NorthSite Contemporary Arts’ 2024 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 second season for 2024 will include:
Anastasia Klose – For thy sake I in love am grown – Drawings, video and performance responding to the Mossman-based artist’s involvement in the campaign to save the rapidly diminishing biodiversity of far north Queensland.
Annika Harding – Flux and Fog – Landscapes of the Atherton Tablelands – Paintings on reclaimed timbers exploring the landscapes around the artist’s Atherton Tablelands home.
Naomi Evans – I AM – Textiles by the Cairns-based emerging artist, serving as a powerful meditation on individual agency in reshaping our own narrative.
Alex Baird Murphy – Magic Compass – Paintings that draw on the artist’s Kuku Yalanji heritage, his interest in music, graffiti, and the urban environment.
EXHIBITIONS
ANASTASIA KLOSE For thy sake I in love am grown
ANNIKA HARDING Flux and Fog: Landscapes of the Atherton Tablelands
ALEX BAIRD MURPHY Magic Compas
EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS
Workshop The Ancient art of Applique with Naomi Evans
Workshop — Painting an experience of place with Annika Harding
Dream Big: Emerging Creatives Lab
The ‘Dream Big: Emerging Creative Lab’ by Flame.Arts is only a week away. This session will focus on personal branding and raising your profile with seasoned industry professionals.
NorthSite’s Communication Officer, Jamie Clarke will be presenting alongside musician LT (Leanne Tennant) and Angelo Saliba with Anthea Saliba from Bang Media.
If you’re an emerging creative dreaming of making it in the arts join this free interactive session.
Price: Free
When: Thursday, 21 March 2024
Duration: 6pm-8pm
Location: Tank 4, Tanks Arts Centre | 46 Collins Ave, Edge Hill QLD 4870
REGISTER HERE
Facilitator: Sharon Timms (Creative Life, Cairns Regional Council)
Presenters: LT (Leanne Tennant, Musician), Angelo Saliba and Anthea Saliba (Bang Media) and Jamie Clarke (NorthSite Contemporary Arts)
Selina Kudo | Australian Photobook Awards
Ahead of the Photobook workshop this Saturday, Cairns-based Artist Selina Kudo has been shortlisted for the 2024 Australian & New Zealand Photobook Awards.
Facilitated by Photo Collective in partnership with Photo Australia the 2024 Australian & New Zealand Photobook Awards will be announced on the 23rd of March, 2024 at the Photobook Weekend as part of the PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography in Melbourne. All shortlisted photobooks will be on display including Selina’s Photobook ‘As I Was Searching [For Another]’.
Congratulations Selina!
MORE INFORMATION
Workshop in Cairns | Selina Kudo: Moments in Monochrome
Exhibition at NorthSite | Selina Kudo: Conversations with My Barista (Real or Imagined)
2024 Australian and New Zealand Photobook Awards
Photo Collective
As I Was Searching [For Another] | Bad News Books
![The Back and Front cover of a photobook with gold writing. On the front is the text 'Selina Kudo' and the back 'As I Was Searching [For Another]' and 'Bad News Books'](https://northsite.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/selina-kudo-photobook-800px.jpg)
Image courtesy the artist.
Upcoming Film and Workshop
It is the final month of our first exhibition season and to celebrate we have the feature documentary film screening ‘Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us’ and a fantastic photobook workshop by exhibiting Artist Selina Kudo.
FILM SCREENING
Delve into the story of Cairns-based Artist Geoff Dixon in the feature documentary film ‘Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us’. Geoff’s vibrant paintings and sculptures transport us into another time and place whilst reflecting on the impact of human life and technology on the natural world. The film will take you on an adventure of Geoff’s life grounded in love and friendship.
Director of Photography, Russell Milledge, was instrumental in establishing the studio and location footage with Geoff Dixon, Arone Meeks and Euan Macleod over the two years of research and film production on this feature documentary.
Book your tickets today and be transported into the intimate portrait of the life, love, and friendships of Artist Geoff Dixon.
Time and Date: 1PM — 3PM, Saturday 16th March
Venue: NorthSite at Bulmba-ja, 96 Abbott Street, Cairns City
Tickets: https://northsite.org.au/event/geoff-dixon-portraits-of-us/
PHOTOBOOK WORKSHOP
As part of Selina Kudo’s latest photography exhibition at NorthSite we invite you to experience her photobook workshop, ‘Moments in Monochrome’. In this two-part workshop, you’ll unlock the artistry within your everyday moments and be immersed in the world of storytelling through photography. Together, we’ll weave these unique narratives into a collective work—a mini photobook that combines the shared stories of our diverse perspectives.
Meet like-minded people and explore your creativity in this fantastic workshop.
Part 1: Saturday 16th March. 10am – 12pm
Part 2: Wednesday 27th March. 5.30pm – 7.30pm
Tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/moments-in-monochrome-crafting-stories-with-disposable-camera-diptychs-part-1
Film Screening Tickets | Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us
Photobook Workshop Tickets | Moments in Monochrome
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Geoff Dixon. Photo: Cristina Bevilacqua
Image courtesy of Selina Kudo.
IWD | Pressing Topics
This International Women’s Day (IWD) we are celebrating the incredible powerhouse duo, The Ironing Maidens.
The Ironing Maidens, led by Cairns-based Artists Melania Jack and Patty Preece, is an experimental art duo turning domestic objects into electronic instruments to explore themes of gender, domestic labour and technology. In 2022, The Ironing Maidens presented their exhibition ‘Pressing Topics‘ in the NorthSite galleries at Bulmba-ja.
This multi-media installation of projection, sculpture, digital collage, video and sound was a low fi wonderland that smashed pink, Pop and the industrial into a new and playful aesthetic. The work disrupts the ideal proposition of the perfect housewife or the perfect domestic worker and aims to elevate and confront historical and ongoing contemporary issues of discrimination in the domestic labour force.
More recently, The Ironing Maidens have delivered the immersive and interactive performance experience ‘Hot & Heavy’: A speculative fabulation. A non-binary, de-capitalised, de-colonised, de-extinction future imagining.
Where to after NorthSite
Since presenting their exhibition ‘Pressing Topics‘ at NorthSite, The Ironing Maidens work has been presented at IWD Canada – Victoria Society of the Arts in 2023. Later this year they will be exhibiting at ISEA (International Symposium of Electronic Art) in Meanjin / Brisbane.
View the ‘Pressing Topics’ Exhibition at NorthSite
Visit The Ironing Maidens
Pressing Topics. An installation by The Ironing Maidens.
NGURRUWARRA/ DERNDERNYIN: Stone Fish Traps Of The Wellesley Islands
The exhibition catalogue from ‘NGURRUWARRA/ DERNDERNYIN: Stone Fish Traps Of The Wellesley Islands’ is available to download from the link below.
FOREWORD
WORDS: SEAN ULM, JOHN ARMSTRONG AND BERELINE LOOGATHA
Fish traps are central to Kaiadilt, Lardil, Yangkaal and Gangalidda culture, story and very identity.
Fish traps are a key element of material culture shared across the Wellesley Islands region.
This mammoth Ngurruwarra/Derndernyin canvas is a celebration of culture, story and relationship across the seas, lands and skies of the Traditional Owner communities throughout the Wellesley Islands region.
The artwork is a collaboration between ten Kaiadilt, Lardil and Gangalidda artists working together across a massive 20-metre-long by 2-metre-wide canvas. Each artist painted multiple sections of the canvas, with artists negotiating with each other to ensure continuity of story across contiguous elements of the canvas.
Between them, the artists are custodians of intimate knowledge of Country. The most senior Kaiadilt artists of the work, for example, were amongst the last coastal Aboriginal people to be institutionalised in Australia, being forcibly removed from Bentinck Island to a European Mission on Mornington Island in 1948.
One of the first things the Kaiadilt community did when they arrived on Mornington Island was to build their own fish trap near their camp, which is still visible in the intertidal zone in front of the
Kuba Natha Hostel.
This artwork was commissioned by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) to celebrate the relationships between Traditional Owners and researchers working on Country.
The artists dedicate this artwork to the late brilliant Dibirdibi Elsie Gabori, who passed away after the work was completed. She is sorely missed.
DOWNLOAD CATALOGUE HERE
VIEW EXHIBITION
Photographer: Cristina Bevilacqua
Mixed Grill event recap
Earlier this year, NorthSite hosted the one-night micro-festival event, Mixed Grill, produced by The 5Five collective.
Mixed Grill closed the collectives exhibition in Gallery 2, ’other’, and was a live performance-based extension of the thematic framework of this exhibition.
‘other’ curator and Mixed Grill creative producer Nicholas Mills, worked with the The 5Five collective and the NorthSite team, to produce a diverse ‘ensemble’ night of experimental performance, new music and sound art, queer cabaret and visual media, critical yarns and DJ culture.
The exhibiting ‘other artists’, Roderick Newbury, Tegan Koster, Doula, Fletcher Glover, and John De Satge, were joined on the night by performance artists Rebecca Youdell, Jay Wymarra, Paul Barron, Rob Eakin, Derryn Knuckey and File_Error, and Calling to Country by Djabugay cultural leader Dennis Hunter.
Mixed Grill is a moving feast: activated performance spaces were enabled throughout the venue at Bulmba-ja. Punters were initially greeted at the front door and encouraged to have their picture taken in the ‘other’ booth, thus becoming part of the work ‘other is you’. DJ Whichway met the audience in the foyer with a fine selection of groove, alongside the ‘other’ exhibition and delicious food by The Toasted Goat and drinks from the Hungry Pitcher.
‘other’ booth, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
DJ Whichway, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
The audience were then led into Gallery 1, and greeted with a bare, talk-panel format, Space.
Dennis Hunter Acknowledged Country before members of The 5Five collective engaged in the yarning panel, ‘In Other Words’, moderated by John De Satge, and exploring individual and universal perceptions, and experiences, of ‘other’.
Yarn Panel with Dennis Hunter, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
Following the panel discussion, interdisciplinary practitioner Rebecca Youdell and media artist File_Error performed a delicate sound, screen and movement performance in response to the exhibition.
Other Response with Rebecca Youdell+ File_Error, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
The audience were then directed to move to Studio B, where Dennis Hunter then guided them through ‘Calling to Country’ and true history, before John De Stage’s game-show style ‘MAJORITIES live’, welcomed three attendees to test their knowledge against the expert ‘flag-guy’ in a showdown of interactive Flag Game performance.
MAJORITIES live’ with John De Satge, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
The Mixed Grill program juxtaposes work and space that compliment and contrast: the audience were then led to the rear carpark of Bulmba-ja, for the outdoor performance/ installation piece ‘Exercise In Futility’.
Produced by Nicholas Mills, and performed by the 5Five artists, with sound by Fletcher Glover and BLK+SBBTH, this ‘roving parade’ utilised discarded gym equipment and the rolling shell of an XP Ford Falcon, to illustrate a compelling visual and conceptual image.
Exercise in Futility with The 5Five, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
It was then back into Studio B for a cabaret-styled double header: Jay Wymarra presented excerpts from his new show ‘AmaJayus’, which will premiere at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Tegan Koster then set the stage for a massive retro-synth exploration, presenting a quirky and upbeat live electro/screen showing of her new art-pop sound works, as part of her ongoing project ‘Shapes’.
AmaJayus – Jay Wymarra, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
Shapes – Tegan Koster, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
After a short break, the night moved into its final gear, with cult improvisation art/noise band ‘dero’, led by File_Error, and the funk/groove contrast of DJ Mr Tarago, cutting their own aural space, for a final sound and dance floor spin.
Dero – dero, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
DJ Mr Tarago, Mixed Grill, NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns, 2024. Photo Gonza Ianza
Words: Nicholas Mills
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VIEW THE EXHIBITION
Cairns Animation Incubator
If you’re interested in animation take a look at these Animation Workshops and get your name on the list. Email “I’m Interested” to: cairns.animation@icloud.com
Series 1:
Focus on Indigenous Artists
Saturdays March 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd
Digital tools for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to bring story telling to life.
Series 2:
Focus on 2D Drawing and Animation
Saturdays April 20th, 27th and May 4th, 11th
Series 3:
Stop Motion Characters, Sets, Lighting, Compositing
Saturdays May 18th, 25th and June 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd
Series 4
3D Modelling, Scanning, Texturing and Animation
Saturday July 13th, 20th, 27th and August 3rd
Presented by Ian Whittaker with support from Cairns Regional Council, Arts Queensland, Trinity Bay State High School and Indigenous Design Labs.
Please note that this program is not associated with NorthSite Contemporary Arts.
Image courtesy of Cairns Animation Incubator
Exhibition Season 1 Overview
NorthSite Contemporary Arts’ 2024 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 canvas 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 photographic and video installation by Cairns-based emerging artist Selina Kudo; and in Gallery Two, ‘Facing Time: 50 Years’ a collaborative exhibition of paintings and drawings by artists and long-term friends Euan Macleod and Cairns-based Geoff Dixon. In addition to our gallery exhibitions, we will present exciting new editions produced through our SpotFire First Nations artist print program, across the Foyer and Long wall spaces.
EXHIBITIONS
NGURRUWARRA/ DERNDERNYIN: Stone Fish Traps Of The Wellesley Islands
Conversations with my barista (Real or imagined)
EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS
Film Screening — Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us
Workshop — Moments in Monochrome: Crafting Stories with Disposable Camera Diptychs
Artlink: Yarning with Cairns First Nations Curators’ Collective
The latest issue of Artlink 43:3 features a conversation between three Cairns First Nations Curators; Aven Noah Jnr., Peggy Lane and Teho Ropeyarn. Facilitated by Hamish Sawyer the conversation delves into the curator’s insights and experiences.
Peggy Kasabad Lane is a proud Saibai Koedal Clan woman from the Guda Maluylgal Nation in Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait), and is the First Nations Curator at Cairns Regional Council. Aven Noah Jnr. is a proud Komet Tribesman from Mer (Murray Island), and is the Curator at NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns. Teho Ropeyarn is an artist and curator of the Angkamuthi and Yadhaykana clans from Injinoo, Cape York Peninsula, Badu, Moa and Murray Island. He is the Curatorial Associate at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair. Hamish Sawyer is a curator, writer and is the Artistic Director of NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns.*
Read the full conversation between Aven Noah Jnr., Peggy Lane and Teho Ropeyarn with NorthSite Artistic Director Hamish Sawyer in ArtLink issue 43:3.
*Source Artlink website: Click Here