NorthSite Contemporary Arts is excited to announce its 2024 exhibition calendar. Next year’s exhibition program celebrates the breadth and diversity of practice in Far North Queensland, in dialogue with artists who have strong connections to the region.
Our first season for 2024 will include the inaugural presentation of ‘Ngurruwarra/Derndernyin (stone fish trap)’, a monumental painting installation by established and emerging artists from Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation, Mornington Island Art, the outcome of a research project led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH). Alongside this exhibition will be ‘Conversations with my barista (real or imagined)’, a new video installation by Cairns-based Selina Kudo; and ‘Facing Time: 50 Years’ a collaboration between artists and long-term friends Euan Macleod and Cairns-based Geoff Dixon.
Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation, ‘Ngurruwarra/Derndernyin (stone fish trap)’, (detail), 2023. Image courtesy of Mirndiyan Gununa Aboriginal Corporation.
Season two will focus on the local environment, with Mossman-based artist Anastasia Klose presenting ‘For thy sake I in love am grown’ an ambitious exhibition of new drawings, video and daily performance, responding to the diminishing biodiversity in Queensland and immanent threats to its unique landscapes. Annika Harding’s ‘Flux and Fog: Landscapes of the Atherton Tablelands’ examines moments of tension between the built environment and agricultural landscapes, the lush rainforest ecosystem and associated intense weather patterns.
Anastasia Klose, For thy sake I in love am grown, (detail). Image courtesy the artist.
Major gallery exhibitions throughout 2024 will be complemented by project shows on the Long Gallery and Foyer walls, with a focus on early career and First Nations practitioners, supported by NorthSite curator Aven Noah Jr and the wider team. Project wall shows will include outcomes from the Spotfire printmaking development program, a jewellery and small object exhibition curated by Lauren Carter, and the ever-popular annual NorthSite Art Market.
In season three, NorthSite will present a suite of exhibitions by Queensland First Nations artists, coinciding with the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) 2024. This will include the premiere of a major new video and sound installation ‘way to be’ by artist Vernon Ah Kee (Kuku Yalanji, Yidinyji and Guugu Yimithirr), harnessing drone footage and data to showcase the Magnificent Gallery of Rock Art in Western Yalanji country as never seen before. In partnership with Gab Titui Cultural Centre, Thursday Island, Aven Noah Jr will profile exciting new developments in practice from leading and emerging Torres Strait Islander artists.
Season Four showcases experimental approaches to the local landscape, through Oak Beach artist Jill Chism’s ‘Remnants’, an exhibition of recent and existing assemblage and installation works that explore our relationship to an increasingly fragile natural world. Topaz-based artist Luke Aleksandrow presents the third iteration of ‘The Break Project’ entitled ‘Sounds of the Tropics’, documenting the breakage of ceramics made by artists from the region, accompanied by an atmospheric soundscape.
Jill Chism, Remnants, (detail). Image courtesy the artist.
For the final season of the year, NorthSite will present the touring exhibition ‘I, Object’ from the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, which considers the many complex relationships Indigenous Australian artists continue to have with cultural objects – from the histories informing their creation to the social and cultural consequences of their collection.
In addition to the onsite exhibition program, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, will present ‘Compositional Utterances’, a site-responsive, collaborative exhibition by Brisbane-based artists Mandy Quadrio, Susan Hawkins and Jan Oliver, whose material-led practices share feminist and ecological concerns. The exhibition is a collaboration between NorthSite and the University of Sunshine Coast Art Gallery, and will be presented at the Court House Gallery in Cairns, supported by Cairns Regional Council. NorthSite will again present an exhibition and art market stall at the Cairns Convention Centre, as part of the CIAF 2024; and is working with artist/curator Taloi Havini to showcase the work of artists from FNQ Sea Country, at Ocean Space, Venice during the 60th Venice Biennale.