Past Events › Art Exhibition

Moving Tongues is a heritage exhibition, held at Melbourne City Library, curated by Nadia Rhook in partnership with La Trobe University. It will co-exhibit with John Young's acclaimed art installation 1866: The Worlds of Lowe Kong Meng and John Ah Siug. From the mid-19th century, the colonisation of Kulin lands saw migrants from far flung corners of the globe settle in Melbourne. Most spoke in English; others, in tongues including German, See Yup, Sam Yup, French, Hokkien and Italian. In the 1890s, some 1200 migrants from South Asia remade the city’s language-scape. Now, the Supreme Court more frequently heard witnesses testify in Hindi, Pashtu and Arabic, and court interpreters were employed both to translate court proceedings and to survey Melbourne’s so-called ‘Asiatic’ centres of Little Bourke and Lonsdale streets. The city’s halls of power, though, remained dominated by English-speaking men, and a proposed Immigration Restriction Act threatened to reduce the…

The Autodidatic artist Christopher R. Inwood has created 17 large, traditional oil paintings that draw from the composition and aesthetic of our current homogenised digital culture, so as to provide a vehicle for direct communication with the people of our time. The ‘meme’ has been used as a formula for the composition of the paintings in this show, due to its simple and direct communication, and ease of engagement. The contemporary oil portraits will be constructed using the unique parameters and benefits of the new digital aesthetic, and will be combined with text that comments on issues prevalent in our current and future culture. The use of oil painting draws from Inwood’s knowledge of art history and his understanding of the refinement of painting, which enables him to bring the immaterial into the tangible world. The visual intrigue created by the painted memes is supported by didactics that direct the…

'To Arrive Upside Down' is a solo exhibition by the artist Lorilee Yang, and examines her relationship to her Asian-Australian identity. The works in this show largely depart from Chinese mythology and symbolism ,alongside of Western illustration and art history.

Along with culture and tradition, memories and trauma are also passed down to the next generation, shaping who we are. A story told through a narrative of Indian miniature paintings with sound, video and prose, Bloodlines addresses the unacknowledged history and experiences of women taken from South India to South Africa as indentured labour during the late 1800’s and throughout the early 1900’s. Tricked onto vessels, and often raped and abused on board before being mistreated on the sugar cane plantations they were sent to, these women buried their stories beneath years of shame, intergenerational trauma, and loss of culture. Simpson journeys with her mother to search for historical information through disappearing oral histories, from their own matrilineal heritage. By sharing these harrowing experiences, Simpson affords them a rightful place in history. Access • A multi-site audio described tour for people who are Blind or have low vision will take place on…

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney is delighted to present the first solo exhibition in Sydney by celebrated Chinese new media artist Yang Yongliang. Yang Yongliang (born in 1980, Shanghai, China) exploits a connection between traditional Chinese art and the complexities of contemporary urban life, conflating ancient oriental aesthetics and literati beliefs with modern language and digital techniques. Born in Shanghai where he now lives and works, Yang Yongliang was schooled from early childhood in the art of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, graduating from China Academy of Art, Shanghai in 2003, majoring in Visual Communication. His groundbreaking use of new media including virtual reality and multi-channel video–included in numerous international museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum in New York–is informed by Chinese Philosophy and his early training in the inherited traditions of Song Dynasty landscape painting.