‘feminine vulnerability’ as a cultural default, arguing instead for a mode of corporeal resistance—one where the body might begin to rewrite its habits. This philosophy underpins De Young and Hall-Lomax’s approach. Their photographs aren’t documentary; they’re exercises. Rehearsals. Possibilities.
There’s also humour here, a sly subversion that interrupts the visual language of martial training. In Hair Grab I (2025), for instance, the absurdity of the pose is matched by the seriousness of the subject. In Improvised Weapon (2025), the title gestures towards both empowerment and futility, challenging viewers to consider where agency lies—and what it looks like.
Importantly, Tactical Bodies resists simplistic narratives. It neither valorises self-defence as a cure-all nor indulges victim-blaming tropes. Instead, it remains firmly aware of the political complexities surrounding women’s safety. In its most potent moments, the exhibition visualises the tension between action and expectation, asking: What if we stopped rehearsing fear?
By framing self-defence as both conceptual and physical, Tactical Bodies invites viewers to reconsider how bodies can be disciplined, and how they might fight back—not just in moments of danger, but in everyday gestures of resistance.
In 2024, Meg De Young and Gabrielle Hall-Lomax began their collaborative practice during a residency at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne. Their shared research focuses on how social systems shape women’s embodied experiences, using performance and photography to interrogate and reframe those narratives.
Meg De Young completed First-Class Honours in Photography at RMIT in 2021. Her project The Conversations We Have won the Ballarat GradFoto 2021 Exhibition and was featured on the cover of Der Greif’s The Collectivity Issue. She participated in PHOTO 2022’s PHOTO Lab with Magnum Photos, and also holds diplomas in Community Services and Visual Arts (painting).
Gabrielle Hall-Lomax holds a Master of Arts and Cultural Management from the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from RMIT. Her work was featured in Der Greif’s 16th issue Common Love (curated by Shirin Neshat). In 2024, she was a finalist in the Palm Photo Prize and held her solo show Unbodied at Blindside Gallery in Melbourne.
Exhibition Details
Meg De Young & Gabrielle Hall-Lomax: Tactical Bodies
Exhibition Dates: 16 May – 15 June 2025
Venue: Hillvale Gallery, 43–45 Edward Street, Brunswick, Vic., Australia
