Perth Festival 2026 Brochure

Image: Un Cheng, Beer, Weed and Spinach/ 啤酒、大麻和菠菜 , 2020

Image: Dhambit Munuŋgurr, Gunyaŋara , 2025 (detail)

Awakening Histories

Painting Itself 绘画本身

Image: Brad Rimmer, North Baandee Hall, 2021

Brad Rimmer Loom of the Land

WA

A major exhibition for our times, Awakening Histories honours First Nations people’s longstanding histories of encounter and interaction with people, technologies, plants and ideas from across the seas. Key works from major collections across Australia, Indonesia, China and the Philippines and new artists’ commissions – including a Boorloo Contemporary commission from Darrell Sibosado – showcase the storytelling of art and artists and follow trade routes and cultural exchange to recast history.

Five artists from Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, London, Shanghai and Singapore explore a new horizontal culture in painting. Through fresh approaches, Painting Itself reimagines painting through an East and Southeast Asian lens, challenging fundamental Western ideas about its history and vitality. Each artist searches for the ‘face’ of their work, leaning into the mood and psychic processes of their own painting, with its inner constraints and struggles. Experience contemporary painting anew, across cultures, geography and time.

Acclaimed WA artist Brad Rimmer captures the beauty, history and complexity of the Wheatbelt in his poetic, contemplative photographs. Drawing from his trilogy Silence (2010), Nature Boy (2019) and Nowhere Near (2023), Loom of the Land reflects on landscapes and communities shaped by European colonisation, revealing both resilience and fragility. The exhibition also premieres two new video works that breathe life into abandoned Wheatbelt town halls – once bustling social hubs, now silent reminders of another era. With original soundtracks from Emily Barker and Mark Holdsworth, these works reimagine spaces of memory and connection. Through photography, sound and place, Loom of the Land offers an evocative portrait of country, community and time.

7 Feb – 19 Apr Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre 10am – 5pm daily Free event

Presented with Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Monash University Museum of Art Darrell Sibosado’s work is a Perth Festival commission for Boorloo Contemporary 6 Feb – 29 Mar AUSTRALIA Tue – Sun 12 – 5pm

Presented with Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra

6 Feb – 29 Mar INTERNATIONAL Tue – Sun 12 – 5pm

Presented with Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Free event

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Free event

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