Dabaa.malang Guyulgang is the inaugural exhibition of Laneway Lightbox Open-Air Gallery. Launching during NAIDOC Week 2023, it features local female First Nations artists Glennys Briggs, Teisha Maksymow-McGuiness, Patricia Cerminara and Brittany Wright (AWAHS Koori Women’s group). The artists explore uneasy narratives, unravel displacement and trauma, and discover cultural heritage that has existed throughout time, in search of ways to healing and self-strengthening. The storytelling through dynamic visual languages brings us to the journey of resilience while stressing the role of knowledge sharing. Dabaa.malang Guyulgang means ‘enduring and strong mob’ in Wiradjuri language.

Installation view of The Walk Off, by Glennys Briggs. Photo credit: Jeremy Weihrauch.

The Walk Off

by Glennys Briggs

The Walk Off is a body of work by Taungurung, Yorta Yorta and Wiradjuri artist Glennys Briggs. It reimagines a mass strike she heard from her grandmother against Cummeragunia Aboriginal Reserve situated in Yorta Yorta Country on a bend in the Murray River in New South Wales. The Reserve had controlled First People’s life in dreadful living condition since its foundation in 1888.

Being forced to live in the Reserve where cultures and languages are forbidden, First Nations people experienced displacement, cruel treatment, starvation, a lack of medical care and miserable housing condition. On 4^th February 1939 came the first strike when they moved across the Murray River to Victoria and set up living the banks of the Goulburn River in small makeshift housing. The grandmother of Aunty Glennys is amongst many people there.

The song they sang as they left was Burra Ferra, the lyrics of which can be seen on one of the paintings. Learned from black American Gospel singers and transposed into Yorta Yorta, this song references freedom from the oppression.

Learning about stories told by grandmothers, mothers and aunties, Aunty Glennys reveals the courage and resilience First Nations women had held to fight for their families. By interpreting the walk off in a dream-like approach, she brings us to a psychic state of the event in exploration of family strengths informing her personal identity.

About the artist: 
The art practice of Glennys Briggs spans printmaking, painting, possum skin cloak making and sculptural pieces. Her work is based around her strong cultural connection to her country and people. Like a time-lapse photograph, her work is ever-changing to reveal the long and sometimes dark histories of this shared country.

New England Contemporary Print Gallery | Glennys Briggs

Showcasing: September 9 –  October 21, 2023

Print artists share their Australian experience through original etchings, relief prints, collographs and more.

Other articies include:
Jenny Bourne, David Frazer, Lizzie Horne, Chris Lawry, Michael Leunig, Maggie Stein and Peta West.

Sculpture Walk

The latest Public Art piece for Wodonga River Trail designed by Glennys Briggs

2023 FINALIST: Glennys Briggs

In the pieces submitted for the Wangaratta Textile Award, she is endeavoring to tell the stories which for so long have been denied, forgotten, untold and have gone unknowledge. The materials and images which have been used in the Cloak of Sorrow reference the massacres which resulted from invasion. 

10 June – 20 August

Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award 2023
A Kyamba Foundation project

The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award is a biennial acquisitive award and exhibition, which celebrates the diversity and strength of Australian textile art.

Wangaratta has a long and prominent history of textile manufacturing, and craft making. The Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award builds upon this unique tradition and social history, by elevating and promoting the development of contemporary textile practice in Australia.

In its eighth year of delivery, a partnership with the Kyamba Foundation will see an increase in the award’s prize money from $10,000 to $40,000. This significant investment will ensure a representation of excellence from practitioners across the nation.

Delivering a response to my Prints from Stradbroke Island Indigenous Artist Camp.

Thursday 14 July

10:30am to 12pm

Kelvin Groove QUT Foundry (Library)

149 Victoria Park Rd, Kelvin Grove 4059