The haunting echoes of ceramic dingo whistles and a massive 80-square-metre desert canvas – hailed as one of the most extraordinary pieces of Indigenous art never before exhibited in Sydney – are set to shatter the city’s silence.
The Biennale of Sydney pulled back the curtain on its full program for its 25th edition, to kick off from March 14, with 84 artists representing 37 countries across six primary exhibition sites and 13 additional programming venues.
Under artistic director Hoor Al Qasimi, the program sidesteps the incendiary geopolitics of the Middle East to focus on Indigenous experiences of displacement, and erasure and the universal longing for home.
It’s a theme organisers hope will resonate deeply with a city where 63 per cent of residents are first or second-generation migrants. Notably, nearly a third of the artists are Australian, and 85 per cent of the works are original commissions never seen elsewhere.
The biennale has adopted the term “rememory”– coined by American novelist Toni Morrison – as its curatorial anchor. “Memory changes; our perspective changes. What is written as history isn’t always fact,” says chief executive Barbara Moore.
The appointment of Al Qasimi, an internationally renowned curator from the United Arab Emirates, has faced scrutiny from sections of the Murdoch press and the Jewish community regarding her personal pro-Palestine stance. In response to heightened tensions following the December Bondi killings, Moore has personally vetted every work in the exhibition.
“Multiple times over, in fact,” Moore says. “This is a culturally diverse program rooted in community care. We want to ensure everyone feels welcome and safe. Our commitment to artistic freedom is a commitment to exploring difficult ideas, but our process ensures an environment free from harassment, discrimination, and racism. We ensure that line is never crossed.”
A centrepiece of the biennale is a new sculptural sound installation by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger, who will hang dingo-shaped ceramic whistles at the White Bay Power Station – the most atmospheric of the Biennale’s six exhibition venues – to evoke a metaphorical howl of Australia’s native dog, hunted to near extinction in some regions of Australia.
The Lakota artist from the United States has created seven clay replicas of dingo skulls that together act as a flute or instrument linked to an air compressor to create a sound “along the edge of a dingo howl”.
“The seven dingo skulls are small in space but large in volume of sound,” Luger says. “The dingo came to surface as a result of its near extinction and its resilience, and its symbol of kinship to Indigenous people, much like the coyote where I come from.”
Artists Behrouz Boochani, Hoda Afshar and Vernon Ah Kee present a multichannel video work at Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of their newly commissioned Code Black/Riot project, which centres the voices and experiences of Indigenous youth living in detention.
Away from white-walled galleries, on March 21, Joe Namy will turn Parramatta Town Square into a sonic arena with Automobile, a performance using local car enthusiasts’ super-modified stereo systems as instruments.
At the Art Gallery of NSW, the great Ngurrara Canvas II, created by artists of the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia, is to be presented for the first time.
The 80 square metre floor canvas was made in 1997 for presentation to the National Native Title Tribunal to demonstrate connection to their land, an area the size of Tasmania.
For the Ngurrara people it is not just a painting; it’s a map of their country and the product of thousands of years of traditional knowledge.
“It might be the last time it is ever shown off because this is part of Country. This canvas was created by artists of the Ngurrara people to successfully win land rights,” Moore says. “It worked. They are telling that deep connection to land. It’s not just showing the canvas, the artists are coming, those that are still alive, and they are going to sing it in.”
At Chau Chak Wing Museum, Melbourne-based textile artist Ema Shin is exhibiting a two-metre-tall 3D handwoven heart.
Inspired by a treasured family tree kept by her grandfather spanning 32 generations which only includes the names of male family members and women who have given birth to sons, shin’s works are a tribute to the women who are absent from her family history.
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