Interested in contemporary Indigenous art? Don’t mind the occasional meal of roast emu? If the answer is yes to either of those questions one of your first stops in downtown Meanjin/ Brisbane should be Birrunga Gallery. There’s not a lot of art experiences in the CBD. You have the Museum of Brisbane at City Hall and on the edge of town the QUT Art Museum, both institutional galleries.
Gallery director Birrunga Wiradyuri and CEO Suzie Goodchild, have created a space that is becoming a cultural hub for locals and tourists alike. It’s an unexpected surprise when you go downstairs at 300 Adelaide Street to find a 32-metre rainbow serpent leading you through the spacious gallery and restaurant where the food is Modern Australian, with a twist.
“Native inspired food” promises the Birrunga Gallery website and I can’t think of anywhere else in the city where you can have roast emu or a chicken parmi with a “with a native, bush spiced twist”.
“We are a multi-faceted cultural hub that is accessible for everyone to enjoy,” Birrunga says and that cultural experience includes cultural education, presentation, tours and of course, art exhibitions.
The current show, Colonisation, features 33 works by artists engaged in Birrunga Gallery’s 2023 Cultural Creative Development Program showcase which is now in its fourth year. The gallery partners with Brisbane based tech innovators Patient Zero, a partnership that has borne creative fruit.
“Our prior collaboration seamlessly merged traditional Indigenous art with the wonders of augmented reality enriching the experience of appreciating Indigenous culture,” Birrunga says.
“This year were taking the partnership a step further and Patient Zero has augmented this 33-piece experience.” Using a free app on which gallery-goers can see and hear the artists talking about their works and each painting comes to life in the process.
Birrunga Wiradyuri mentors young artists and exhibits together with them and the exhibition surrounds you in the gallery and it’s a revelation of various styles proving yet again the vitality and diversity of Australian Indigenous art. One of the key pieces is Birrunga’s Fireworks of Meanjin (2032) which focuses on “the flurry of activity that has erupted across the country, particularly focused in South East Queensland in the build up to the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
“It speaks of competing interests for inclusion into the economic opportunities the games provide on an uneven playing surface,” Birrunga says. “And it asks questions of truth telling, about whom by whom, and on who’s terms will the First Nations Peoples of the Country’s narratives be portrayed to the international community.”
“The fireworks mentioned refers to the prospect of an incendiary field of competition for controlling narratives in the build up to the games as well as to the obligatory fireworks shows for the opening and closing ceremonies of the games.”
The younger artists featured alongside Birrunga Wiradyuri explore personal and wider social and cultural themes and some of them pull no punches. Fifteen-year-old Jagerra Jemma Stewart’s work Madness, for example, “tells the story of people who lost everything, including their minds during colonization”.
Kane Brunjes, one of the gallery’s rising stars, explores themes of colonisation and in one work, Tibrogargan, a familiar landmark (one of the Glasshouse Mountains) rises in the background.
“The mountain is Tibrogargan and the faces seen towards the top represent the Culture and stories of the surrounding area.”
Bundjalung artist Tiesha Martin’s captivating and colourful designs celebrate Country but also grieve for what has been lost.
In Deprivation she paints the rockpools of her coastal home and points out that “a lot of these beaches and rockpools were scared spots for women”.
“Since then, the beaches have been colonised, damaged and items such as coral and shells have been taken from the rockpools by tourists. We need to forever treat our beaches and land with respect.”
Other emerging talents featured in the exhibition are Jessica Skeen and Naomi Green
After Birrunga Gallery has partnered with Arts Queensland for a tour of Colonisation, culminating in a showing at the new Monto Museum of Art at Monto in Central Queensland in May 2024.
Birrunga Gallery’s outreach extends well beyond the gallery and Birrunga Wiradyuri and the gallery’s artists have worked extensively in the community creating murals, including two in the Princess Theatre precinct at Woolloongabba and they have been engaged to create murals for the Cross River Rail stations.
All this will help keep Indigenous culture alive and that’s what Birrunga Gallery is all about. Dedicated to fulfilling his cultural responsibilities Birrunga Wiradyuri follows and practices the central lore of Yindymarra, and as a cultural practitioner and visual artist his narrative works explore, among other things, the spirituality of the Wiradyuri people in historical and contemporary contexts.
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He is also co-founder and patron of the Wayne Weaver Foundation, a charity that provides pro bono pre and post release, transition and reintegration support for Indigenous prisoners. Birrunga spends time in prisons with Indigenous prisoners on matters of cultural priority. Birrunga is also co-founder and patron of Independent Indigenous Tourism Operators of Queensland (ITOQ). If you pop into Birrunga Gallery you might run into the man himself. Grab yourself some roast emu while you’re there.
birrunga.com.au
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