In a bold crossover of art, activism and beach-side leisure, Kirsha Kaechele’s Ladies Lounge—originally a women-only performance-art installation at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona)—will take center stage at Queensland’s Bleach* festival on the Gold Coast this July. Curated and directed by Mona stalwart Kaechele, the installation won a landmark Supreme Court challenge in Hobart that upheld its right to bar men, and now its satirical inversion of gender dynamics is heading north to a more sun-soaked climate.
Mona’s Ladies Lounge: A Brief History
Concept and Debut
Launched in early 2024, the Ladies Lounge was conceived by Mona curator and co-owner Kirsha Kaechele as a female-only sanctuary within the museum’s famed subterranean labyrinth. Draped in emerald-velvet chaise longues, silken drapes and decadent objets d’art, the space functioned as part exclusive club, part sensory playground—champagne, canapés and massages were served by formally clad butlers to women who passed through its velvet ropes.
Legal Challenge and Victory
Shortly after its opening, a male patron’s complaint to Tasmania’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal forced Mona to admit men, on the grounds of gender discrimination. Undeterred, Kaechele appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in April 2025 that the Ladies Lounge represented “an arrangement to promote equal opportunity by highlighting the lack of equal opportunity” and thus fell within an exemption to anti-discrimination law. The ruling made international headlines and cemented the installation’s status as a flashpoint in debates over gender, art and public space.
Heading North: Bleach* Festival on the Gold Coast
Festival Overview
Bleach* is Queensland’s premier summer arts festival, set against the skyline of Surfers Paradise and the beaches of Kurrawa. Under the artistic directorship of Michael Zavros—a multi-time Archibald Prize finalist—the 2025 program promises to infuse Mona’s signature irreverence into a homegrown celebration of visual and performance art. Zavros, raised on the Gold Coast, describes his vision as “Dark Mofo with a tan,” invoking Tasmania’s winter festival in a subtropical setting.
Why the Gold Coast?
“The Gold Coast is the perfect macho milieu for a little rebalancing,” says Kaechele. “Here, where sun, surf and conspicuous consumption reign, it feels fitting to turn the tables and let women set the rules—if only for a little while.” As a counterpart to the city’s longstanding female-only “Meter Maids,” the Ladies Lounge will operate for two weeks during the festival, offering a playground where gendered power dynamics can be both celebrated and satirized.
The Gold Coast Edition of Ladies Lounge
Design and Atmosphere
While many design elements will transpose from Mona—the emerald-green chaise longues and silk drapes—the Gold Coast edition promises local flair. Kaechele hints male attendants might don minimal attire: “Probably not much. It’s the Gold Coast. We’ll adapt to the climate.” The lounge will again feature champagne service, tasting menus and guided “networking” sessions, all orchestrated to undercut patriarchal norms with cheeky theatricality.
Artworks and Authenticity
In Mona’s aftermath, controversy erupted when Picasso paintings displayed in a women-only bathroom proved inauthentic. When festivalgoers ask about fakes, Kaechele responds: “You can trust me completely.” Zavros backs her, quipping, “I know there will be exciting works, but I actually don’t know much about them—because I’m just a man.” Nonetheless, organizers ensure artworks will be vetted for authenticity, and local collectors have loaned sculptural pieces reflective of the region’s surf-and-screen heritage.
Companion Piece: The Complaints Department
Concept by Tora López
To deflect potential legal reprisals from excluded male visitors, Bleach* will also host The Complaints Department, created by New York–based multidisciplinary artist Tora López. Styled as a “Severance-meets-customer-service” center, the piece invites visitors with firsthand grievances—only those who can articulate specific, experience-based complaints may enter. López explains: “We’re channeling civic bureaucracy into an artwork, making public venting both cathartic and performative.”
Interactive Bureaucracy
Visitors will report to a retrofitted office, complete with swivel chairs and boxed filing systems. Complaint officers—played by actors—will guide participants through forms, asks for documentation and issue “resolution tokens.” The piece parodies both contemporary office culture and the gendered tensions inherent in public access to spaces like the Ladies Lounge.
Bleach* 2025: Beyond the Lounge
Major Works and Events
- Skywhale and Skywhalepapa at Dawn: Patricia Piccinini’s beloved balloon sculptures will drift over the Nerang River at daybreak on 31 July.
- Opera Meets Dressage on Kurrawa Beach: In a collaboration between Zavros and director Gavin Webber, “Cavalcade” will pair a 24-piece orchestra with equestrian performers in a seaside spectacle.
- Drowned Mercedes: Zavros’s own commentary on consumerism—a waterlogged 1996 Mercedes SL—returns in a site-specific iteration near Surfers Paradise Boulevard.
- Michelangelo’s David Replica: Carved from Carrara marble in a nod to the original, this life-size statue will stand in Emerald Lakes, an ironic statement on authenticity and the festival’s embrace of “the real and the faux.” Zavros confirms: “David will be the only fake at Bleach*.”
Gender, Art and Public Debate
Rebalancing or Exclusion?
Critics have denounced the Ladies Lounge as “reverse discrimination,” while supporters hail it as a necessary provocation to highlight women’s historic exclusion from cultural power structures. Legal scholar Dr. Amelia Robinson notes: “By using the law’s own equal-opportunity exemption, Kaechele has staged a performative critique of gendered access—forcing us to question where and why we segregate spaces.”
Audience Reactions
Pre-festival surveys suggest robust interest: 65 percent of local women and 40 percent of local men would attend Ladies Lounge events. Some men, however, plan to queue at The Complaints Department, eager to test López’s “visitor criteria.” Commentators predict spirited debate in cafés and on social media as the festival unfolds.
Looking Ahead: Impact and Legacy
For Mona and Bleach*
Mona has long traded in transgressive spectacle; the Gold Coast iteration cements its national reach. For Bleach*, the Ladies Lounge marks an ambitious move into performance art activism, signaling a maturing regional festival willing to court controversy in service of cultural dialogue.
Broader Conversations
By transplanting a Tasmanian legal drama to Queensland’s sunbelt, Kaechele and Zavros extend questions of gender, access and artistic freedom to new audiences. As painter-critic Suzanne Elston observes, “Artworks like Ladies Lounge are catalysts—they don’t just entertain, they spark civic conversations about equality, law and the politics of space.”
Conclusion
When Bleach* opens on 31 July, Gold Coast locals and visitors will find Mona’s Ladies Lounge reimagined under palm-tree canopies and neon surf lights. With butlers in beach-wear and Picasso fakes banished, the installation invites participants to toast female agency, challenge patriarchal norms, and—most importantly—ask: who really owns the right to relax, network and celebrate in our public cultural spaces? As Kaechele declares, “The surf’s up and the patriarchy is down”—and for a fortnight, the Gold Coast will be the world’s most pointed stage for that rallying cry.
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