Diver deeper into our 2025 Boorloo Contemporary and Exhibitions program with this guide.
Welcome to Boorloo Contemporary
For 20 years Wesfarmers Arts and Perth Festival have brought the work of leading artists from across Australia and around the world to galleries, studios and artist-run spaces in Perth. In 2025 I invite you to experience this exciting program of special commissions and cultural conversations that celebrate the vision and ambition of Aboriginal and First Nations artists. Art brings people together and connects us in imaginative ways with the world around us. Boorloo Contemporary brings us art at the forefront of innovation, with cutting-edge works that place culture and Country at the heart of Perth Festival.
I hope you'll drop by the iconic East Perth Power Station to see it illuminated by three Noongar artists and visit Fremantle Arts Centre, John Curtin Gallery and The Rechabite for a taste of (in the case of Killa , quite literally) Boorloo Contemporary's transformative and immersive experiences.
Helen Carroll , Wesfarmers Arts Manager
Perth Festival acknowledges the Noongar people who continue to practise values, language, beliefs and knowledge on kwobidak boodjar. Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural birdiyangara of this place and we honour and respect the caretakers and custodians and the vital role Noongar people play for our community and our Festival to flourish. We also acknowledge all First Nations people, whose contributions make our Festival culturally and artistically richer. Our hearts are happy that you are here, on the traditional lands of Whadjuk, part of the Bibbulmun nation and its people.
Borderless creative thinking
Boorloo Contemporary is an opportunity to commission and present works at scale, predominantly from First Nations artists on this continent, and eventually including other artists in Australia's immediate geographic region – works that speak both from and to our region in their own visual languages and connected narratives. It is important, and timely, that this new commissioning initiative is delivered in Western Australia, which is uniquely positioned in relation to Southeast Asia considering proximity and shared time zones. These diverse geographic regions encompass a vast range of countries and languages from the largest Aboriginal language group in Australia — the Noongar People in the Southwest — to remote communities and beyond to First Nations and other artists across the Indian Ocean Rim. Stemming from ongoing conversations between curators, artists and arts workers, Boorloo Contemporary emerged as a dynamic platform dedicated to amplifying the voices and creative expressions of First Nations artists. Rooted on Whadjuk Boodjar in Boorloo/Perth, the initiative will grow to rekindle connections with peers across the Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific regions, fostering a rich and interconnected cultural dialogue. Boorloo Contemporary champions a wide range of artistic practices, emphasising the work of artists who challenge conventions, transcend boundaries and reimagine possibilities within and without traditional arts institutions. By creating space for innovative and experimental approaches, the platform not only highlights underrepresented perspectives but also contributes to reshaping the global arts landscape through collaboration, inclusivity and bold creativity.
The program will delve deeply into a variety of creative dimensions over the next four years, including the transformative interplay of light and sound, the power and intimacy of ceremony, and the rich tradition of storytelling as a means of cultural connection. These offerings will unfold through a series of exhibitions, performances and events – some hosted in traditional art galleries, others taking place in unexpected locations throughout the city. In 2024, Artistic Director Anna Reece brought together a visionary team to form the Boorloo Contemporary Curatorium – Clotilde Bullen, Chad Creighton, Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, Yabini Kickett and Chloe Ogilvie. This dynamic group of creatives and arts leaders, each with a distinct background and deep expertise in their respective fields, collaborates to shape the direction and vision of Boorloo Contemporary. Meeting several times a year, the Curatorium engages in discussions and idea generation, drawing on their experiences working across Western Australia and beyond. Their collective knowledge, informed by individual artistic and curatorial practices, serves as a foundation for assembling innovative and meaningful programs that reflect the region's diverse cultural landscape. This collaborative approach ensures that Boorloo Contemporary remains both rooted in local identity and connected to broader artistic conversations. In placing First Nations Australian work at its centre, Boorloo Contemporary offers an opportunity to connect with like-minded artists from our regional neighbourhood from a position of mutual understanding – of the innovative ways in which we manifest our pasts and futures, protect our heritage and embrace our hybrid positions though material practice. Anna Reece , Perth Festival Artistic Director Yabini Kickett , Boorloo Contemporary Creative Producer
Perth Festival Noongar Advisory Circle Roma Yibiyung Winmar, Vivienne Binyarn Hansen, Richard Walley, Carol Innes, Barry McGuire & Mitchella Waljin Hutchins
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Power Station Commission
Allan Yarran Allan Yarran, a senior painter of Noongar landscape, twists reality, memory and dreams into psychedelic visions of the river and surrounds. From acrylic paintings on tangible canvas to the towering walls of East Perth Power Station, Allan's work dances with life through animation and interwoven visuals. Allan learned to paint later in life to keep connected with Country while incarcerated, and his practice spans decades. He recounts his memories of travels within the Southwest, precious and affirming, these places are home. Each tree, balga and stone in his work represents immemorial connection to place, and the long line of moort he descends from. Allan's works naturally bind themselves to audiences, latching to reflections in each viewer's mind, seamlessly presenting country we all pass through and remember from childhood. The significance of landscape painting within Noongar Boodjar runs deep within the nation, a style featuring silhouettes found nowhere else. These depictions are ingrained within Noongar identity, representing intricate two-way spiritual kinship. Most families within the Southwest have one link or another to Carrolup and/or landscape painting. It's through this and his never ending colour palette, that Allan sets himself apart as a remarkable Noongar landscape artist.
One of the most anticipated elements of Perth Festival 2025 is the reanimation of East Perth Power Station, a landmark steeped in local and industrial significance. This architectural icon will serve as the centrepiece of the Perth Festival program as we transform it into a vibrant hub of creativity and community. From 2025 to 2028, the Power Station will come alive with an eclectic and dynamic blend of music, performances and visual art installations that highlight both emerging and established talent. More than just a performance venue, the site will become a gathering place where audiences can celebrate the arts, engage in meaningful conversations and reflect on the cultural and historical narratives that shape the region. Through this innovative activation, Perth Festival aims to honour the Power Station's legacy while reimagining its future as a space that bridges heritage with contemporary artistic expression. East Perth Power Station will be home to the major Boorloo Contemporary annual commission, beginning in light – igniting the building facade. Existing outside classical institutions, the Power Station Commission offers artists the opportunity to explore bigger, brighter, bolder outcomes within their practice.
Each year will feature Noongar artists and creatives, holding the grounds for incoming collaboration. The commission is largely shaped by the Curatorium, responsive to current events and conversations happening within community across Western Australia. Three artists spanning generations open the annual commission in 2025 – Allan Yarran, Ilona McGuire and Daniel Hansen. In their own ways each has created work focusing on the ground we gather upon and the people who have called it home for thousands of years. These works are woven together by Associate Animation Artist and Boorloo Contemporary Creative Producer Yabini Kickett and projected onto the walls of the Power Station. Each artist represents a pocket of Noongar knowledge and experience – collectively they talk to Country, honouring memory, storytelling and spiritual fluidity. Utilising their chosen artistic practices, they invite audiences to witness these stories unfold each evening after sunset.
A Perth Festival Commission supported by
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Ilona McGuire
Daniel ‘Danno’ Hansen
There's these energy lines that are connecting all things,
Ilona McGuire is a multidisciplinary artist of Bibbulmun Noongar and Kungarakan lineage. Her practice is heavily influenced by the social impacts of the Australian colony on both Indigenous peoples and whoever calls Australia home. Coming from two strong parents who openly share culture with Australia at large, Ilona consistently finds new ways of expressing community's frustrations, hopes and depth. Post referendum Ilona's artistic output has shifted to projects like Blak Dingo, a Whadjuk-led community of politically and historically conscious individuals. Ilona's practice is truly experimental. She has worked across painting, installation, dance, music and recently drone shows. Throughout all these mediums there has been a through line of respect and deep honouring for the old people who fought before us. Because of this reverence Ilona stands with a level of integrity deeply needed in a post-referendum Australia.
Ilona's contribution to the 2025 Power Station Commission includes illustrations of ancestors – all of whom walked the areas in and around East Perth long before the Power Station stood. It acknowledges the freedom fighters who never backed down in the face of colonialism – Sovereignty was never ceded. These people include Joor’bil (Dool), Monop, Joobytch, Gen’burdong, Woolber, Old Mary, Ngilgie and Fanny Yooreel Balbuk. The figures appear one after the other and stand looking over the river, facing east – tall, proud and unwavering.
Daniel Hansen is an emerging poet from Corrigin, Western Australia who writes about land, kinship, the plants of Noongar Boodjar and history. Initially influenced by hip hop Danno's artistic journey began with poetry. Over the last ten years he has expanded his practice to include song and overarching storytelling. Danno has said his artistic practice has been vital for him through difficult moments in his lifetime, allowing space to reflect and process what's happening around him. Through consultation with Uncle Barry McGuire, Danno has written a new text responding to East Perth Power Station. These words talk to the walls, surrounds and ground deep below – they are the energy lines that connect every living thing. The text will be writ large across the architecture, vocalising Danno's ambitions and perspectives as a proud Noongar man.
That impress on to us lessons about the best ways to live,
If you really just take the time,
To just Nyin Kadadjiny,
With their main directive & sentiment being,
Regenerative measures should definitely be priority.
Because it always has been since the very beginning,
Of EVERY thing before all things existed,
When the earth was a frozen numb place WE called Nyitting,
Where our Dreaming first existed.
Excerpt from ‘Powerhouse Overdrive’, commissioned for Boorloo Contemporary 2025
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Alice Guiness Burndud Ground
Mervyn Street Stolen Wages
The Burndud ceremony is a special and unique cultural obligation where each member of Yindjibarndi must attend and participate. The song circle teaches us the dances (women only) about our roles and responsibilities as women. It also reminds us that there is a harmony within our lives that incorporates all living things on Ngurra (Country). Old people say by the beat and rhythm of the songs it rejuvenates balance and purpose that we of the Ngurra are collectively responsible for and that there is no life without balance. We also find a personal happiness that is hard to describe, where it is both a fulfillment and validation that tells us that we have worth and standing. As we see Mum Alice paint the Burndud, we are reminded of her personal ability and the everyday challenges she faces to communicate her feelings, and what drives her to make the Burndud her main piece and focus when doing her artwork. I have learnt over the years that her Burndud depictions are deep messages of what she sees as important things in our lives – Ceremony, Family, Galharra, Ngurra and the Songs. She teaches me to remember these things
and always hold each equal to the other and remember our roles and responsibilities and never losing the true meaning of the Burndud and why it remains. Everyone knows of Mum Alice's disability; where she can't communicate as other people can. This has affected her ability to build a relationship with others. Through art she is teaching us the true meaning of balancing our two worlds. Art is her nourishment; she communicates through it. Art is a human creativity. And it matters when we want to make sense of life. Mum Alice is desperately helping us to make sense of her life, she is telling us her story. Let us seriously consider moving forward in the ways of our people, we must find our way back to this teaching, living the Yindjibarndi values that will ensure our survival. When we start to listen to each other, that's when the healing happens. Lorraine Coppin Juluwarlu Group Aboriginal Corporation Excerpt from a catalogue essay, January 2025
‘This is my story about working in the cattle station, learning to drove cattle in the Kimberley on my Country. I use art to tell my history. Early days old people didn't know station animals, I am bringing this history and what we saw in my generation by telling this story. Still, we are learning pigs, nanny goats but I had just come out of the bush and I had been living on bush food. I saw these animals for the first time and then I got to work with
Senior Gooniyandi artist Mervyn Street led and won a historic Stolen Wages Class Action against the WA government for workers not paid between 1936 and 1972. Mervyn has worked his whole life as a passionate activist and documenter of unwritten history through his art. His solo exhibition Stolen Wages traces this important story through his own eyes and his personal life as an unpaid stockman. Presenting some of his most iconic and pioneering artworks from the 1990s through to today, the exhibition is both an artistic timeline and a tribute to Mervyn's lifelong mission to get acknowledgment for the unpaid station workers who were integral in building the economic wealth of this state. Mervyn says that he didn't know what ‘art’ was when he started drawing cowboy images on a water tank sometime in the 1960s or '70s. He didn't know that there was a job or a way of making an income out of it. He just had an innate desire to make images of his life and memories in his own way, distinct from other artists in the region. We are so lucky he did start drawing, and even luckier to have this body of work within an urgent moment in time for Australia.
them. Old people used to spear them and get in trouble, they didn't know.
You may look at this work and think it's good, but it has a lot of meaning. The station stories and early days are when everything changed. I paint about history to make a difference between Dreamtime and modern history.’
– Mervyn Street (courtesy Mangkaja Arts)
Emilia Galatis , Curator
A Perth Festival and Juluwarlu Art Group Commission Presented with Juluwarlu Art Group and the John Curtin Gallery
A Perth Festival Commission Presented with Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency and Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre
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Killa: Pindan to Plate
Killa aims to give people a peek behind the veil. To experience the life and country of west Kimberley mob. Bardi people like me have been fortunate to have an unsealed, corrugated dirt road deterring vehicles from making the trip to our Country, protecting our Country, culture and way of life. Our old people have kept language, culture and law strong. This remoteness also meant that meat was expensive to buy from the shop. Our way of life continued and we have always turned to Country to sustain us. Most of the cattle stations are gone but remnants from that time remain with old rusting windmills and cattle yards still present. Employment is not easy to come by in remote communities but in the west Kimberley, tourism is providing jobs that allow us to stay home on Country. Times have changed and now you can drive to our country on a sealed road. I recommend everyone take the opportunity to visit the Dampier Peninsula and do a tour with a Bardi person. See the world through our eyes for a day – hunt, fish and eat delicious food. Hear the stories we have to share with you about this land. For those who can't make it there, there is Killa . Share in a unique long table dinner whilst being immersed in a video installation that will transport you to the west Kimberley and give you some insight to our way of life.
I have always seen Killa as a celebration – a celebration of food narratives, food histories and food cultures that questioned what distinctly Australian food is. Killa is also a lens to view Australian food stories. The migrant food narrative has been canonised, whilst 60,000 years of Indigenous food has been silenced. In our first meeting with artist collaborator Lloyd Pigram we discussed “the authorship of taste”; what the West deems palatable or in fashion is aligned with who writes history. But it's also aligned with consumption, power and access – who has the power to industrialise, market and sell food manipulates the dialogue. With infinite content in Indigenous food and a whole country to explore, we are just starting to scratch the surface. Food goes in and out of fashion – rabbit, ox tail, lamb shanks, tongue, sheep brains, nose to tail dining. What is deemed palatable is marketed by the dominant culture. As Australian cuisine continues to evolve and find itself, I look towards our oldest living culture, their practices and principles to lead the way.
Emilia Galatis , Curator
Chad Creighton , Curator
A Perth Festival Commission Presented with The Rechabite
Extracts from artist notes by Killa curators Chad Creighton and Emilia Galatis. The full notes can be found online at perthfestival.com.au
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Welcome to Perth Festival 2025 Exhibitions program
We are privileged to present a program that brings major international artists into conversation with Western Australia's own extraordinary artistic voices. These works can be experienced in galleries all around the city. Each offers an invitation to engage – whether through deep contemplation, visceral response or unexpected moments of recognition. Some of these artists confront urgent social and political realities, others navigate memory and mythology, while some create spaces of quiet resistance or radical beauty. Together, they remind us of art’s capacity to hold contradiction, to sit in complexity and to generate meaning beyond words. At a time when the world can feel increasingly fractured, the works across our Exhibitions program remind us of the essential role art plays in making sense of it all. They speak across borders, generation and cultures, opening up space for dialogue and deeper understanding. Whether they challenge, soothe, provoke or inspire, they each hold a mirror to the world – reflecting back something urgent, unexpected or quietly profound.
An undertaking of this scale would not be possible without the curators, galleries and artists who have shaped these exhibitions with such care and ambition. My deepest thanks to them, and to the many hands behind the gallery walls who bring these projects to life. These exhibitions unfold across the city, each inviting you to step inside, linger a little longer and see the world from a fresh perspective. I encourage you to spend time with these works, to return to them, to let them shift something in you. The best encounters with art leave us altered in ways we don't always immediately understand. Those are the ones worth holding on to.
Anna Reece , Perth Festival Artistic Director
Judith Anya Samson Anya's Puntawarri World
A few years ago, I ran an artist dreams' workshop where participants pitched their hypothetical big vision project. Martu artist Judith Anya Samson said she wanted to create a whole world out of her paintings – Anya's world – where audiences could step inside her artwork and explore the different painterly elements that form her unique contemporary wayfinding. Fusing jukurrpa (Dreaming), Country and colonial history, Anya's world is a multilayered version of remote life in the mining region of the Pilbara, alongside an ancestral story of custodianship. Born in 1988 Anya was raised by her grandmother, moving to Jigalong as a young girl. She spent a lot of time travelling to her ancestral Country around the Rabbit Proof Fence areas, near Jigalong, and later moved to Newman for high school. She began painting at an early age and then later went on to work at Martumili Artists. In the unique aesthetic of her grandmother, Anya's gestural and seemingly abstract style is a series of codes and symbols relating to thousands of years of knowledge and the lived colonial experience of the Western Desert.
‘I was still a young girl, still crawling in the desert. It was nice there. Some other families lived there with us. We had some farm, some vegetables. We went schooling in Puntawarri at the school, learning ‘two way’ [teaching in both Martu Wangka and English, with a focus on local cultural and ecological knowledge]. We used to go and get some parnajarrpa (goanna) and turkey.’ – Judith Anya Samson (courtesy Martumili Artist) For many Martu, including Anya's family, Jigalong Mission was where traditional desert life came to an end and the transition to life in a cattle station began. More recently the colonial expansion of mining in the region adds another complexity to life, on top of 60,000 years of living history. Anya's work touches all these layers, jovially incorporating the magic gestures inherent in her personality. This exhibition demonstrates her ability to hold so much knowledge and responsibility while creating such joy on canvas. Anya opens her heart and you feel the warmth of her practice as you are surrounded by the elements of her paintings in this immersive installation.
Thanks to our Presentation Partners
perth centre for photography pcp
Emilia Galatis , Curator
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Presented with Martumili Artists and DADAA
Alton, Rickeeta & Richard Walley, Aboriginal Productions Middar Koora ba ye Middar long ago today
Middar … it is dance, it is the red ochre with which we paint our bodies and tell stories of the Boodjar with our movement. Our feet pressing into the earth. Baaminy! Hitting the ground to each beat, connecting to and celebrating our Country. Middar. We remember the dances, songs and stories that were taught to us by our old people, who were taught by their old people before them and before them. These teachings continued on for thousands of generations.
the Middar Aboriginal Dance Group. Soon after the group were joined by Lewis Collard and Theo Kearing in 1977 – 78, and Shane ‘Scrub’ Abdullah and Morton Hansen in the '80s. Many more would join Middar over its decades of performance and touring. During the inception and early days, Middar became one of the only publicly performing Aboriginal dance groups in the southwest. Middar's journey started with the sharing of culture through song, dance, didgeridoo and contemporary performance. It was important to Middar that they shared the dances that were taught to them in their youth, The Middar dance group held the value that it was never too late to learn, partake in and represent your culture. Bo Boodjarak koorliny! As interest in the high energy and incredible skill of traditional Aboriginal dance and song grew, Middar recieved invitations to perform both nationally and on the international stage. The group toured throughout Australia, across many countries and cross-culturally exchanged with Indigenous people around the world. From the humble beginnings of four Aboriginal men wanting to share their culture, they could proudly say that Middar had successfully done so in every continent.
Until they did not.
For over half a century throughout the 1900s, multiple state government legislations were put in place in an attempt to stifle Aboriginal cultural practices. These included the criminalisation of many Indigenous languages and practices of traditional song and dance. Nyornditj, warra. In many areas throughout Australia, there were periods of time in which our dances were not practiced, taught or shared publicly. In 1976 in Boorloo/Perth, four Aboriginal men — Richard Walley (Nyoongar-Yamatji), Ernie Dingo (Yamatji), Ken Buckskin (Nunga) and John Kelly (Arrentre) — created
Throughout the journey of touring dance and song globally, the group would also go on to register as an Aboriginal Theatre Trust, venturing into the dramatic arts. Ngarla waangk! Storytelling is an inherent part of many Aboriginal cultures, and Middar quickly became iconic cultural storytellers through dance, music and on the big stage. Boola, this means many, and Middar have had many stories throughout their nearly 50-year presence. Boola – many countries that they visited,
many celebrities that they met and many heartfelt and comedic stories of an Aboriginal group on a worldwide tour. Boola – many dancers that can call themselves Middar, many dance groups that have come from Middar and many generations that continue to be taught, dance and represent today as Middar.
Boola. There are many stories, all of which come from one momentous beginning.
Rickeeta Walley
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Presented with Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company
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In Her Footsteps: A Tribute to Matrilineal Legacy
exploring materials and storytelling in painting, portraiture and writing. Sarah Elson creates intricate sculptures from found seed casings and recycled materials, reflecting nature's resilience and the nurturing strength of motherhood. Darcey Bella Arnold explores aphasia, using her mother's speech patterns in text-based works that blend wordplay, metaphor and humour to capture memory. Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal artists D Harding and Kate Harding honour their matrilineal ties to Carnarvon Gorge through textile art, focusing on a quilt made by Kate for D's tenth birthday. Presented with PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
Seven contemporary Australian artists pay tribute to women who have shaped their lives, offering powerful insights into womanhood, motherhood and colonial histories. Using indigo and rust-dyed fabrics Zali Morgan's textile and print works trace the journeys of Yooreel Fanny Balbuk, a Whadjuk Noongar woman who defiantly walked her ancestral paths in Boorloo despite colonial encroachment. Melbourne artist Lauren Burrow captures the crocodile attack of environmental philosopher Val Plumwood in sculptures made using centrifugal force and beeswax, referencing the crocodile's death roll. Walyalup/Fremantle artist Tom Freeman’s works connect his family history with personal memory,
Laure Prouvost Oui Move In You
Bhenji Ra Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon
Filipina-Australian artist Bhenji Ra's 30-minute film, Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon , documents a process of ancestral, intergenerational learning. The work intertwines cultural heritage with themes of gender and identity, challenging Western dance norms and sparking dialogue on colonial perspectives and personal histories. In 2019 Bhenji studied pangalay, a pre-Islamic dance of the Tausug people, with her teacher and collaborator, Tausug elder Sitti Airia Sangkula Askalani-Obeso. In an interview with Mariam Ella Arcilla, Bhenji explains this fingernail dance tradition. ‘Pangalay is this performance that doesn't need a real cultural traditional framework [because] it's constantly in rotation and constantly spiralling around itself. It doesn't need a song, it just needs
the body to manifest itself. When I was 17, I took folk dance classes in Manila, and that's when I came across Pangalay. I was like, damn, it's so much like voguing! You had these women that were framing everything within their hands. It's also this celestial form that slips through gender, and through traditional and nontraditional spaces. There were these post- colonial ideas about this being a gendered dance; how men were not allowed to do Pangalay, but the Tausug Elder collapsed these ideas for me. It's like that with Filipino culture: there's something very progressive about the way we slip between genders and flip through all kinds of colonial constructs.’ Presented with PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
French artist Laure Prouvost has captivated contemporary art audiences for over a decade, winning the Turner Prize and representing France at the Venice Biennale. Celebrated for her imaginative and experimental videos, often set in unique installation environments, she examines the subjectivity of the human experience with a sensitive and poetic playfulness. Using a distinctive lexicon of recurring symbols and themes, her work considers notions of language and pre-verbal communication, aspects of family and biography, selfhood and our relationship with others and the environment. Inspired by the radical pathfinding figures who have shaped Laure both personally and artistically, Oui Move In You explores the cumulative influence of our relationships and experiences over time. Through a series of independent works, collectively suggestive of a life cycle, the exhibition conceptually explores the roles and legacies of our forebears and the evolution of familial connections and relationships over time. The exhibition reimagines PICA's gallery as a labyrinthine, otherworldly space, leading from the depth of the womb to the light of the sky. It begins with Four for See
Beauties (2022), an evocative piece featuring three women and a newborn amidst aquatic imagery, symbolising life's origins. The journey continues with Shadow Does (2023), where a young girl's shadow play recounts daily life to a distant grandmother, illustrating intergenerational change. The experience culminates in Every Sunday, Grand Ma (2022), where ‘Grandma’ (a recurring character throughout Laure's work) transforms into a winged figure, shedding earthly ties in a display of ultimate freedom. In a 2024 interview at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Laure remarked “I call myself a translator, rather than an artist … I like the idea that I translate an emotion, or a moment, or sensation.” Extending from this is the related possibility for misunderstanding and ambiguity, alluded to in the exhibition title Oui Move In You , a humorous combination of English and Laure's native French. Oui Move In You invites you on a transformative journey, reflecting the profound narratives of life, legacy and liberation.
Annika Kristensen , Curator
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Presented with PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Drylands The physical matter of land is always shifting and changing, impacted to varying degrees by weather events, changes in climate, human events and by the plants and animals that reside upon and within it. Art can tell this story. As artists are observers of the land, they can interpret what is happening to it, within their historical moment and place. This runs parallel to the reality of the land drying and the known devastating impacts of salinity. The problem of salinity has long been discussed – but its real consequences on our future in this place are slow to be clearly considered or understood; “The fact that we continue to believe, despite strong evidence to the contrary, that parts of the earth will remain magically beyond the
Andy Quilty with Western Australian high school students Happy Meals and Scooter Skids: art from the outer suburbs
ambit of capitalist production is what allows us to proceed with such reckless abandon.”¹ Through landscape painting, sculpture and installation, this exhibition presents eight artistic responses to the idea of dry lands. The artists respond to this theme in relation to the land in and around Lake Grace (Jo Darbyshire), Wellstead (Valdene Diprose and Molly Ryan), Walpole (Elizabeth Edmonds), Kwolyin (Lindsay Harris), Kojonup (Clare McFarlane), Lake Grace again (Tania Spencer), Grass Valley (Kate Turner) and Bridgetown (Tony Windberg). Together, they offer insights into the morphology of the land and the various impacts it is sustaining.
Happy Meals and Scooter Skids is a collaboration between Rockingham-based artist and educator Andy Quilty and students from Youth Futures Community School Midland, Armadale Senior High School and Warnbro Community High School. The project showcases outcomes from a series of workshops facilitated by Andy for the students throughout 2024.
‘I wanted to situate the project within outer suburbs impacted by socio-economic disadvantage. Public high school students in these areas experience disparity around access to equitable education and opportunities compared to private or inner-city public schools. This doesn't reflect the efforts of the schools or their students' potential; rather, it is indicative of our society's failure to respond to systemic issues facing these communities. Initially focusing on fundamental drawing skills, I quickly pivoted to a less prescriptive approach, giving the students access to different drawing and printmaking methods and materials, inviting them to improvise. We used found and low-cost materials and techniques connected with outer-suburban experience, such as drypoint prints made by scratching into a sheet of tin retrieved from a skip bin, or oil graffiti pen monotypes using fast food packaging as a print plate. In the print studio at Midland Junction Arts Centre (MJAC) we made large-scale collaborative monotypes with their big etching press. Other outer metropolitan suburbs in Perth don't have an arts centre with the facilities and breadth of public programming MJAC offers. I wanted the students to feel welcome in an arts institution and know that these community spaces belong to them. The monochromatic look of the final works was both a conceptual and pedagogical choice. I connect black with the outer suburban culture I grew up around in Rockingham – black jeans and metal t-shirts, black desert boots, black skid marks on bitumen, black HSVs and Ford XR8s, black oil pen scrawls on public walls, and of course AC/DC's Back in Black. Keeping colour options monochromatic directs the student's focus to the action and possibilities of mark-making and counteracts unintended limitations that colour can offer as a shorthand solution for sprucing up an image. It places the gesture I describe as “drawing from the guts rather than the head” and the essential content of the image in the forefront of the audience's attention.’
Presented with Holmes à Court Gallery @ no.10
¹Tony Hughes-d'Aeth, “The Cybernetic Wheatbelt: John Kinsella's Divine Comedy” in Angelaki, Journal of Theoretical Humanities , Vol.26, no.2, 2021, p.52.
de-centre re-centre de-centre re-centre explores the survival and connectedness
minimised within mainstream culture, although it does not presume to speak for all.
of communities despite the marginalising forces that seek to erase or diminish them. The artists in this exhibition employ photographic media in a variety of ways, but they share common threads – a deep engagement with place, identity and belonging, and the use of photography to challenge dynamics of visibility and power. The title of the exhibition alludes to the ‘centre’ and ‘peripheries’ of culture, where so-called ‘middle Australia’ denotes a middle-class, white, heterosexual and metropolitan majority. This is the default audience/consumer addressed diversify representation to better reflect the lived realities of the population. This exhibition decentres this default viewpoint to highlight some perspectives that are in popular media and shown on screens, despite efforts to
Crucially, de-centre re-centre examines photography as a medium with complex legacies, but one that can be used as a powerful tool for self-representation and advocacy. Artists deploy and disrupt photographic conventions such as genre, composition, surface and series to affirm the presence and agency of the subject, while reflecting on strategies for survival, bearing witness, care and resistance in First Nations, diasporic and queer contexts. Viewers are invited to reconsider not only the subjects within the frame but also their own position within the act of looking. Presented with Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery and Perth Centre for Photography
– Andy Quilty, 2025
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Presented with FORM Building a State of Creativity at FORM Gallery and Midland Junction Arts Centre
Mai Nguyen-Long Doba Nation
Dianne Jones The Beach
The clusters of ceramic forms that comprise Doba Nation are humorously defiant. Eyes bulge, mouths expel tongues and vomit, tiny Poo Balls are scattered throughout. Positioned on travel crates, repurposed as plinths, there is a sense of things being impermanent, unstable or on the move. This is a ramshackle chorus of rejected selves, claiming space and community. Mai Nguyen-Long's cylindrical forms are inspired by post-Vietnam War bomb shell casings that some residents of rural Vietnam have repurposed for practical use. Other disturbing connections to war have also found their way into her work – the striking orange of her Vomit Girl figures alludes to the notorious use of the defoliant Agent Orange by US forces. These characteristic figures seem
to be evolving into increasingly complex, rhythmic forms with holes, prongs and looping appendages jostling over the surface. Other slip painted forms appear to be in the process of transformation or disintegration. Tubular shapes reach out, holes searching like blind mouths or nostrils. At times complete faces are represented; their diversely stumpy, mutating shapes a reminder of Vomit Girl's genesis. There is a clear evolution here that suggests an eventual reunification of lost parts. This transformative aspect underpins
‘I became aware that it was difficult to find historical images of Aboriginal people just enjoying the beach by swimming, playing ball, sitting on the sand and enjoying the Western Australian sunshine. Iconic images of beach culture seemed to be only of white people enjoying the lifestyle. The power of seeing oneself represented culturally can have a positive effect or a negative one.’ – Dianne Jones Twenty-four years on from her 2001 series that marked the beginning of a burgeoning artistic career in the art of playful subversion, Dianne returns with her new work to multiply her presence. She is now joined by all the generations of her family. She takes over the entire beach scape. And that smile and wave has progressed to a full-blown Noongar beach party.
As her mother, brother, sister, nieces and nephews take over the sand and surf, intergenerational connections and the energy of this Noongar family are now filling the frame. Babies, teenagers, adults and Elders. The Australian pattern is exploded in a generative scene of play and what family looks like beyond Western isolationism of each generation, living apart and relegated to separate housing. This is significant in Australia given the direct attacks on Indigenous family as part of destroying culture. Excerpt from an essay by Dr Odette Kelada, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne Presented with Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre
a provocative complexity to Mai Nguyen-Long's work that is deeply compelling.
Lia McKnight , Curator
Presented with the John Curtin Gallery
Shupiwe Chongwe Bedforms
Kate Mitchell Idea Induction
bring those ideas into reality. While I can't do that last part for you, I felt it would be compelling to create an exhibition that offers this kind of service – an induction into the realm of your own ideas through my own. And so, I invite you to come and experience the singing chair – a chair you sit in while I strum its back. The sound reverberates through your body, surrounding you in resonant tones that shift the mind into those deep brainwave states where ideas and insights dwell. Allow the carpet of sound to transport you to the realm of ideas and trust you'll know a good one when you see it!
explanation for my African name that wouldn't require awkward responses to unwanted questions. This last month has been an exploration of clay, pottery and family. I've listened to my Ambuya share old stories of collecting clay from termite mounds for his grandmother. Alongside my father, I have watched the skilled hands of village potters moulding clay into sculpture and followed the slow rhythmic thwack of Mrs Mweemba's flip flops against hard earth as we journeyed to dig clay from a dry riverbed. Throughout this time, there have been many hours collecting, grinding and moulding clay myself, taking time to be still and reflect on the tradition I am continuing.
When I began developing a body of work for Fremantle Arts Centre, it dawned on me that the process of generating ideas could become the framework for the exhibition itself. That realisation was the spark for Idea Induction . The central question became: Where do ideas come from? From there, I began to make a series of conceptual responses that explore and respond to this inquiry. Ideas, both physically and energetically, emerge from the alpha and theta brainwave states – places of deep relaxation and heightened creativity. These states are home to insight, intuition, inner guidance, and what we often multitude of ways. To me, it's vital to connect deeply to our inner worlds, to engage with the ideas that matter most to us on a personal level, and then find ways to describe as “aha” moments. We access these states in a
I must be at least 30 percent clay by now. It clings to my skin, ingrains itself under fingernails, attaching to each inward breath. I pound the milky brown rock, dust swirling around me, smoke-like in the sunlight. I’ve learnt recently that the will to make pottery comes to some people whilst they sleep. The older potters tell us that through their dreams, they were compelled to work with clay. I think of being called through my subconscious in such a way, I can't imagine many stronger connections to the earth than that. I think of the other women in my family who have worked the earth before me … clay seeping into their pores, clinging to hair. Now I do the same, attempting to mirror their movements and bridge a gap that spans decades. The moist clay colours my skin a deep shade of brown, a shade that I used to long for it to be, an easy
Kate Mitchell
Presented with Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre
Shupiwe Chongwe Choma, Zambia, July 2024
Presented with Cool Change and PS Art Space
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Boorloo Contemporary & Exhibitions details
In Her Footsteps: A Tribute to Matrilineal Legacy (p15) Featuring Darcey Bella Arnold, Lauren Burrow, Sarah Elson, Tom Freeman, D Harding, Kate Harding & Zali Morgan 7 Feb – 30 Mar PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Tue – Sun 12pm – 5pm Official opening: Thu 6 Feb 6pm Image: Sarah Elson, Pull the earth around me 2 , 2024, Neck piece – recycled copper, silver, and gold
Mai Nguyen-Long Doba Nation (p18) 7 Feb – 17 Apr John Curtin Gallery Mon – Fri 10am – 5pm Sun 12 – 4pm Official opening: Thu 6 Feb 6pm
Alice Guiness Burndud Ground (p6) 7 Feb – 17 Apr John Curtin Gallery Mon – Fri 10am – 5pm Sun 12 – 4pm Official opening: Thu 6 Feb 6pm Image: Alice Guiness painting, cr. Marnie Richardson
Dianne Jones The Beach (p19) 8 Feb – 20 Apr Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre 10am – 5pm daily Official opening: Fri 7 Feb 6pm Image: Dianne Jones, Jones's Beach Party (detail) , 2024, digital print on Phototek, courtesy of the artist
Image: Mai Nguyen-Long, Doba Nation (detail) , 2024, courtesy the artist and Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin.
Judith Anya Samson Anya's Puntawarri World (p11) 7 Feb – 1 Mar DADAA Mon – Fri 10am – 4pm Sat 10am – 2pm Official opening: Fri 7 Feb 6pm Image: D Samson (dec), Puntawarri , 2015, acrylic on linen, courtesy the artist and Martumili Artists
Mervyn Street Stolen Wages (p7) 8 Feb – 20 Apr Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre 10am – 5pm daily Official opening: Fri 7 Feb 6pm Image: Mervyn Street, cr. Lachie Carracher Cover image: Mervyn Street, Branding Yard (detail) , 2024, acrylic paint on canvas, courtesy the artist and Mangkaja Arts Alton, Rickeeta & Richard Walley, Aboriginal Productions Middar Koora ba ye (p12) 16 Feb – 1 Mar Subiaco Arts Centre Gallery Wed – Fri 11am – 5pm Sat 11am – 7pm Performances: Sat 22 Feb & 1 Mar 6pm Supported by City of Subiaco Images: Archival photos, courtesy Middar Aboriginal Productions Shupiwe Chongwe Bedforms (p18) 8 – 21 Feb PS Art Space Tue – Fri 10am – 4pm Sat 12 – 5pm Official opening: Fri 7 Feb 6pm Supported by City of Fremantle, the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, PS Art Space and Joe's Printing Image: Drought Reveals the Clay , cr. Shupiwe Chongwe
Allan Yarran, Ilona McGuire & Daniel Hansen Power Station Commission (p2) 7 Feb – 2 Mar East Perth Power Station Wed – Sun 8pm Images: East Perth Power Station cr. Tristan McKenzie Allan Yarran, work from a private collection, image by Aaron Claringbold Ilona McGuire, image courtesy of the artist Daniel Hansen, Powerhouse Overdrive , 2025, image from animation by Sam Price
Drylands (p17) Featuring Jo Darbyshire, Valdene Diprose with Molly Ryan, Elizabeth Edmonds, Lindsay Harris, Clare McFarlane, Tania Spencer, Kate Turner & Tony Windberg 8 Feb – 26 Apr Holmes à Court Gallery @ no.10 Tue – Fri 12 – 5pm Sat 12 – 4pm Official opening: Fri 7 Feb 6pm Image: Elizabeth Edmonds, Endurance (detail) , 2024, ink and wax on board
Kate Mitchell Idea Induction (p19) 8 Feb – 20 Apr Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre 10am – 5pm daily Official opening: Fri 7 Feb 6pm
Bhenji Ra Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon (p15) 7 Feb – 30 Mar PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Tue – Sun 12pm – 5pm Official opening: Thu 6 Feb 6pm Image: Bhenji Ra, Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon , 2024, video still, courtesy the artist
Supported by City of Fremantle and Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney Image: Kate Mitchell, Study for Idea Induction (Highway Driving) , 2024, ink on paper, image courtesy the artist
Andy Quilty with Western Australian high school students Happy Meals and Scooter Skids (p16) 21 Feb – 24 May
Killa: Pindan to Plate (p8) 14 – 22 Feb The Rechabite Fri & Sat 6.30pm Images: Killa , film stills, cr. Sandy McLean Chad Creighton, cr. Sandy McLean
FORM Gallery Mon – Fri 9am – 3pm Sat 8am – 12pm Official opening: Thu 20 Feb 6pm 1 Mar – 27 Apr Midland Junction Arts Centre
de-centre re-centre (p17) Featuring Ramak Bazmar, Torika Bolatagici, Miriam Charlie, Brenda L Croft, Gerwyn Davies, Mary-Lou Divilli, Amos Gerbhardt, Simryn Gill, Taloi Havini, Naomi Hobson, Nuriah Jadai, Kyle Archie Knight, Maria Maraltadj, Sherry Quiambao, Scotty So & Tace Stevens 15 Feb – 3 May Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery Tue – Sat 11am – 4pm Image: Gerwyn Davies, Saguaro (detail) , 2024, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist, Jan Murphy Gallery and Michael Reid Gallery
Tue – Fri 10am – 5pm Sat & Sun 11am – 3pm Official opening: Fri 28 Feb 6pm Project Partner Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries FORM Gallery Partner Wesfarmers Arts Supported by Midland Junction Arts Centre and City of Swan Images: Printmaking workshop facilitated by Andy Quilty with students from Youth Futures Community School at Midland Junction Arts Centre, 2024, cr. Duncan Wright Kayden (Warnbro Community High School), Untitled (detail) , 2024, graphite and gouache monotype on paper
Laure Prouvost Oui Move In You (p14) 7 Feb – 30 Mar PICA – Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Tue – Sun 12pm – 5pm Official opening: Thu 6 Feb 6pm
Image: Opening event, Laure Prouvost: Oui Move In You , 2024, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, cr. Casey Horsfield
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