NIRIN NGAAY

NIRIN NGAAY is a compilation, a collection, a volume, an Artist Book, a Reader, an artwork, a sprawling, excessive heterogeneous space of connections.

Traversing many disciplines and forms, encompassing new and previously published works, complete works as well as excerpts and fragments and responses, each piece may ask for new modes of reading and seeing. Read and see and touch at random or with resolve – we hope that you will appreciate the way these works unfold and twist together, creating movements of meaning between them.

Listen to the introduction by Jessyca Hutchens, Curatorial Assistant to the Artistic Director for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney and a contributor and editor of NIRIN NGAAY, then explore the artist's excerpts.

A Dickensian Circus

The driving forces behind Karla’s need to communicate are her cross-cultural heritage often focusing on her Indigenous (Wiradjuri) bloodline, sexuality and life experiences as a soulful connected woman. She uses recycled everyday items to explore notions of persistence amidst inherent violence and misunderstanding.

Basquiat’s Lwas
New Rules of Engagement: A Remix
A Manifesto for Dreamers

Dr. Gina Athena Ulysse is a feminist interdisciplinary artist, anthropologist and writer. Her work has appeared in Feminist Studies, Gastronomica, Meridians, Souls, Third Text, Transition, and other venues. Her last book Because When God Is Too Busy: Haiti, me & THEWORLD (2017) – is a collection of poetry, performance texts, and photographs.

On the Movement of Plants

Andrew Rewald uses plants as medium and subject matter for experiential social engagement with performance, installation and mixed media work. This work links broader social and ecological awareness in urban and rural spaces to agriculture, foraging and cookery processes that highlight plant – food – people relationships in cultural and environmental contexts.

KINGITANGA KI TE AO >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> IHUMĀTAO: the land >>>>>>MUST be returned to Manawhenua

Emily Karaka is of Ngati Te Ahi Waru bloodlines with whakapapa to Puketapapa and Ihumatao from her father John Mita Karaka, named after his Great Grandfather Mita Karaka who went to England with the Maori King to address Treaty of Waitangi concerns in 1914. Karaka has painted and exhibited her works for 40 years and worked since 1992 for her other iwi Ngai Tai ki Tamaki addressing its environmental concerns and Treaty of Waitangi claims. Her paintings address political and environmental issues and Maori values.

Surfacing histories: Memorials and public art in Perth

Stephen Gilchrist is Associate Lecturer of Indigenous Art at the University of Sydney and belongs to the Yamatji people. He is a writer and curator who has worked with the Indigenous Australian collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the British Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.

The Black Feather

Gladys Milroy is an elder of the Palyku people of Western Australia, a writer and artist. Throughout her life, Glad has been a strong advocate for improving the wellbeing of Aboriginal peoples and believes that family, culture and land are central to this. Glad has been actively involved in the Palyku Native Title claim, who in 2019 finally received a successful determination. Now in her 90’s, Glad is still writing stories and advocating for cultural rights.

Asmática-Bananeira

Denilson Baniwa was born in Rio Negro, Amazonas in Brazil. His career as an artist was shaped early in childhood, informed by the cultural references of his people. Baniwa is an anthropophagous artist who appropriates Western languages to decolonise them in his work. Baniwa is known for breaking paradigms and opening ways for Indigenous people in national territories to be protagonists.

In the following episode of Fridays with Brook, Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter speak with NIRIN Artistic Director, Brook Andrew, about their own artistic processes in printed matter and how they came to collaborate and produce two publications for NIRIN.