Vernon Ah Kee : way to be

In way to be, renowned artist Vernon Ah Kee reimagines how we view and interact with cultural heritage sites—specifically the iconic Western Yalanji rock art of Magnificent Gallery—through the lens of contemporary technology.

The project begins with a four-day ‘tech tour’ across Western Yalanji country, where Ah Kee travels alongside rangers and technologists. This hands-on experience, facilitated by Deadly Innovation (Advance Queensland), KJR Enterprises, and Jarramali Rock Art Tours, lays the groundwork for the exhibition. In 2023, Ah Kee also contributes to a full-day Intellectual Property workshop in Cairns with the Western Yalanji Corporation and key stakeholders.

Reflecting on his upbringing in 1970s–80s Far North Queensland, Ah Kee explores how the over-commercialisation of the Magnificent Gallery dulls public perception of its cultural significance. way to be seeks to shift this narrative—using data sets, multi-spectral imaging, and ground-penetrating lasers to offer new ways of seeing and understanding the site.

Blending art, technology, and cultural reflection, way to be opens space for fresh conversations around rock art—beyond spectacle.

About the Artist

Vernon Ah Kee is a Brisbane-based artist at the forefront of conceptual art practice in Australia. Vernon Ah Kee is a descendant of the Kuku Yalanji, Yidinyji, and Guugu Yimithirr people of North Queensland. He also has kinship connections to the Waanyi people of North-West Queensland.

Vernon Ah Kee is attuned to the politics of representation, and the social and economic implications of unequal cultural exchange in Australia. He draws on ethnographic archives to challenge colonial legacies and to engage audiences with the strong and continuing presence of Aboriginal Australians, their histories, and their cultures. Ah Kee’s conceptual text pieces reposition the Aboriginal in Australia from an ‘othered thing’, anchored in museum and scientific records to a contemporary people inhabiting real and current spaces and time.

Vernon Ah Kee’s work is held in major art collections within Australia and overseas including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the Tate Modern, London.