Our artists made a significant impact on the international stage in 2025. Explore the exhibitions below!
Brian Robinson | World Expo 2025 Osaka
With the theme of ‘Chasing the Sun,’ the Australia Pavillion is an immersive experience that “explores Australia’s unique energy, our diverse and warm people, our talent and creativity, and our stunning natural environment.” Mirroring Australia’s connection to Country and First Nations sovereignty, the Pavillion moves across three sensory environments: Land Country, Sky Country, and Sea Country.
The Sea Country environment features the Pavillion’s largest installation where Brian Robinson’s Uruy Dhangadh and Minaral patterning are projected onto sea creatures, brought to life by animation from Spinifex Group. In this installation, Robinson transposes the marine environment and ancestral stories of Waiben (Thursday Island) onto a global stage.
World Expo is a momentous event that champions global collaboration and innovation, taking place every 5 years. The 2025 World Expo takes place in the waterfront destination of Yumeshima, Osaka, with the theme of ‘Designing Future Society for our Lives.
As Ngugi women of the Quandamooka people, Capemba Bumbarra lucidly details fresh spring water as it flows into Quandamooka saltwater. In speaking to their Ancestors, Sonja and Elisa express that “this spring has been flowing for thousands of years and is full of living beings and stories of family gatherings, history, and changing times with colonisation.” Excitingly, Sonja was able to travel to Arles and view the mesmerising cyanotypes drape beautifully inside the 16th Century Church, Église Sainte-Anne.
In collaboration with PHOTO Australia and the Rencontres d’Arles, On Country: Photography from Australia is grounded by the cultural practices and relational knowledge systems of First Nations peoples. Through photography, exhibited artists ask what it means to be situated on Country—exploring how place is shaped, and reshaped, by culture, connection, and colonisation. This prestigious exhibition is an exciting opportunity that places Australian photography on a global stage.Sonja Carmichael & Elisa Jane Carmichael | On Country: Photography from Australia, Rencontres d’Arles, France
“EXPANDER – PART 2: Resonant Systems operates as a responsive iteration, utilising the existing gallery space as both a site and strategy to carve out a new spatial installation. While the first exhibition remains in place, this presentation introduces new layers to the original context, adding to the evolving program at KULTX. It positions the gallery as a site of transition and renewal, where the ongoing exhibition becomes a framework for further experimentation. Rather than replacing the original, EXPANDER – PART 2 structurally adds to the pre-existing display, creating an expanded constellation of artworks, archives, and correspondences that explore Non-Objective Art. Bringing together new artists, custodial holdings, and archival materials related to the 8th Biennale of Non-Objective Art, bridging generational and conceptual perspectives.
In doing so, EXPANDER: PART 2 continues to test the limits of what both the biennale and exhibition can be. Through embracing mutability, reinforces the central proposition of the project: that abstraction and Non-Objective practices remain vital precisely because it resists narrative closure. The exhibition becomes a site of ongoing conversation – between local and international positions, between form and idea, between the historical and the yet to come.”
2026 will see a number of represented artist participate in international residencies…
Darren Blackman | Inaugural Outerspace x IAIA Residency, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Supported by Creative Australia’s International Engagement Fund, this First Nations exchange will bring together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists with Native American artists for cross-cultural dialogue, research, and shared creative practice. The exchange will begin in 2026, with the first phase hosted at IAIA in Santa Fe. A reciprocal program will follow in Magandjin (Brisbane), creating sustained opportunities for artists to learn from one another, build networks, and develop new work.
IAIA President Dr. Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) also suggested, “This exchange centers Indigenous artists in conversation with one another—across oceans and cultures—to strengthen creative practice and community. We’re honoured to collaborate with Outer Space and grateful to Creative Australia for supporting Indigenous-to-Indigenous connections that advance IAIA’s mission.”
Reflecting on the opportunity, Darren shares:
“I live and work on Kabi Kabi Country, the homeland of my relatives north of Brisbane. It would be an honour to represent my family—the Meerooni Clan of the Gurang people—and the wider Gooreng Gooreng Nation while engaging with the First Nations peoples of the Southwestern United States. This residency offers a meaningful opportunity for cultural exchange, dialogue, and the cultivation of sustainable relationships that foster solidarity among our peoples.”
Onespace extends our sincere thanks to Georgia Hayward, outgoing Director of Outerspace, as well as IAIA and Creative Australia, for their support of this important international exchange and the opportunities it will create for First Nations artists in both Australia and the United States.
Sonja Carmichael | Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, University of Virginia
Onespace congratulates Sonja Carmichael who is a recipient of Creative Australia’s artists in residency program for 2025-26 and 2026-27 at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum, University of Virginia, USA. In 2011, the museum launched its artist residency program, which brings an Indigenous Australian artist to the University of Virginia to share their artwork in an exhibition and other programs.
For up to four weeks, chosen First Nations artists work on dynamic projects with students, experiment in the studio, and deliver artist talks. This provides an exciting opportunity to establish networks of artists and First Nations people in the United States. Kluge-Ruhe asserts that “One of our core institutional values is to amplify Indigenous voices by providing opportunities for Indigenous people to speak on behalf of their own cultures, especially after so many oppressive forms of silencing and erasure.”
As a leader of Quandamooka weaving practices, Sonja will enrich the Kluge-Ruhe Museum and community with her extensive knowledge of land and regeneration of culture.
