Ashleigh Campbell | Artistic Director / CEO
Hamish Sawyer | Acting Director
Aven Noah Jr. | Curator & Gallery Officer
Jamaylya Ballangarry-Kearins | Gallery Officer
Jamie Clarke | Communications Officer
Katrina Iosia | Programs Coordinator
Lauren Carter | Gallery Store Manager
Melania Jack | Events and Content Producer
Rebecca Youdell | Executive Administrator
Michael Cosgrove | Chair
Andrea Huelin
Bruce Prideaux
David Marsden
Francoise Lane
John Stafford
Michael Marzik
Murray Jones
In 2020, NorthSite Contemporary Arts (formerly KickArts) relaunches within Bulmba-ja Arts Centre (formerly Centre of Contemporary Arts) in Cairns. About NorthSite formerly KickArts Cairns.
As a key company (one of few independent contemporary visual arts institutions north of Brisbane), this organisation has advocated, demonstrated resilience and excellence over decades, championing artists of the North and presenting boundary-pushing programs through an experimental ethos relevant to a wide region.
We work across disciplines (visual art, craft, design, sound, performance & screen media), in collaboration with individual artists, Indigenous-led art centres, other galleries, touring bodies and partnering companies to realise 30+ exhibitions and 150 programs each year; often presenting a diversity of work unseen elsewhere in Australia.
KickArts holds a proud 30+ year history since its inception as a boundary-pushing artist collective formed in Cairns in the early 1990s.
Highlight exhibitions include:
The Fish John West Regrets (1993). Linkage Leakage (1993). Baggage: A Pastiche of Portable Art (1996). Kicking Cans (1997). Ailan Currents: contemporary printmaking from the Torres Strait (2007). Blak Roots (2008). Thancoupie: Ceramic Exhibition (2008). Sting in the Tail (2009). Brian Robinson: Men+Gods (2012). Renegades: Outsider Art (2014). Sageraw Thonar: Stories from the Southeasterly Season, contemporary expressions of cultural knowledge from Badu Art Centre (2016). Teho Ropeyarn: Ulada Ikya Ami, listening to Beforetime Stories (2017).
Formerly Centre of Contemporary Arts, Cairns – Bulmba-ja was renovated by the Queensland Government (2018-2020) and has been gifted the name by representatives of the Traditional Owner groups, of the Yirrgandji and Gimuy Walubara Yidinji clans.
Bulmba-ja is an incubator and performance venue. It’s home to the next wave of Indigenous dance and performance in Queensland. Boasting flexible exhibition and co-working spaces plus theatre and rehearsal spaces, fronted by the dazzling NorthSite Store, where we showcase the work of leading artists from across Cairns, Cassowary Coast, Cape York, the Gulf of Carpentaria and Torres Strait Islands.
NorthSite Contemporary Arts is a new artistic experience for artists & audiences. Come in and check out what’s on!
About NorthSite formerly KickArts Cairns
About NorthSite formerly KickArts Cairns