Silence Listening: A Midwest Truth-Telling Exhibition
Location
Batavia Coast Marina, Geraldton / Jambinu
Dates
Dates
Saturday 21 June – Sunday 31 August 2025
Tickets
Free
This powerful truth-telling exhibition centres Yamaji culture and dialogue, exploring the enduring impact of colonisation, while fostering understanding and collective healing.
Curated by Bard, Jawi Aamba (man) Ron Bradfield Jnr, Silence Listening explores the colonial histories of Jambinu (Geraldton), and Mullewa.
The exhibition features works by two important Yamaji artists, the late Uncle Brian Dodd McKinnon and Charmaine Papertalk Green, alongside British-Australian artist George Criddle. It responds to Charmaine Papertalk Green's concept of ‘silence listening' - an intercultural and collaborative process addressing the violent colonial histories that have been actively denied within the settler narrative.
Honouring the life and work of Uncle Brian Dodd McKinnon, who passed in 2023, the exhibition features paintings from his PhD collection, I Used to Walk So Softly on this Land, along with audio recordings of him discussing his art. In addition newly commissioned works by Charmaine Papertalk Green and George Criddle include large-scale collaborative pieces that reflect on listening, working together, activism, and truth-telling.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised this exhibition may contain the images, names and stories of Elders who have passed away. These have been used with permission.
Proudly supported by Yamaji Art, Department of Cultural Industries, Tourism and Sport, Museum of Geraldton, and Art on the Move.
About the artists
Ron Bradfield Jnr is a saltwater artist and curator from Bardi Country, north of Broome who grew up in Geraldton. As the CYO (Chief Yarning Officer) of Yarns R Us; Ron facilitates cultural conversations across all levels of our communities, helping Australians to revisit and explore their own personal stories – so as to better consider their own connections to this place.
The late Uncle Brian Dodd McKinnon (1957-2023) Was born to an Amungu mother and Wongai father and grew up in a Geraldton fringe camp named Blood Alley at the foot of Mount Misery. He left home at the age of 12 to work along Western Australia’s coast wherever he could. At 18 Uncle Brian settled in Geelong, Victoria. Since 1996, McKinnon has exhibited nationally and internationally showing powerful work that addressed his experiences of growing up in Western Australia’s Mid-West and the ongoing challenges of Aboriginal people. Uncle Brian was the inaugural Vice Chancellor’s Pre- Doctoral Indigenous Research Fellow at RMIT University’s School of Art.
Born in Eradu, Charmaine is a proud Wajarri, Badimaya and Wilunyu woman of the Yamaji Nation. Charmaine is a multi-media and esteemed poet who incorporates woodblock printing, painting, collage, video and installation work that challenges colonial narratives giving voice to the silenced histories of her people.
George Criddle (b. 1984) is a conceptual and socially engaged artist whose colonial ancestors played a central role in in frontier violence and nation building in Jambinu, (Geraldton). Their work interrogates the privileges inherited by their family as a result of colonial dispossession, acknowledging the impact of their own lineage.
