Exhibition dates: 8 April – 4 June 2024
Artist Conversation: 10am, Sunday 5 May 2024
Redland Art Gallery – tel 07 3829 8899; email gallery@redland.qld.gov.au
Cnr Middle and Bloomfield Streets, Cleveland QLD 4163.
Onespace artists and Ngugi women, Sonja Carmichael and Elisa Jane Carmichael, celebrate their Quandamooka heritage and weaving practice in a stunning survey show at Redland Art Gallery, open to the public now.
Their exhibition, CREATE EXCHANGE: Ngumpi, draws inspiration from weaving practices connected to Quandamooka Country, and is showcased in both the Gallery at Cleveland and the RPAC Mezzanine (Redland Performing Arts Centre).
The works featured at the Redland Art Gallery share their story of the importance of ‘ungaire’ (reeds).
As Sonja and Elisa Jane suggest, “Ungaire has been gathered on the spirited lands of Quandamooka for generations to make ‘gulayi’ (dillybags). With a particular woven knot, these uniquely designed and woven gulayi are deeply connected to our Quandamooka stories.”
The exhibition includes weaving, print media including new soft-ground etchings, and sound, centred on ancestral knowledge, matrilineal connections and their ongoing relationships to the lands, plants and sacred waters of Quandamooka.
The centrepiece of this survey is the collaborative work, Ngumpi (Home), 2022-23, first commissioned by the TarraWarra Museum of Art for the TarraWarra Biennial 2023. Ngumpi holds the essence of the artist’s connections to Ancestors and Quandamooka Country.
This exhibition is part of a three-year project collectively titled CREATE EXCHANGE which supports artist-residency style exhibitions and activations within the Redlands Cultural Precinct. Sonja and Elisa’s approach to CREATE EXCHANGE: Ngumpi is evocative of contemporary caring for and preserving Country, and how these stories relate to their shared connection to all living things.
Accompanying CREATE EXCHANGE: Ngumpi is a publication with essays by Diane Moon and Sally Butler, and a series of engagements programs including a collaborative community engagement artwork, yarning circles, workshops and a making space.
CREATE EXCHANGE is proudly supported by Haymans Electrical, the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) and Redland City Council.
Onespace would like to thank the artists, David Jones, Bradley Rush, Kerryanne Farrer, Emma Collerton and the Redland Art Gallery team for their outstanding work in bringing this exhibition to life.
Sonja Carmichael; Elisa Jane Carmichael, Ngumpi (Home), 2023, ungaire, driftwood, talwalpin (cotton tree), mangrove bark dyed silk fabric, shells and string. Image: Andrew Curtis. Courtesy of the artist.
Sonja Carmichael, biba bunbi: jingen, jalo, yarabin, ragi (small dillybags: food and fire, beach and bush), 2023-24, Copper wire, shells – quampi, yugari, ginyingara; dunggal – banksia cones; yilarun (grass tree) trunks after fire. Image: Louis Lim. Courtesy of the artist and Redland Art Gallery.
Sonja Carmichael and Elisa Jane Carmichael, Our Gulayi, 2024, Image: 50 x 33cm, Paper: 62 x 40cm, Hahnemuhle 300 gsm Weiss, A la poupee soft ground etching, 2AP + Edition of 20. Image: Louis Lim. Courtesy of the artist and Onespace.
Sonja Carmichael and Elisa Jane Carmichael, Sunlight, 2024, Image: 50 x 50cm, Paper: 61 x 60cm, Hahnemuhle 300 gsm Weiss, A la poupee soft ground etching, 2AP + Edition of 20. Image: Louis Lim. Courtesy of the artist and Onespace.
Elisa Jane Carmichael, Dabiyil Net #2, 2023, 58 x 40 x 160cm, Talwalpin, mangrove dyed talwalpin and drift wood. Image: Louis Lim. Courtesy of the artist and Onespace.
