This is a communique from some of the individuals involved in the creation of the milkcrate unicorn at the University of Sydney; we don’t speak in the name of everyone that participated in the action.
Before anything else, it would be good to clarify that yes! the unicorn made out of milkcrates at USYD on the 3rd of March is as queer, gay, trans, lesbian, bisexual, and intersex as it can get and we stand with anyone that fights against oppression and therefore those oppressed by this patriarchal heteronormative society.
The unicorn was created, however, not for Mardi Gras as stated in a couple of articles (1, 2), but to represent our capacity to dream wildly. The unicorn, like Mardi Gras, was created through collective struggles against oppression in this society – as is clear in the leaflets that originally accompanied the unicorn until they ran out.
After that, we left the unicorn on campus, without permission, to reclaim that space and in defiance of the management scum of USYD. Management has done its best to silence dissent in the university with riot pigs and security thugs, banning students and other people to restrict them entering campus and prosecuting students and others through legal avenues. But we run this place and we won't be silenced.
We were not interested in the material existence of the unicorn, so much, but in our and everyone's capacity to dream wildly and the possibility this creates for our lives. We were delighted, momentarily, to see that, to our surprise, some students, unknown to us, had worked together to save the unicorn. However, since then, the purpose of the unicorn and what it represents has been miscommunicated, the focus has been on the physical being of the unicorn, which whilst beautiful, is not as beautiful as the fact that some friends, ordinary in every way, made it together with love and dedication, because we wanted to.
It was nice that it was saved from destruction from the USYD security guards, but it was left there in defiance, and now there are plans to get permission to house it in a business, when the rationale behind it was anti-authoritarian, anti-capitilist. We would rather that it had been destroyed. The unicorn was not an idol or a pet. In the same way that all art loses its beauty and social importance when it is commodified and integrated into a system of value and prestige. The unicorn was misunderstood, used and repackaged like everything else in this obsolete machine that consciously or unconsciously discipline us into the unfulfilling routine of normality.
We hope the unicorn brings you joy, but we don't think it will bring you as much joy, as having untamed dreams and building them with people you love, reclaiming our spaces and our lives.
