Sullivan+Strumpf: ‘Story, Place’

About

Sullivan+Strumpf presents a collective consideration of land, ancestry and belief, with indigenous and diasporic voices from around the globe. Curated by renowned Australian artist Tony Albert and curator Jenn Ellis, the group show features artists Tony Albert, Shiraz Bayjoo, Edgar Calel, Gunybi Ganambarr, Lindy Lee, Naminapu Maymuru-White, Angela Tiatia and Jemima Wyman.  

In three parts, ‘Story, Place’ begins with a consideration of earth, materiality and our relationship with places or origin. It’s explored in the work of Naminapu Maymuru-White, of the Maŋgalili clan, and Lindy Lee, a second-generation Chinese-Australian artist, both of whom delve into themes of the earth and cosmos. 

Also exploring ancestry, land and materiality are Gunybi Ganambarr of the Ŋaymil people and Jemima Wyman, a palawa woman, with paternal descendants from the pairrebeener people of tebrakunna and poredareme.  Ganambarr reworks materials such as tree bark and road signs with his geometric mark-making to refer to the sacred waters around Gängan, the land of his mother’s people. Wyman collects and collages hundreds of images of protest, investigating resistance and camouflage as a social and political strategy in negotiating identity. 

Edgar Calel, of the Mayan Kaqchikel cosmovision, presents a new series of works titled Runojel xa xti jotayimpe, Runojel xa xti tzolimpe, chuech ri ruach’ulew (Everything Will Blossom, Everything Will Reappear Before the Face of the Earth). His canvases feature landscapes, objects, relics, concepts and experiences, of spiritual importance. The paintings are then covered almost entirely with clay collected by his family in a scared forest. 

Angela Tiatia, an artist of Samoan and Australian descent explores representation, gender, neo-colonialism and the commodification of the body and place. She presents two films created in 2015 on Funafuti, the main atoll of the Tuvalu archipelago. They show the artist on a cement slab as the surrounding ocean laps and washes over her, highlighting the plight of Pacific peoples holding on to their lands amid global warming. 

Tony Albert of the Kuku Yalanji people presents an installation that engages with political, historical and cultural Aboriginal and Australian history, and his fascination with kitsch ‘Aboriginalia’. Also considering histories is the work of Shiraz Bayjoo, a Mauritian artist based in London. Bayjoo presents an amalgamation of photographs, paintings and repurposed archival displays to rework Western narratives and orientalist tropes.