For architecture and country

Torres Strait Islander Kevin O'Brien, who is commissioning and directing an independent exhibition called 'Finding Country' at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 running from August to 25 November 2012, writes about an Aboriginal architecture that is not about buildings shaped like native animals.

Published June 2012

Tandanya: the case for home

The National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, known as Tandanya, was established in 1989 in Adelaide. Philip Watkins, Artistic and Cultural Director of Tandanya, 2006-2011, said: “This is Tandanya’s role – to show our world through our eyes, to tell our stories and to sing our songs with our voices.” Curator, educator and writer Sara White reviews Tandanya's 23 years of art and asks "Does Australia need more Tandanyas?"

Published June 2012

Marco Fusinato: There Is No Authority

Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sydney
11 February - 17 March 2012

Published June 2012

Tu Di Shen Ti, Our Land Our Body: the Ngaanyatjarra poetic goes to China

The exhibition 'Tu Di Shen Ti – Our Land Our Body, Masterworks of the Warburton Collection', was seen in China by about a quarter of a million people, across seven venues, throughout 2011. Director of the Warburton Arts Project Gary Proctor describes how the exhibition came about, what it looked like and what its goal are.

Published June 2012

Postcards from China

Multi-disciplinary artists Jason Wing, who has both Aboriginal and Chinese forebears, undertook a residency in Xucun, a remote village in China, where Chinese artists Qu Yuan and Shen Shaomin have established the Xucun Art Commune in order to protect the village's beauty and heritage.

Published June 2012

Long Way Home: A celebration of 21 years of Yunggorendi First Nations Centre

Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research at Flinders University, celebrated 21 years of operation in 2011 with an exhibition of work selected by staff and students from the collection of Flinders University Art Museum. Artist Ali Gumillya Baker critically reviews selected works in the exhibition and the issues they raise.

Published June 2012

Sitting & connecting: Goulburn Art Class 2-0-1-1

Goulburn Class 2-0-1-1 was an exhibition curated by Djon Mundine at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery of work made by prisoners at the local Correction Centre in response to ten one day workshops in the prison by seven Aboriginal artists whose work was also in the show. Writer and editor Maurice O'Riordan reviews the exhibition and more importantly the processes it involved.

Published June 2012

Chiharu Shiota: State of Being Sue Saxon and Jane Becker: All that is solid melts into air

TarraWarra Museum of Art
25 February - 27 May 2012

Published June 2012

The performative print: Alick Tipoti's Girelal

Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti has developed a rigorous and passionate art practice to ensure the maintenance and survival of his cultural traditions. Printmaker Jan Hogan explores the making and the experience of Tipoti's 8 metre long linocut Girelal hung in the 18th Biennale of Sydney 2012.

Published June 2012

Queerly speaking

The art practice of Troy-Anthony Baylis uses knitting, performance, collage and other 'crafts' to engages with queering as a strategy, to unsettle the ways that Aboriginality is constructed as pure and untainted by the complexity of sexuality, mixed ethnographies, mixed geographies and mixed appearances.

Published June 2012

Into Cosmos: Adelaide Festival Artists' Week 2012

Published June 2012

Obscured by Light: Pamela Lofts and Kim Mahood

Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs 25 February – 25 March 2012

Published June 2012