3CR interview with Peta Clancy and Kimba Thompson - Future River

7.15: Solidarity Breakfast’s Annie McLoughlin speaks with Kimba Thompson from Blak Dot Galleries(link is external) and artist Peta Clancy about the exhibition at Counihan Gallery in Brunswick called Future River - an indigenous perception of the river and watercourses across Naarm//

Listen here

Future River: When the past flows

Underneath each building or stretch of asphalt there are deep layers of meaning and history. Beneath the concrete there are countless stories not memorialized. Future River: When the past flows examines the Indigenous understanding that cities are obfuscations of what is — that monuments conceal the past. Under our cities, the rivers and creeks still flow, and with them the Indigenous narratives of the past that will naturally become future rivers. Though we may try to cage and redirect the flow of water using concrete, the waterways will inevitably run their own course.

This exhibition re-images and re-memorialises what lies beneath the concrete slab — thousands of years of story and life obscured. This exhibition draws attention to the role of the city as a besiegement, and how, through artistic intervention, we can allow the past to flow into the future once more.

​'Future River: When the past flows' features work by Maree Clarke (Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung), Julie Gough (Trawlwoolway), Peta Clancy (Bangerang) and Jody Haines (palawa). The project is curated by Kimba Thompson.

This exhibition is presented in partnership with Blak Dot Gallery as part of PHOTO 2024 at Counihan Gallery.

WEATHER/Whether

Exhibition

WEATHER/Whether

Curated by dr megan evans and Olivia Poloni

Artists: Alison Bennett, Peta Clancy, Megan Cope, Jessie French, Cara Johnson, Keg de Souza, Gomathi Suresh and Mandy Quadrio.

Opening: Wednesday 8 November 6.30 to 8.30pm
Exhibition dates: 9 Nov to 7 Jan 2024

An exhibition that looks at the effects of climate change and the weather on our lived experience. 
How are we coming to terms with the weather we are experiencing and what might be coming in our future? Do we adapt, resist, control or ignore these major weather incidents that are happening more and more often? 

Artists have been at the forefront of calling for action on this issue.
There are many complex elements at play in the arena of climate change that have informed creative work over many years. This exhibition provides a glimpse into a creative way to deal with our current concerns and how creative power can insight change. 

Wyndham Art Gallery
177 Watton Street, Werribee 

First Nations Photography 28 OCT 23 - 04 FEB 24

Exhibition

Bendigo Art Gallery Collection

This exhibition of selected works from the Bendigo Art Gallery collection brings contemporary First Nations photography into dialogue with historic photographic images. Together, the works offer an exploration of the history and legacy of photography in relation to First Nations people, and how contemporary Aboriginal artists are turning the tide on the medium in the pursuit of self-representation and truth-telling. 

Photography has a history of working against First Nations people, too often used as a tool of dehumanising anthropological ‘study’ and colonial control. The First Nations photographers featured in this exhibition are taking the power back through richly poetic photographic art produced with refined technical knowhow, illuminating histories and knowledge from across Australia. Featured artists include Michael Cook (Bidjara), Peta Clancy (Bangerang), and Naomi Hobson (Kaantju, Umpila). 

First Nations Photography: In conversation with artist Peta Clancy and First Nations Engagement Curator Lorraine Brigdale

Join Bendigo Art Gallery Curator Lorraine Brigdale in conversation with artist Dr Peta Clancy as they discuss how contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists are turning the tide on the medium of photography in the pursuit of self-representation and truth-telling. 

Learn how photography is historically linked with colonial perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and contemplate how First Nations artists are taking the power back through richly poetic photographic art. Discover the story behind Peta Clancy’s featured artwork Undercurrent, 2019, that explores hidden and dramatic alterations to Dja Dja Wurrung waterways through layered imagery.  

This program is delivered in correspondence with exhibition First Nations Photography, on display at Bendigo Art Gallery from Saturday 28 October – Sunday 4 February 2024. The exhibition features historical imagery and artworks by Michael Cook (Bidjara), Peta Clancy (Bangerang), and Naomi Hobson (Kaantju, Umpila). 

The Soils Project: A Focus on First Nations discussion

Recording from the discussion that took place on Sunday 8 October 2023.

Artists Brooke Wandin (Wurundjeri) and Peta Clancy (Yorta Yorta) in discussion with TarraWarra Director, Victoria Lynn about their works and the collaborative processes involved in The Soils Project. Having worked in close collaboration with the Wandoon Estate Aboriginal Corporation (Coranderrk) to realise their projects, the artists discuss their interpretation of soil and the protocols involved in developing their projects.

The Soils Project is an ongoing research-based experimental project. It is a collaboration between TarraWarra Museum of Art; Struggles for Sovereignty, a collective based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia; and leading contemporary arts museum the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

Contemporary Photography / Peta Clancy, Simryn Gill, Brett Neilson and Amanda Williams

In Conversation: This event took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia on 22 September 2023.

In Australia, the United States, and around the world, land has been subjected to a series of violent processes – colonial expropriation, division by borders, and the extraction of its resources. Since its invention in the 19th century, photography has provided an important visual record of these processes but is also a product of this history. From its early dependence on the mining and global circulation of minerals like copper and silver, to its role in the resource-hungry spread of digital images today, one could say that the act of photography is constantly taking place. Featuring Peta Clancy, Brett Neilson, Simryn Gill and Amanda Williams, this panel will consider how contemporary Australian artists have responded to this history, how they engage with photography’s troubled relationship to land, place and Country, and how they use photographic technologies and practices to envision different relationships between people and places.

Contemporary Photography/Peta Clancy, Simryn Gill, Brett Neilson and Amanda Williams

The Soils Project

Exhibition

The Soils Project, Tarrawarra Museum of Art

meaning of soil as both matter and metaphor. 

The Soils Project, 5 August – 12 November 2023, brings together 13 practitioners and collectives from Australia, the Netherlands and Indonesia to explore the complex and diverse relationships between environmental change and colonisation.  

The exhibition is the latest iteration of an ongoing research-based experimental project developed in collaboration with leading contemporary arts museum the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands and Struggles for Sovereignty, a collective based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The Soils Project arises from specific and situated practices that each of the participants and artists brings to their understanding of soil, as both metaphor and matter.