CURRENT EXHIBITION

Weaving Emergent Geographies

26 June – 19 July 2025

Michelle Duffy   Jean Louise Olivier  Penny Dunstan   
Candice Boyd   Theresa Harada   Kaya Barry
with an opening night performance by Jess Lemire

We are at a point in time where we must urgently address global challenges such as climate change, human rights, migrations, increasing inequalities, the rights of nature, the importance of Indigenous knowledge, and human-environment interactions. An emergent geographies acknowledges the ways these challenges arise out of complex interactions and relations that require greater emphasis on interdisciplinary thinking and creative approaches.

Weaving Emergent Geographies brings together diverse responses to such challenges from different places and research collaborations at the intersections of creative methodologies, experimental art practice, and multi-layered geographies. The exhibition includes sound installations, photography, textiles, ceramics and print-making which express our various emergent relationships with place and offering ideas for creative engagement in times of disruptive change.

In conjunction with  IAG2025 Institute of Australian Geographer’s Conference 30 June – 5 July
www.iag25newcastle.com.au

Songspirals
Songspirals has been curated by Yolŋu knowledge holders Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr Stubbs, Djawundil Maymuru,  and Rosealee Pearson with the Gay’wu Group of Women including Dr L Burarrwanga, R Ganambarr, Banbapuy Ganambarr, Lara Daley and Sarah Wright (University of Newcastle), and Kate Lloyd and Sandie Suchet-Pearson (Macquarie University). Describing Gurutu and kinship, it is an extensive exhibition that includes a selection of printmaking, barks and larrakitj. The exhibition has been developed through a research collaboration between academics and community leaders from the North-East Arnhem Region of the Northern Territory.

Natural Purpose
Spanning over a century, these works are connected to geographies across Australia, and all made from natural, harvested materials using traditional techniques. Natural Purpose is a juxtaposition of historical and contemporary cultural pieces such as a woven dilly bag collected in c. 1916 that sits alongside a skin cloak made in 2023 by a PhD candidate that has been donated to the University for Indigenous students to wear at Graduation.

_{IMAGE: Dr L Burarrwanga and R Ganambarr, Ghost Baskets, Bathi (coiled basket) ghost net, gunga djäma (pandanus)}