CARRIAGEWORKS REOPENS TO PUBLIC AND ANNOUNCES NOVEMBER PROGRAM INCLUDING STRONG FOCUS ON LEADING FIRST NATIONS ARTISTS | MEDIA RELEASE 7 Oct 2021
Carriageworks, Australia’s largest and most significant contemporary multi-arts precinct, will reopen to the public on Wednesday 3 November 2021, with award-winning Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist Dennis Golding’s exhibition The Future is Here. Later in the month, visitors will be offered free access to visual art exhibitions by leading Australian artists, with the unveiling of a major site-specific work by celebrated Worimi artist Dean Cross, a new video installation by acclaimed photographer and video artist Cherine Fahd commissioned and presented in partnership with Performance Space, and the return of the SOUTHEAST Aboriginal Arts Markets online. Carriageworks will also welcome back Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed, supported by The Balnaves Foundation, which showcases bold new work by emerging choreographers.
Carriageworks CEO Blair French said: “Carriageworks is delighted to reopen with exhibitions by three key voices in Australian contemporary art who are all current or recent artists in residence at the Clothing Store at Carriageworks. The November program reflects the multi-arts precinct’s strong focus on supporting First Nations artists and creatives and we are especially proud to showcase work developed in collaboration with our local community through the Solid Ground program and we look forward to inviting the students and families of Alexandria Park Community School to see their work as part of Dennis Golding’s exhibition at Carriageworks.”
DENNIS GOLDING: THE FUTURE IS HERE | 3 – 28 November 2021
The Future is Here is the result of a collaboration between Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist Dennis Golding and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from Alexandria Park Community School. Presented in the Carriageworks public space, the exhibition features colourful capes that were created during a Solid Ground workshop in 2020. Students from Kindergarten to Year 12 designed their capes with iconography informed by their lived experiences and cultural identity.
The project continues Golding’s exploration of using superhero symbolism to empower contemporary Aboriginal culture and free it from colonial narratives. As superheroes, Golding and his young collaborators are empowered and reminded of the strength of their culture in forming their identity and connection to Country. Individually and together, the capes critique social, political and cultural representations of contemporary Aboriginal experience. Curated by Kyra Kum-Sing
As a major initiative of Carriageworks and Blacktown Arts Centre, Solid Ground provides education, training and employment pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth. The initiative is supported by The Australian Government, The Crown Resorts Foundation, The Packer Family Foundation and The Tony Foundation. In 2021, Golding continues his work with Solid Ground as an artist in residence at Alexandria Park Community School.
DEAN CROSS: ICARUS, MY SON | 17 November 2021 – 30 January 2022
Icarus, my Son is a semi-autobiographical exhibition, presented by Carriageworks in partnership with Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, that takes inspiration from the ancient Greek tragedy of Icarus and Daedalus and examines themes universal to the experience of those in rural and remote communities who seek to expand their horizons. Featuring new video, sculptural and installation works by Cross, Icarus, my Son investigates ideas of home, ambition, cataclysm and loss.
Icarus, my Son was first staged at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery from 2 July to 28 August 2021 and was commissioned as part of their new biennial award The Good Initiative, of which Cross is the inaugural recipient. Former Director at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Gina Mobayed, curated the first iteration with Carriageworks’ Director of Programs, Daniel Mudie Cunningham, curating its second iteration at Carriageworks.
CHERINE FAHD: ECDYSIS | 17 November 2021 – 30 January 2022
Ecdysis is a scientific term describing the process by which reptiles shed their skin to allow for new growth. Cherine Fahd’s video installation brings together forty-four monumental video portraits of women of different ages and walks of life, engaged in an act of struggle and surrender with the artist. Luminously projected in a darkened space, the shedding of skin suggested by these portraits raises tensions between control and release, bringing us to the precipice of transformation. Each subject’s performance tells a different story spanning resistance and acceptance, tenderness and strength, authority and vulnerability.
Co-commissioned by Carriageworks and Performance Space, Ecdysis is a powerfully affecting exhibition, inviting us to consider what we are willing to let go of, and what we might become. A preview of the exhibition will feature in Performance Space’s Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art 2021 (20 – 24 October) via a free online conversation, on Wednesday 20 October. Titled ‘Intimacy Through the Camera,’ Cherine Fahd will discuss the works themes with exhibition curators; Daniel Mudie Cunningham and Jeff Khan.
SOUTHEAST ABORIGINAL ARTS MARKET | 25 – 28 November 2021
The fifth annual edition of the SOUTHEAST Aboriginal Arts Market will be presented online over four days from 5pm 25 November until 28 November 2021. Curated by respected Arrernte and Kalkadoon curator, writer, advisor and presenter Hetti Perkins and leading Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones, SOUTHEAST celebrates the creative diversity of south-east Australian Aboriginal art. This year, due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings and border closures, the market will return for a second year as a digital platform bringing together 26 independent Aboriginal artists and collectives from the south-east including regional and coastal New South Wales, ACT, Victoria, the Murray–Darling basin catchment and Tasmania.
With 100% of proceeds from SOUTHEAST Aboriginal Arts Market going directly to the artists, the 2021 Market will present traditional and contemporary practices, showcasing a range of disciplines including wellbeing, fashion, art and design with work from a variety of mediums such as ceramics, jewellery, weaving, photography, carving, textiles, painting, and works on paper. The market will be supported by a new digital program that will be announced on the 25 October.
SOUTHEAST Aboriginal Arts Market is supported by the Australian Government through the Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support program.
Carriageworks is a registered COVID-Safe business. Guidelines to ensure the safety and wellbeing of visitors are developed in accordance with NSW Government requirements and can be accessed at https://carriageworks.com.au/journal/carriageworks-covid-19-safety/
Carriageworks Opening Hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 10am – 5pm (from 3 November)
Carriageworks Farmers Market: Every Saturday 8am – 1pm
For media interviews please contact: Jasmine Hersee, jasmine@articulatepr.com.au or Kym Elphinstone, kym@articulatepr.com.au
ABOUT DENNIS GOLDING: Dennis Golding is a Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay man from the North West of NSW, born and raised in Sydney. Working in a range of mixed media including painting, video, photography and installation, Golding often references superhero figures to explore empowering representations of race and identity. He was recently announced as an exhibiting artist in the 2022 Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art curated by Sebastian Goldspink. In 2020, Golding was awarded Create NSW and Artspace Visual Arts Emerging Fellow.
ABOUT DEAN CROSS: Dean Cross was born and raised on Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country and is of Worimi descent. He is a paratactical artist interested in collisions of materials, ideas and histories. He is motivated by the understanding that his practice sits within a continuum of the oldest living culture on Earth – and enacts First Nations sovereignty through expanded contemporary art methodologies. He hopes to traverse the poetic and the political in a nuanced choreography of form and ideas. Dean has exhibited widely across the Australian continent and beyond and has work held by major institutions including the Art Gallery of South Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. Cross is represented by Yavuz Gallery Sydney & Singapore.
ABOUT CHERINE FAHD: Cherine Fahd is an artist and academic working in the field of photography and video performance. Cherine’s recent work is focused on the role of the camera in creating intimate scenarios between photographer and subject. In turn, she is interested in photography as a social practice that builds connections between people.
Cherine’s current projects include commissions for new video, photo and performance works for Carriageworks and Performance Space, the Sydney Opera House and Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and for Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne. Other notable works include Apókryphos (2019), which was presented in The National 2019: New Australian Art and in 2020 and won the Australia New Zealand Photobook Award, as well as You Look Like A, which was exhibited at the Australian Centre for Photography.