Future Country
Artwork Labels & Didactics

FUTURE COUNTRY is the second iteration of the Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions initiative. This national mentorship program pairs eight emerging First Nations artists and designers with established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives, presenting a unique opportunity to connect and share intergenerational knowledge, and foster artistic and professional growth.

FUTURE COUNTRY celebrates land, legacy, community and cultural continuity. In response to the exhibition’s key themes of ancestral memory, re-storying, truth-telling and future-making, participating artists have created deeply personal, culturally significant and innovative works that imagine alternative realities and new Indigenous futures.

Spanning weaving, photography, sculpture, possum-skin-cloak making, moving image, sound and design, the eight new commissions explore non-linear notions of time, honour intergenerational knowledge, and convey embodied and relational understandings of place.

Each of the artists shares an empowering message affirming the strength, resilience and sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, languages and cultures past, present and future. Presented together in FUTURE COUNTRY, the artists collectively reflect the dynamism and depth of contemporary First Nations art and design by emerging practitioners from across the country.

‘Gapala, jin-mirrkajarriya, rrapa jin-merdawa, marngi gu-burnda an-gujechiya, mun-dirra, burlupurr, bamagora, rrapa mat. Ngaypa marngi ngi-ni, jin-ngaypa maka, mununa, muma, rrapa ngaypa. Freda, Maureen, Bonnie, Lily, Doreen, marngi ngi-ni yirrawa ngu-burnda. Ngaypa marngi ngi-nirra yirrawa ngu-burnda burlupurr, abirri-jirrapa mun-dirra, an-gujechiya, bamagora, mat – marngi ngi-nirra yirrawa. Michpa baman mubu-buna mun-dirra an-gujechiya, burlupurr, mat, jin-gubardabiya. Ngaypa ngu-worlworlchirra ngu-burnda mu-ngoyurra an-mumurna m-buna, jichicha nula, balaji. Gun-guna weaving gu-boya mu-ngoyurra gubu-buna gun-jurrkurda. Gala colour guwu-barripuna. Yirrawa marngi ngi-nirra ngu-burnda, gun-menama gun-jurrkurda.’

– Stephanie Ali, Burarra

‘Senior women, young mothers and girls; they all know how to weave fish traps, barrier nets, dillybags, conical mats and floor mats. We all know this – my father’s mother, my mother’s mother, my Mum and now me. These women are Freda, Bonnie, Lily and Doreen. I learned how to weave bags and mats from them when I was younger, just like the women of the past wove them. I’m proud that I’m weaving what my forebears made for fishing and gathering bush foods. My weavings are like what they used to make, they are natural. They didn’t ever use bush dyes. I’ve learned how to weave using natural pandanus, with no dye.’

(translated by Margaret Carew)

Stephanie Ali

Burarra 1988–

Jin-gapala, jin-mirrkajarriya, jin-merdawa (Senior women, young mothers and girls)

2025 Kunibidji Country, Maningrida, Northern Territory

pandanus (Pandanus spiralis), kurrajong (Brachychiton populneus) and beach hibiscus (Hibiscus tiliaceus)

Mentor: Doreen Jinggarrabarra, Burarra
Acknowledgment: Maningrida Arts and Culture

Stephanie Ali is the eldest daughter of senior weaver Doreen Jinggarrabarra and the granddaughter of Elizabeth Mipilanggurr, an expert weaver connected to the Blythe River region. Her father’s Country is Yilan and her mother is from Jina-wunya Country. From an early age, Stephanie was taught to collect, prepare and weave pandanus under the guidance of her mother and aunties. Jin-gapala, jin-mirrkajarriya, jin-merdawa materialises the cultural knowledge Stephanie has had passed down to her but also that which has been gathered across generations, spanning millennia. Featuring a meticulously handwoven series of suspended cultural objects, Jin-gapala, jin-mirrkajarriya, jin-merdawa honours intergenerational knowledges by sharing stories of women’s weaving practices in Maningrida, celebrating their continuation both in the now and for future generations. As Stephanie explains, ‘I’m proud that I’m weaving what my forebears made for fishing and gathering bush foods’.

‘I understand the care often required when handling photographs. In many spaces I have worked, it is considered bad practice to handle prints without gloves, as skin oils from our hands can be left on their surface. Yet photographs possess a materiality and tactility I want people to experience through touch. Photographs are more than objects to be looked at, just as Country is more than a landscape – it is a living being.

Pitta Pitta is situated on “Channel Country”, a vast region of braided waterways spanning across south-western Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. This photograph is of a major arterial waterway that flows through Pitta Pitta Country. Once installed on the floor, the photograph becomes an interactive artwork that allows people to walk across its surface. It reminds us that wherever we walk within this place now known as Australia, we walk on Country. The markings resulting from the photograph being walked on reference the ongoing destruction and extraction of Country. The artwork shifts and changes through its interactions with people, recognising that our actions directly impact the health and wellbeing of Country.’

– Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis, Pitta Pitta

Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis

Pitta Pitta 1998–

Channels

2025 Pitta Pitta Country, Queensland and Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung Country, Naarm/Melbourne

digital pigment print on alpha-cellulose

Mentor: Brook Andrew, Wiradjuri

Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis is a Pitta Pitta woman born and raised on Wadawurrung Country and currently based on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work spans photography, moving image and spoken word and is informed by family stories, oral histories and archival research. Channels features a large-scale landscape photograph of the artist’s Ancestral lands on Pitta Pitta Country, North-West Queensland. The accompanying bird song was recorded on Country while the artist was creating the work. The audience is invited to walk across the image, with the intention that it will change over time, prompting us to reflect on the individual and collective impacts we have on the health and wellbeing of Country while challenging the inherent cultural bias embedded in colonial image-making and archival practices.

‘My work is reclaiming Country one tree at a time through my tree carvings. The tree-carving design stories are reflected in the bronze gulaman (coolamon), emphasising cultural authority, governance and unceded sovereignty of Country through our laws and customs. Gulaman, traditionally created from wood, were used by women to gather up food, water and resources, and to cradle their babies. With this important matriarchal object, women were able to nurture and sustain the wellbeing of the whole family group.

These clusters of gulaman represent different camps on Ngambri/Kamberri Walgalu Country. The stories honour our creator and protector, Biyaami, and our key Ngambri-Kamberri-Walgulu totems, yukeembruk (crow) and yibaay-maliyan (eagle hawk). The story is embedded with malangarri yurwang ngurambang (alive and strong on Country). The three main ceremonial camps are located at Ngambri-Kamberri Walgalu (my birthplace, site of the former Royal Canberra Hospital, now housing the National Museum of Australia); Pialligo (site of the old Duntroon dairy and Royal Military College); and St Johns Anglican Church, which was built prior to the suburb of Reid.

This cluster of bronze gulaman, language and song honours our balangaan (matriarchs) – young women and Elders.’

– Paul Girrawah House, Ngambri-Kamberri/Ngurmal (Walgalu)/Pajong (Gundungurra)/Wallaballooa/Erambie/Brungle (Wiradyuri)

Paul Girrawah House

Ngambri-Kamberri, Ngurmal (Walgalu), Pajong (Gundungurra), Wallaballooa, Erambie/Brungle (Wiradyuri) 1969–

The Ngambri-Kamberri-Canberra Walgalu-Wiradyuri coolamons (Giyalang-belonging to a group)

2025 Ngambri-Kamberri Walgalu Country, Ginninderry, Australian Capital Territory and Boonwurrung Country, Altona, Victoria

Mentor: Brenda L. Croft, Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra (Australian First Nations), Anglo-Australian, Chinese, German, Irish, Scottish
Acknowledgment: Alex Kosmas, with Cracknell Lonergan Architects, and Strathnairn Arts, Arts ACT, Australian National University

Paul Girrawah House is a senior Ngambri-Kamberri Walgalu custodian and cultural leader with Wiradjuri, Pajong and Wallaballooa ancestry. He centres cultural continuity in his creative work and primarily works with tree scarring. This sacred cultural practice is deeply anchored in identity and belonging to Country and is used for marking the gravesites of significant ancestors as well as carving coolamons and shields. The Ngambri-Kamberri-Canberra Walgalu-Wiradyuri coolamons (Giyalang-belonging to a group) is made up of seven bronze-cast coolamons, each inscribed with Paul’s signature cultural markings representing Country, law/lore and the cosmos. It also includes his key totems Yuukeembruk (crow) and Maliyan (eagle). Arranged in a staggered formation reminiscent of a forest, the installation also embeds a soundscape of language and song. For Paul, the seven coolamons acknowledge, respect and honour his Ancestors, Ancestral knowledge and men’s and women’s business while asserting his ongoing commitment to continue sharing Ngambri-Kamberri provenance and culture for future generations.

‘Colonial threads exposes the violent legacy of Queensland’s Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1865, imported from British industrial-era legislation and shaped by post-abolition labour demands. The Act included a racist clause that criminalised and incarcerated Aboriginal children simply for being born to an Aboriginal mother. Long before the so-called Protection Acts, mission dormitories turned supposed care spaces into sites of punishment, forced labour training and cultural erasure.

Here, a rusted white cot and faceless white rag dolls are a visual indictment of colonial culture that disciplined, assimilated and erased Aboriginal girls. The white dolls represent the stripping away of identity that was the core focus of institutions such as industrial and reformatory schools while the rusted cot signals the decay of the colonial myth of protective care. The mobile embroidered in ‘whitework’ exposes how whiteness, purity and moral authority were used to disguise carceral violence. The cotton evokes the global economy that tied together enslaved labour, child labour and colonial expansion.

Colonial threads is not only a record of harm but an act of future-making. By naming these histories, the work honours Aboriginal girls and women whose lives are constrained by these systems, and asserts the strength, continuity and sovereignty that survived them. Past, present and future sit together here, held, revealed and re-threaded.’

– Boneta-Marie Mabo, Nywaigi/Meriam/Manbarra

Boneta-Marie Mabo

Nywaigi/Meriam/Manbarra 1984–

Colonial threads

2025 Magandjin/Brisbane

iron cot, 238 hand-sewn cotton ragdolls, embroidered mobile, cotton

Mentor: Megan Cope, Quandamooka

Boneta-Marie Mabo is a Nywaigi, Meriam and Manbarra woman whose multidisciplinary work explores notions of resistance, memory, identity and the ongoing impacts of colonisation. Colonial threads positions 238 faceless hand-stitched white cotton ragdolls – collectively representing 238 years of colonisation – within a rusted-iron antique cot. Suspended above is a ‘whitework’ baby mobile, embroidered with text – justice, care, protection – appearing throughout policy documents such as ‘The Act’ that were used to justify the control and forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. Boneta-Marie has dedicated this work to the countless Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls who were taken from their families, denied culture and language, and subjected to colonial violence and forced labour under the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act of 1865 in Queensland. Colonial threads highlights ‘the colonial myth of protective care’, while acknowledging the strength, resilience and sovereignty of First Nations peoples of so-called Australia, and the family reconnections and cultural reclamation that continue today.

‘This work reflects my Great Nanna and Great Grandfather by using photos of them that were taken by anthropologists. We also refer to these as “mission mugshots”. These photos have always carried a sense of disconnection, shaped by the circumstances of their creation. At the time, our people were denied Country, denied their rights and had much of our culture stripped away. Even their bodies were documented and researched and catalogued. Measurements were taken and done so without any care for who these people were.

Family photos shouldn’t feel this cold and distant. By printing these archival images of my Great Nanna and Great Grandfather as large-scale photos onto possum skin traditionally used for warmth and protection, I’m returning them to Country, family and to Ceremony. These processes give these images love and energy. Working with members of my family is vital to me because a lot of the work is rooted in family. These works have not only allowed me to honour my great grandparents; they have created space for my family to learn new skills together, and in doing so, we can celebrate our culture. We are reclaiming what our Ancestors were denied the right to. Continuing culture and sharing knowledge is an act of both survival and resilience.’

– Carly Dodd, Kaurna/Narungga/Ngarrindjeri

Carly Tarkari Dodd

Kaurna/Narungga/Ngarrindjeri 1998–

Great grandfather Seth

2025 Kaurna Country, Tartanya/Adelaide and Wurundjeri Country, Naarm/Melbourne

brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), wax thread, ink

Great nanna Bella

2025 Kaurna Country, Tartanya/Adelaide and Wurundjeri Country, Naarm/Melbourne

brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), wax thread, ink

Mentor: Yhonnie Scarce, Kokatha/Nukunu

Acknowledgment: Stewart Russell and Danica Miller, Spacecraft, Footscray, Victoria.

Contributors: Garth Dodd, Harper Dodd, Toby Dodd and Travis Dodd

Carly Tarkari Dodd is a Kaurna, Narungga, and Ngarrindjeri woman known for her contemporary weaving practice informed by Ancestral knowledge passed down to her by Ngarrindjeri Elder Aunty Ellen Trevorrow. Carly’s new works, Great grandfather Seth and Great nanna Bella speak back to the history of colonial photography by anthropologists and missionaries that objectified First Nations people with the intent to prove misconstrued theories of racial hierarchy. The two hand-stitched possum-cloaks are each adorned with reclaimed ‘mission mugshots’ – the only surviving images of Carly’s great grandparents, held in the South Australian Museum Collection. By enlarging and screen-printing these sourced portraits at scale inside each cloak, Carly gifts her great grandparents a return to Country, family and culture. Presented together, Great grandfather Seth and Great nanna Bella convey a message of warmth, reconnection, protection and wisdom, and celebrate the strength, resilience and survival of culture against all odds.

‘Meet Maggie Doll! Bold, brazen and unapologetically ours, she bounces out of her box with a grin that says, ‘yeah sis, we’re here too’. Every step, every pose, every bounce of her hair dares the world to notice her presence – and hers alone. She’s a tiny powerhouse of personality, a spark of cheekiness and just so lubly! With one outfit at a time, Maggie defies expectations, disrupts the ordinary and celebrates the extraordinary that is Blak.

Maggie is culture, confidence and mischief all rolled into one, a reminder that our stories, our people and our power shine brighter than anything the colony can throw at us. She carries the pride, the laughter and the beauty of Blak girls everywhere – a celebration of identity. Every detail, from her feet to her fearless grin, from her braids to her bold fashion, tells a story that is ours, loud and proud. Blak brilliance takes up space, makes noise and looks damn good doing it. Maggie Doll isn’t just a toy; she’s a tiny revolution, a mirror and a mood.’

– Charlotte Allingham (Coffinbirth), Wiradjuri/Ngiyampaa

Charlotte Allingham (Coffinbirth)

Wiradjuri/Ngiyampaa 1993–

Maggie Doll!

2025 Wurundjeri Country, Naarm/Melbourne

resin, fabric, acrylic paint, pastels, gold leaf, possum skin (mixed medium)

Mentor: Karla Dickens, Wiradjuri
Fabricator: Clint Hansen

Wiradjuri and Ngiyampaa woman Charlotte Allingham (Coffinbirth) has family ties to the Condobolin and Ivanhoe regions of Central West NSW and is currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work explores cultural reclamation, truth-telling, self-determination, cultural pride, and empowerment. Maggie Doll!, Charlotte’s new sculptural work, is a 3D-printed ball-jointed doll described by the artist as ‘bold, brazen’ and unapologetic. She proudly declares: ‘Our Stories, our People, and our Power shine brighter than anything the colony can throw at us.’ Charlotte has brought Maggie Doll! into being as an accessible symbol of Blak excellence, and to acknowledge and celebrate Blak sisterhood and the Blak matriarchy. Presented on a spotlit pedestal within a colourful installation of nostalgic references, including Barbie-inspired sticker sheets and a life-size participatory doll-box, Maggie Doll! invites viewers to step into her shoes, and to connect with and celebrate culture.

‘Shell stringing is a cultural practice passed down to us from our ancestral grandmothers and carried through our families. Marina shell necklaces have become emblematic of our community and culture, representative of the cultural knowledge that ties us to our Ancestors and Country.

Due to the violent dispossession of our ancestors from our land, our community today is spread across Lutruwita and beyond. But our culture will always remain grounded in our home Country, as we continue to push for its return to Aboriginal ownership.

This work represents the story of our people: We are still present here through our cultural forms and through our Country itself. Each ceramic shell in this work is glazed only with materials harvested from our Ancestral lands. Set in patterns inspired by the tides, the arrangement symbolises our journeys away from and back to our home Country, throughout our lives and across generations.

The survival of shell-stringing as a practice faces serious threats from industry, climate instability and the declining health of our oceans. Ceramic shells in this work serve as stand-ins for an increasingly rare cultural resource.’

– Nunami Sculthorpe-Green, Palawa/Warlpiri

Nunami Sculthorpe-Green

Palawa/Warlpiri 1993–

takila milaythina-ti

2025 Nipaluna/Hobart and Wukalina, Lutruwita/Tasmania and Wurundjeri Country, Naarm/Melbourne

native harvested clay, stone, pigment and ash on stoneware ceramics

Mentor: Aunty Lola Greeno, Trawlwoolway
Acknowledgment: Isabelle Moustra, Too Friendly Ceramics and Ben Richardson, Ridgeline Pottery

Nunami Sculthorpe-Green is a Palawa and Warlpiri woman born and raised in Nipaluna/Hobart. She is a storyteller working across writing, visual art and performance, and grounds her work in ideas of seasonality and the recentring of often overlooked histories and stories connected to place. takila milaythina-ti is a sprawling bed of 200 slip-cast marina shells, enlarged in scale and hand-painted with a unique glaze hand-made from natural materials sourced from Nunami’s ancestral Country in northwest Lutruwita. The shells are arranged as a collective and in a formation reflective of the undulating lines formed by clusters of marina shells that once covered Lutruwita’s coastlines. With these shells now endangered, takila milaythina-ti tenderly conveys the profound cultural significance marina shells play in stringing past, present and future while also bringing the ongoing impacts of climate change and industry on Country, community and culture into sharper focus.

‘This work stems from my attempt to locate my great-grandmother’s grave at the cemetery in the town of Onslow, Thalanyji Country. Though prepared with a map from the local library, I could only guess Nanna Sheila’s exact location. Like so many of the other Aboriginal people laid to rest there, she had no headstone, only a numbered metal marker. Sheila’s number, while indicated on the map, was strewn from its original place. With the others, Sheila’s number shifted in the sand, swayed by decades of rain, wind and heat.

Disheartened by the cemetery’s neglect, I spent some time gathering a sense of where Sheila was, imagining her life in this small town, and noticing the care given to the graves marked with baler shells and honoured with flowers. Walking away, just about to step outside the cemetery entrance, I turned to take one last glance. At this moment, I could see family gathered around Sheila’s grave, and they showed me the weight of their sadness.’

– Katie West, Yindjibarndi

Katie West

Yindjibarndi 1988–

Sheila’s dream

2025 Cervantes, Nyoongar Yued Boodja, Western Australia

video, dress, baler shell, metal chair, radio, wana (digging stick), string

Mentor: Clothilde Bullen, Wardandi (Nyoongar)/Badimaya (Yamatji)
Acknowledgment: Simon Charles (sound design), and Chad Peacock and Ava Peacock (videography)

Katie West is a Yindjibarndi woman whose work reclaims and reweaves narratives of disruption tied to her family’s history and experience of the Stolen Generations. Sheila’s dream is a single-channel video that combines multiple film techniques and technologies, conveying a time-travelling narrative reminiscent of a dreamscape. Featuring two protagonists, Sheila (Katie’s grandmother) and Dancing Sheila (her grandmother’s inner spirit or alter ego), the work navigates Katie’s conceptualisation of her grandmother’s fading mind, making real her memories in the lead-up to her death. Sheila’s dream traces Sheila and Dancing Sheila’s movement across Country as they interact with objects and places of personal and cultural significance. Presented at scale and accompanied by a 1960s-inspired soundtrack, Katie’s work intimately reflects on the strength of family connections across time, place and space.