Digital Public Art Program
Location
Perth Cultural Centre, Perth / Boorloo
Dates
Dates
Digital art installation at Boola Bardip
Showing daily.
Tickets
Free display
WA Museum Boola Bardip’s digital public art program features three new Aboriginal digital artworks and artists showing on the Hackett Hall and Francis Street façades at WA Museum Boola Bardip throughout 2024.
Newly commissioned digital artworks from Western Australian Aboriginal artists and content producers are front and centre at WA Museum Boola Bardip as part of the museum’s public art program.
Showing on the Hackett Hall and Francis Street façades at WA Museum Boola Bardip, the digital works are part of a public art program established during the $400 million museum redevelopment.
The program exposes emerging and established artists and their work to diverse audiences and includes their work in the WA Museum collection.
Stage three
Stage Three of the program features work from Brad Coleman, Laurel Nannup, Brett Nannup, Patrick Carter and Big hART, these works explore themes of the Stolen Generation, Nyoongar culture, and matriarchal leadership.
Animator Brad Coleman worked with renowned Nyoongar artists Laurel and Brett Nannup to animate Laurel's woodcuts, linocuts and etching prints in a piece titled Another Story To Tell, reflecting her experience as a Stolen Generation survivor.
Patrick Carter is a Nyoongar interdisciplinary artist; in collaboration with mentors, renowned Ballardong Nyoongar actor Kelton Pell and Sam Fox, Patrick has developed Kaya Boodja. The work focuses on Carter’s artistic response to Country and includes painting, performance, dance, song and animation of painted works.
Content producer Big hART filmed and created two new digital artworks on Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi country in the Pilbara using film, animation, photography and audio.
Jarda Bura, Gurri Bura, Jarda Ngarli, Gurri Ngarli (Senior Woman, Young Woman) highlights women’s stories of strength and the knowledge and leadership they draw from the relationships between mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters and aunties.
Wangaba Barnigu, Wangabani (Staying Alive) is inspired by exploring and observing local plants, trees and wildflowers from Country through photography and digital drawing. This film features the artwork and photography of young women from Roebourne.
About the public art program
As part of the $400 million redevelopment of the WA Museum site in Perth, a public art program was established to expose emerging and established artists and their work to diverse audiences and include their work in the WA Museum collection.
A strategy was developed to curate and commission digital Aboriginal artworks for two digital screen installations on the WA Museum Boola Bardip's façade with funding allocated over four years.
The WA Museum engaged the Aboriginal Art Centre Hub Western Australia (AACHWA) to run an expression of interest process to select suitable artists and content for stages two, three and four. AACHWA's engagement extended to project coordination and providing cultural advice with AACHWA CEO Chad Creighton, a Bardi and Nyu Nyul man from the Kimberley, leading the curatorial process in collaboration with WA Museum.
Stage Four, the final stage of this public art series, has been commissioned and will commence screening in 2025.
Header image is a combination of imagery from all three artists from Stage Three.
Discover our artists
Laurel Nannup, Brett Nannup, Brad Coleman
Working collaboratively with renowned Noongar artists Laurel Nannup and Brett Nannup, animator Brad Coleman has developed a series of animations from Laurel's woodcuts, linocuts and etching prints to share Laurel's lived experience as a Stolen Generation survivor growing up on Noongar Country.
As a member of the stolen generations, Laurel Nannup's artworks are historically and culturally significant. They tell many stories of living in a time of institutional separation and forceful displacement from Aboriginal culture.
Her works range from re-telling stories of pre-colonial times to documenting her family life at Pinjarra reserve, her removal from the Wandering Mission, and her life in contemporary Western Australian society.
Laurel's work is highly regarded for its bold, stylised qualities, playfulness, and gentle but poignant storytelling.
These animations tell stories of a Stolen Generations survivor with her artwork images, celebrating Noongar and, more broadly, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.
The collaborative partnership at this project's core is to ensure the best artistic outcome and maintain the cultural safety and representation of the work's intention.
Brad Coleman worked closely with Laurel and Brett to conceptualise each animation, explore the project's possibilities, and develop new materials such as storyboards, social media content and behind-the-scenes photos and video footage.
Patrick Carter
Patrick Carter is a Noongar man and interdisciplinary artist who combines performance, movement, video, sound and painting to create his stories and songs.
Family is a driving theme, and his work features many motifs drawn from his Noongar culture.
KAYA BOODJA has enabled Patrick to extend, explore and deepen the Noongar cultural aspects of his contemporary practice, working on boodja and alongside Noongar peers.
Through the peer-to-peer mentorship of Ballardong Noongar actor and mentor Kelton Pell, Patrick has developed an on-Country bush practice where he responded to important sites within Noongar and Wadandi Boodja.
As a Noongar contemporary artist, Patrick explores his lived culture and that of his family and the communities he belongs to.
This project involved Patrick extending his engagement with traditional culture and the Noongar-Ballardong language. Kelton Pell mentored Patrick to extend his cultural protocols, learning to meet and engage with Elders Wayne and Zach Webb around traditional learning, language and visits to Country.
The resulting works are focused on Patrick's artistic response to Country and include painting, performance, dance, song and animation of painted works.
At the core of both works is the acrylic on canvas, KAYA BOODJA, painted after collecting bark, flowers and plants with Wadandi Elders Wayne and Zach Webb, featured in both works.
The first trip took place in January 2023 and included Patrick's mother, Sophia Humes Thorne, as part of the creative process.
Long-term collaborators Sam Fox and Simone Flavelle, who work with My Place/My Studio, provided filmmaking, producing and executive-producing support to Patrick and the team. Mitchell Whitehurst, project intern, worked with sound capture and editing, assisting Sam Fox.
Big hART and the Roebourne community
Filmed and created on Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi Country in the Pilbara, Jarda Bura, Gurri Bura, Jarda Ngarli, Gurri Ngarli (Senior Woman, Young Woman) and Wangaba Barnigu, Wangabarni (Staying Alive) are two new digital artworks produced by Big hART and women from the community of Roebourne.
The significance of connections between generations that underpin a joyful exchange of strength and knowledge and the enduring power of women's relationships inspired these artworks.
Jarda Bura, Gurri Bura, Jarda Ngarli, Gurri Ngarli explores the knowledge and leadership women draw from intergenerational female relationships, their kinship system and living connection to Country, practice and power through film, photography and audio.
Wangaba Barnigu, Wangabani (Staying Alive) features the artwork and photography of young women from Roebourne.
It is inspired by exploring and observing local plants, trees and wildflowers from Country through photography and visual interpretation on digital drawing app Procreate.
Filming took place across various locations on Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi Country including Iremagadu/Roebourne (Ngarluma Country), Bajinurrbah/Cossack (NgarlumaCountry), Millstream (Yindjibarndi Country), Tambrey Station (Yindjibarndi Country), Bominjyi (Yindjibardni Country), Buriyamangga/Red Rock Pool (Ngarluma Country.
Roebourne Artists
- Kimberley Wilson
- Jessica Allan
- Nina Derrell
- Hannah Phillips
Contributing Artists
- Berry Malcolm (Mara)
- Allery Sandy
- Janelle Mowarin
- Maudie Jacobs
- Michelle Adams
- Annie Jacob
Explore previous stages of the Digital Art Project
Stage one which was displayed from 2020 to 2022, featured licensed works by approximately 100 Aboriginal artists from around Western Australia, including the Kimberley, South West, Pilbara, Mid-West and Goldfield-Esperance. These were drawn from the State's collection held by the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and artworks from the 2020 Revealed exhibition, which was presented online due to COVID-19 restrictions.
In partnership with Sohan Ariel Hayes Studio and the Aboriginal Art Centre Hub WA, the WA Museum launched Artist in Focus; a deeply enriched series of short films celebrating Aboriginal art and storytelling.
Artist in Focus is screening until February 2023 at the WA Museum Boola Bardip in the Perth Cultural Centre, and on the long ribbon screen on Francis Street.
A year in the making, the four 15-minute short films showcase WA Aboriginal Artists to the wider community through the lens of independent filmmaking and storytelling.
Using a two-way learning process that prioritises the Artist’s voice filmmakers Sohan Ariel Hayes and Devris Hasan settled on a format that is part documentary and part visual storytelling, allowing the Artist’s to share with a wider audience their creative journey and communicate some of the unique experiences which have shaped their lives and practice.
These films form part of a four-stage Aboriginal Digital Artwork project designed to platform Aboriginal artists from across Western Australia to tell their stories and share their art on a national scale. Artist in Focus was commissioned by WA Museum as part of the New Museum Project and the State Government’s Percent for Art Scheme.
“The Western Australian Museum is proud to work with Aboriginal artists from around the State and commission new digital works for the State Collection which will be featured at Boola Bardip. Boola Bardip means ‘many stories’ in Nyoongar language and this project provides a vehicle for these artists to tell their stories, their way,” WA Museum CEO Alec Coles said.
In addition to welcoming Artist in Focus to the digital screens this week, WA Museum has also commissioned stages three and four of the project. We look forward to sharing these works with the community in the future.
Plan a visit
Showing on the Hackett Hall and Francis Street façades digital screens
