What's On at John Curtin Gallery

Install on film! ✌️✨

A sneak peak at the JCG install team working their magic in preparation for our Djeran - Djilba season exhibitions.

We can`t wait to share new large-scale works from @chris_pease and two major multi-channel video works by @rekorennie.

Christopher Pease: Terra Nullius and Reko Rennie: OA_RR open Friday 29 May! 👀

Find out more via link in bio 🔗

Artist Talk Sunday 31 May 🗣️
 
Join Minang/Wardandi/Bibbulmun artist Christopher Pease and JCG Curator Lia McKnight as they discuss Pease’s survey exhibition Terra Nullius.
 
Drawing from museum archives and 19th-century colonial landscape painting, this exhibition powerfully transforms a colonial fiction of “nobody’s land”. Pease reworks images that once framed Western Australia as empty and available for settlement, reinscribing Indigenous presence into landscapes through bold Noongar iconography.
 
Exhibition on show at John Curtin Gallery from 29 May – 23 August. ✨

📆- Sunday 31 May
⏰- 2pm - 3pm
📍- John Curtin Gallery
 
RSVP via link in bio 🔗
 
@chris_pease @lia_mcknight

🎨 - Portrait of Christopher Pease by Russell Ord. Christopher Pease, The Whalers 3, oil on linen, 150 x 180 cm. Image courtesy artist and GallerySmith. Photo by Russel Ord.

Join us as we welcome our latest exhibitions on Thursday 28 May 💛
 
Featuring new large-scale works from @chris_pease and two major multi-channel video works by @rekorennie !
 
We will also be welcoming Longing and Hope, an exhibition of Carrolup artworks curated by Curtin Fine Art students. 👏 @curtinbfagrads
 
Thursday 28 May 2026
5:30pm – 7:30pm
Free event, open to the public, complimentary refreshments provided.
 
🔗 RSVP link in bio!
 
➡️  Christopher Pease: Terra Nullius transforms a legal fiction of dispossession into a vivid assertion of Noongar sovereignty, resilience, and enduring connection to Country.
 
➡️ Reko Rennie: OA_RR blends urban car culture, ancestral motifs, and personal memory into bold, cinematic experiences.
 
See you there! ✨
 
🗓️ Exhibition Open: 29 May - 23 August 2026

@perthartlist @universityartmuseumsaustralia @curtinlifeaustralia @curtinalumni @curtinuniversity @perth.art.seeker

That`s a wrap! 👏

A call and response across the ocean, part of Perth Festival 2026, has officially come to an end!

We hope you enjoyed the rhythms, stories and scents of the Indian Ocean, and experienced the reunion of friendships and kin ties severed through transglobal acts of colonisation.

Through immersive installations, film, sound and historical works, A call and response across the ocean taught us of connections across continents and to reflect on the enduring legacies of cultural exchange and resilience.

🌊 Histories do not stay silent.

A huge thank you to everyone involved! 💛

@perthfest @thaniapetersen @abdi.karya @skinnyfish_music @berndt.museum @curtinbfagrads @emora_suara_sound @universityartmuseumsaustralia @before1770@susanflavellart @bumpymusic_ @worldofashe @jackychengart

📸 - @marnie__richardson, @sharonb.art, @__melmacaulay__ and Gaylene Galardi.

Drop-in to Chronically Crafty, Wednesday May 6! ✨
 
Join us in the Kattidj Nagãr (Peacful Quiet Reflection) space for a end of season Chronically Crafty session.
 
This is a relaxed, drop-in craft session for people with disability and neurodivergent communities, this creative session is always open to anyone who would like to create in a quiet, welcoming environment. 🧶
 
Bring whatever you’re working on (knitting, drawing, mending, journaling, beading — anything goes) and create at your own pace. No pressure. No expectations. Just time and space.
 
📍John Curtin Gallery - Wednesday 6 May - 12pm - 2pm
 
Facilitated by disabled artist, academic and advocate @jordanalice___
 
💛 Come when you can
💛 Leave when you need
💛 Everyone welcome
 
🔗 Register via link in bio! 
 
Chronically Crafty will take place on the first Wednesday during semester.

@curtinlifeaustralia @curtinbfagrads
 
#ChronicallyCrafty #AccessibleArts #PerthCreatives #communitycare

Exclusive screening of Before 1770! 🎬

Celebrate the end of our Perth Festival exhibition, A call and response across the ocean, and join us for a screening of this feature documentary!

Through vivid storytelling and immersive re-enactments, Before 1770 delves into themes of transglobal colonisation and cultural memory, offering a powerful perspective on the historical friendships and kin ties between northern Australia and Makassar.

Event Details:
🗓️ Sunday 3 May 2026
⏰ 1:30pm – 4pm
Free event, open to the public

For more information, and to register, head to the link in bio! 💛

@perthfest @thaniapetersen @before1770 @abdi.karya @skinnyfish_music @curtinbfagrads @perthartlist @universityartmuseumsaustralia

#before1770 #filmscreening #university

Join us for another Lunchtime Talk! ✨

This special panel discussion will explore how heritage is practiced, interrupted and regained from various views across the Indian Ocean.

Join Wajarri Nyarlu/Menang heritage expert Patricia Ryder, Geographer and heritage scholar Tod Jones and Media scholar Thor Kerr as they contest dominant narratives about Australia’s geographical and cultural isolation through exploring connections, disconnections and reconnections across the Indian Ocean.

Details: 
🗓️  Wednesday 29 April. 
📍 John Curtin Gallery 
⏰ 1.30pm - 2.30pm
Free event, open to the public. 
🔗 Register via link in bio!

The JCG Lunchtime Talks is a mid-week series that invites speakers from diverse disciplines to share their research, practices, and perspectives in response to the gallery’s exhibition programming. These informal sessions offer a welcoming, collegial space to explore ideas, spark dialogue, and engage with the themes and questions shaping contemporary visual culture and artistic practice.

📸 - @marnie__richardson

@curtinbfagrads @curtinalumni @perthartlist @perthfest @abdi.karya @thaniapetersen

Two weeks left! 🫨

The final weeks have arrived to experience the rhythms, stories and scents of the Indian Ocean, and witness the reunion of friendships and kin ties severed through transglobal acts of colonisation.

A call and response across the ocean will leave John Curtin Gallery on Sunday 3 May!

Through immersive installations, film, sound and historical works, A call and response across the ocean invites visitors to trace connections across continents and reflect on the enduring legacies of cultural exchange and resilience.

🌊 Histories do not stay silent.

📍 John Curtin Gallery. Free, open to the public

🔗 Find out more via the link in our bio!

@perthfest @thaniapetersen @abdi.karya @skinnyfish_music @berndt.museum @curtinbfagrads @skinnyfish_music

#johncurtingallery #curtinuniversity #perthart #artgallery

What wellbeing looks like on Country, through the lens of Bardi Jawi children! 📸
 
Currently nestled in our Access Gallery the Our World in Photos exhibition is hand curated by Bardi Jawi children aged 8-15 from the very remote West Australian community of Ardyaloon.
 
These photographic stories explore what well-being means to them, through their own voices and vision, shaped by kinship, culture, Country and daily life.
 
We are not observing their creativity but encountering their perspectives about what matters. When we are no longer speaking for them but with them, new pathways for dialogue are made possible. 💛
 
Exhibition details:
 
🗓 4 March – 3 May
📍 John Curtin Gallery, Access Gallery.
Free entry
 
Proudly supported by - @curtinuniversity , @telethon7 and One Arm Point RCS
 
Since 2023, Curtin University’s School of Population Health and the Ardyaloon community have co-developed a strengths-based photovoice model to explore and share children’s perspectives on well-being. Underpinned by research and participatory processes, forty-five on-Country workshops and 17 dialogue events have reached 133 children. Producing over 200 photographic stories, children’s insights have informed new learning resources based on their priorities. Strategic exhibits include Government House Perth (2024), Rural Health West, Aboriginal Health Conference (2025), and an international debut at St Francis Xavier gallery, Nova Scotia Canada (2026).
 
John Curtin Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which this work was created – the Bardi Jawi Peoples. We give respect to the Elders, past, present and emerging, and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We honour their connection with land, waters and community.
 
🔗 For further information visit the link in our bio!

Encounter memory, connection, and the tides of Country.
 
Bumpy’s (@bumpymusic_ )Maambakoort (2025) celebrates the acclaimed soul artist’s homecoming to ancestral saltwaters, and honours her late Nan, Rose Whitehurst, who compiled the first Noongar dictionary. Its rolling structure mirrors the ocean’s tides, inviting reflection on memory, belonging, and connection to Country. ✨
 
Laurel Nannup’s First Contact (2016) draws on Noongar memory and history, evoking ancestral spirits and storytelling to honour Noongar life and the Stolen Generation. In Noongar Nyitting (Dreaming), the spirit transforms into a bird after death, and the white sails of the ships were understood as the wings of ancestral spirits returning from the sea.
 
Susan Flavell’s Landscape with Whirlpools (tsunami) (2013–2023) transforms a single textile into a turbulent seascape of found objects, fabrics, porcelain, and ink, exploring the fantastic, the monstrous, and the mythical, reflecting grief, dreams, and the shadow self. 🌊 @susanflavellart
 
📍 Visit John Curtin Gallery’s Atrium as part of A call and response across the ocean to learn even more about each artwork.
 
A call and response across the ocean is on show until May 3! @perthfest
 
🔗 More info via link in bio.

📸- @marnie__richardson

@curtinalumni @perthartlist @curtinbfagrads