Damien Shen
Damien Shen draws from his Ngarringeri and Chinese heritage making powerful images that reflect the complexities of race and identity in Australia. He’s “interested in the Coorong region, work that relates to the stories my family has about their early memories of growing up on the Raukkan mission in the early 50s”. An accomplished story-teller, he will work with Mt Gambier artists, producing tintypes through a travelling interactive project involving local communities.
Profile image: Brent Leideritz
Lismore / New South Wales
Artists & Gallery Director
Aris Prabawa
Prior to moving Australia seventeen years ago Aris was well known as a key member of Taring Padi, a cultural activist group of artists who have fought to foster community voice against oppression in Indonesia. He is also acclaimed as the leader of Black Boots, the longest running punk band in Indonesia. He now lives in Lismore where he continues to make art and music, and travels regularly between Lismore and Jogjakarta. In 2019 he returned on the invitation of the Director of the Yogya National Museum, Yogyakarta to celebrate a solo exhibition of his work, and has maintained a career of exhibiting as an artist in Australia and Indonesia. His band Black Boots has enjoyed successful Australian tours, and he continues to write and perform with them.
Hiromi Tango
Japanese/Australian Hiromi Tango’s installation/performance projects are well known for their playful interactive qualities; qualities that often involve both adults and children in immersive worlds where they are able to experiment with a range of ways of working with each other that might not otherwise be possible. However, the playful aspect of these works belie the artists’ serious commitment to making changes in the ways we relate to each other, to ourselves and to the environments we share. For The Partnershipping Project, Hiromi has chosen to experiment with those edges where the more private and public aspects of living as an artist rub against each other.
Karla Dickens
A proud Wiradjuri woman, Karla’s powerful imagery is gaining increasing and much-deserved acclaim. She draws from her personal experience and her responses to some of the critical and crucial issues of our time, to produce works that are compelling and challenging. For The Partnershipping Project Karla has designed a small brave boat, one capable of sailing endless galaxies. With its hull painted by local artist Leigh Arnold, the work addresses the attempted world take over of the British Empire. This work will extend Karla’s concerns evident in earlier work such as Unwelcome – where she floats direct issues concerning the colonization of Australia’s Aborignal peoples.
Karla Dickens is represented by Andrew Baker Art Dealer: www.andrew-baker.com
Profile image: Mick Richards
Penny Evans
Kamileroi/Gomeroi artist Penny Evans works with a range of media including ceramics, printmaking and collage. She uses work as a means of exploring her own identity and connections to country. From this central axis, the work has gradually come to focus on ecological issues that include the threat to the river systems of north-western New South Wales. She is a cultural gleaner, who spends time on country to search for remaining pockets of cultural knowledge that can be sutured together to give us glimpses of what could be. The works she produces as a result, throw light on some of the most critical problems in our country today. For The Partnershipping Project, Penny will reconsider a selection of those issues, re-presenting them in a small boat that performs the role of a fragile ark.
