Gatherings

Gatherings brings together a group of sculptural works created through a collaboration between First Nations artists from remote communities and the foundry Urban Art Projects (UAP). Produced through a series of workshops in the early 2000s, these works represent an important moment in which established carving practices were translated into the enduring mediums of cast aluminium and bronze.

For many of the artists involved, whose practices centred on wood carving, fibre sculpture and ceremonial objects, the foundry process introduced new ways of working with form and material. Through pattern making and metal casting, artists were able to translate the shapes and subjects of their Country into materials capable of lasting far longer than the organic media traditionally used. The workshops were held both in community and at the UAP foundry in Brisbane, allowing artists to experiment with new sculptural processes while maintaining the cultural authority and visual language of their traditions.

The shift has often been compared to the introduction of canvas and acrylic paint to Central Desert artists in the early 1970s. In both cases, artists adopted new materials while continuing to express longstanding cultural knowledge and relationships to Country. These cast works retain the distinctive forms of the artists’ carving traditions while expanding the possibilities of scale, durability and presentation, particularly within the context of public art.

Many of the sculptures depict animals and beings familiar within the landscapes of northern Australia - camp dogs, birds and crocodiles- figures that move between daily life, story and ancestral knowledge. The brolga, for example, is described by the artist as “the good dancer”, a bird associated with family totems and the wetlands of Aurukun where it gathers during the wet season.

Gatherings revisits these cast works as a moment when artists expanded long-held sculptural traditions into new materials. Seen together, they reveal a meeting of knowledge systems, technical processes and cultural continuity - old ways carried forward through new forms.