The National at Home
Wona Bae & Charlie Lawler Regenerator 2021. Courtesy the artists © the artists.
While our doors are closed we are bringing you ways to learn, be inspired and get creative at home and online.
Discover the works of 16 contemporary Australian artists and cultural practitioners in The National 2021: New Australian Art that explore the potential of art to heal and engender care for fragile natural and social ecosystems and consider our relationship to sentient Country.
Find out more about these poetic and political art projects, hear from the curators, and discover how the exhibition has inspired conversation and musical responses.
The National 2021: New Australian Art
Explore this year's exhibition and discover the work of every artist on display at the Gallery
Explore
Watch
Justin Shoulder: AEON†: TITAN ARUM
Enter a carnivalesque night garden illuminated with ‘exotic’, medicinal and dangerous species in this excerpt of Justin Shoulder’s transformational performance series
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Energised: JWPATON ‘Diffraction’
Yuin musician JWPATON traverses a multi-layered shifting sonic terrain in an improvised dialogue with Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler’s ’Regenerator’ 2021.
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In the Frame: Judy Watson
As environmental crises continue to emerge around the world, artist Judy Watson and journalist Daniel Browning address the importance of caring for our natural ecosystems.
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Betty Muffler and Maringka Burton
Meet the dynamic duo from the small Aṉangu community of Indulkana who came together to paint about their personal experiences of Country.
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Alick Tipoti
Discover artist Alick Tipoti’s multidisciplinary practice that communicates the continuum of living song, story and visual culture in Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait).
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Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler
Conceived as a filter for the city, a monumental work by Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler harnesses the properties of charcoal to detoxify, energise, repair and revive.
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Leyla Stevens
Artist Leyla Stevens discusses her two-channel video work 'Patiwangi (the death of fragrance)' 2021 and its offering of an alternative narrative of Balinese women artists.
Read
Idle no more: confronting colonialism and the art museum
Curator Erin Vink reflects on curating and making art in Australia with knowledge outside of Eurocentric modes of understanding.
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Sharing time with the past and caring for the future
Curator Matt Cox revisits the short history of 'The National' since its first iteration in 2017 and asks: where to now for contemporary Australian art?
Learning resources
Whether you're learning at home or back at school, the Gallery has got you covered
Gallery view
James Tylor We Call This Place…Kaurna Yarta 2020. Courtesy the artist and Vivien Anderson Gallery, Narrm (Melbourne) © the artist
Alick Tipoti Dhangal Madhubal 2021 and Baydham 2021, courtesy the artist; Girelal 2011, Cairns Art Gallery, Queensland, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Editions Tremblay, 2012, courtesy the artist and Cairns Art Gallery © the artist.
Lisa Sammut A stellate habit 2021. Courtesy the artist © the artist.
Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler Regenerator 2021, courtesy the artists © the artists