PREPPERS is a touring gallery show of multimedia art work curated by Guy Louden, Dan McCabe, and Loren Kronemyer. The exhibition features sculpture, installation, video and hanging works by five artists mutually fascinated by the prepper lifestyle: Tiyan Baker (NSW), Guy Louden (WA/NSW), Loren Kronemyer (USA/TAS), Dan McCabe (WA) and Thomas Yeomans (UK). Photos of PREPPERS at Fremantle Arts Centre by Dan McCabe.
Guy Louden, Dan McCabe, Loren Kronemyer, E-waste Barricade, 2019, e-waste, steel, zipties, arrows. 
Guy Louden, Dan McCabe, Loren Kronemyer, E-waste Barricade, 2019, e-waste, steel, zipties, arrows. 
Dan McCabe, Compound, 2019, industrial enamel, steel, motion sensors and LED flood lights, 270cm x 390cm x 270cm 
Guy Louden,
Ark (II), 2019, Wikipedia backup, custom computer, gold leaf, hard case, custom fabric, rolling plinth.
Guy Louden,
Ark (II), 2019, Wikipedia backup, custom computer, gold leaf, hard case, custom fabric, rolling plinth.
Guy Louden,
The Ant and the Grasshopper, 2019, 2-channel digital video, looped.
Dan McCabe, Red River Biccy, 2019, automotive carbon fibre vinyl on acrylic, stainless steel and “gun blued” steel, 152cm x 102cm 
Dan McCabe, Red River Biccy, 2019, automotive carbon fibre vinyl on acrylic, stainless steel and “gun blued” steel, 152cm x 102cm 
Loren Kronemyer,
Wounded Amazon of the Capitalocene, 2019, Custom arrows shafts, cutlery broadheads, fletchings, serving.
Loren Kronemyer,
Wounded Amazon of the Capitalocene, 2019, Custom arrows shafts, cutlery broadheads, fletchings, serving.
Thomas Yeomans,
Queer Sigil and Royal America, 2018, digital prints on light box.
Thomas Yeomans,
Queer Sigil, 2018, digital print on light box.
Loren Kronemyer,
Feather
Spear Trap, 2018, PVC, saw blades, rope, diamond ring.
Tiyan Baker,
Bamboo Paradise, 2019, digital video, bamboo, sisal rope, potted plants,
some video footage provided by Survival Builder.
Loren Kronemyer,
Training for True Aim, 2019, Lie detector,
compound bow, targets, hay bales, accessories.
Loren Kronemyer,
Training for True Aim, 2019, Lie detector,
compound bow, targets, hay bales, accessories.
Loren Kronemyer,
Training for True Aim, 2019, Lie detector,
compound bow, targets, hay bales, accessories.
Dan McCabe, Guy Louden and Loren Kronemyer,
E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I., 2019, digital
video, screen capture, found media
Preppers is an exhibition about doomsday preppers —the global subculture of people who prepare for the collapse of society. Preppers collect specialised gear, practice survival skills, and hoard violent knowledge. They gather in communities and clubs as well as online. Prepping is a hobby but also a world-view, with its own distinct aesthetics, vocabulary, and consumer products.
This exhibition considers the prepper phenomenon as an expression of wider cultural anxieties. Today catastrophe looms on many fronts —whether environmental collapse, disruptive technology, rising political nativism, or another financial crash. While established power systems fail to address these great challenges, preppers are hard at work planning for the worst. In this moment of great uncertainty, they understand that chaos also represents an opportunity.
The Preppers exhibition is part of a series on this theme. The project began with experimental presentations at galleries in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth, now culminating in a major exhibition at Fremantle Arts Centre. This iteration features five contemporary Australian and international artists producing sculpture, video, installation, and print art. The art in this show draws on internet and consumer culture, as well as actual experience within prepping communities. It emphasises the aesthetics of rugged survival gear, high-performance materials, specialist technology and tools.In the hands of the artists involved, these tools take on new capacities to express the paranoia, ambivalence, absurdities and hope in an uncertain future.
Listen to the PREPPERS Panel here. Facilitated by Erin Coates, FAC Special Projects Curator, the speakers included Shani Graham from Ecoburbia, artist Loren Kronemyer, writer and researcher Cassie Lynch and the Extinction Rebellion‘s Jesse Noakes.