Current & Upcoming Exhibitions
2022
CAPTURING NATURE
Early photography at the Australian Museum 1857- 1893
4th June - 23rd October
In Capturing Nature, we travel back to a time when photography was revolutionising science, art and society.
These never-before-seen images dating from 1857 to 1893 have been printed from the Australian Museum’s collection of glass plate negatives and are some of Australia’s earliest natural history photographs. Sitting at the nexus of science and art, they tell both the story of pioneering research as well as the advent of photography in the young colony less than 20 years after the birth of photography in Europe.
A touring exhibition created by the Australian Museum.
Image Credit: Gerard Kreft with the newly discovered manta ray, Manta alfredi, in the Museum’s courtyard in 1869. Photos © Australian Museum.
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EXPERIMENTA LIFE FORMS: INTERNATIONAL TRIENNIAL OF MEDIA ART
2nd July - 18th September
Experimenta Life Forms: International Triennial of Media Art features 26
contemporary Australian and International artists working across diverse artforms – including robotics, bio-art, screen-based works, installations, participatory and generative art. The exhibition explores the changing notions of life in response to new scientific research and technological change. While the focus is on biological life, there are also artworks that look to a future with sentient machines and the possibilities afforded by biotechnology research. In unexpected, playful and challenging ways the exhibition connects us to the complexity and messiness of the life that envelops us.
Curated by Jonathan Parsons and Lubi Thomas
Associate Curator: Jessica Clark
EVENT OPENING FRIDAY 8 JULY 6PM
Image Credit: Justine Emard, Soul Shift, 2018. Video still. Image courtesy of the artist.
MELISSA KELLY
NOT FRAGILE LIKE A FLOWER
9th July - 18th September
Not Fragile Like a Flower is an exhibition of ceramics by Gilgandra-based artist Melissa Kelly, that explores and challenges the ways society has indoctrinated women into traditional roles. Drawing on lived experiences, Kelly fashions figurative zoomorphised forms that reflect and contemplate the various stages of life for women during marriage, motherhood and after. Not Fragile Like a Flower is a body of work that explores resilience, transformation and growth, allowing for adaptation through life’s continual changes.
This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by WPCC and supported by Orana Arts. HomeGround is sponsored by Wingewarra Dental.
Curated by Mariam Abboud
IN CONVERSATION SATURDAY 9 JULY 2PM
Image Credit Melissa Kelly, Bird Woman, 2021, Stoneware and paint. Image © the artist.
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THE COLLECTION
PREDATOR BECOMES PREY
9th July - 18th September
When the word Predator comes to mind, we may naturally think of animals that hunt, or prey on other animals. We perhaps overlook that the smallest of insects can become predators to the most fearsome of creatures in the animal kingdom. Predator becomes Prey is an exhibition that explores the delicate balance of nature and the complex relationship between animals and humans that interconnects us both from birth until death. This continual connection is expressed through our interaction and intrigue with the animal world, ensuring our place within the cycle of life.
Curated by Mariam Abboud
Image Credit: Petrina Hicks, Bird Fingers, 2013, pigment prints on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Pearl paper 320gsm. Collection Western Plains Cultural Centre, Purchased with funds provided by the Friends of the Western Plains Cultural Centre.
PEOPLE PLACES POSSESSIONS
DUBBO STORIES
Permanent Exhibition
The history of Dubbo told through the people who lived here. Stories of hardship, perseverance, ingenuity, tragedy and joy – Dubbo’s past is at once surprising and enlightening.
Telling the story of a place and its people is made easier by examining the myriad of ways we document, express and articulate our experiences. For a museum, the photographs, books, objects and official records help us to record history. The archives held by the WPCC allow community members to access this material for research or general interest. From diaries and ledgers to photographs that transport us back in time, the WPCC Collection provides a unique portal to our past.
Image Credit: Maker unknown, Shoe – Female – Chinese, date unknown. Red satin. Braid edging continues down to the toe. Calico sole with embroidery under the heel. Bird and flower embroidery. Orange tie embroidered in shades of blue. Designed for the custom of bound feet. Collection WPCC.
EUAN MACLEOD AND RODNEY POPLE
2°
1st October - 12th February
Friends and well-known Australian artists Euan Macleod and Rodney Pople undertook artist residencies in Dubbo during 2021, observing people and animals at Taronga Western Plains Zoo. Each artist produced sketches and preparatory studies at the Zoo, expanding on these later in the studio. For their first two-person exhibition they have produced large scale paintings and portraits of animals and humans, revealing a sustained engagement with the act of looking and its reverse – being looked at. In different ways characteristic of each artists’ established practice, the paintings explore notions of captivity and freedom, drawing out the absurdity at the heart of our own ideas around dominance and survival.
Curated by Kent Buchanan
EVENT OPENING FRIDAY 14 OCTOBER 6PM
Image Credits:
Euan Macleod, Zoo larger crowd, 2021, acrylic on polyester, 100 x 124cm. Image © the artist.
Rodney Pople, Roulette, 2021, oil on linen, 145 x 184cm. Image © the artist.
JESS JOHNSON & SIMON WARD
TERMINUS
3rd October - 4th December
Inspired by Sci-Fi, comics and fantasy movies, Jess Johnson and Simon Ward: Terminus is a virtual reality (VR) installation that transports the viewer into an imaginary landscape of colour and pattern populated by human clones, moving walkways and gateways to new realms.
With their pioneering use of virtual reality, artists Jess Johnson and Simon Ward hold a unique position amongst contemporary art practitioners. Johnson’s drawings are transformed from analogue into digital, and from solo practice into cross-disciplinary collaboration, forming the basis of this virtual experience. Animated by Ward and enriched with input from Smith and Clarke, the result is Terminus: a mysterious universe of alien architecture populated by humanoid clones and cryptic symbols, explored via a network of travellators and gateways.
Terminus presents a quest, a choose-your-own adventure into the technological. Prepare yourself for a slippage of time and space as your journey propels you through five distinct realms.
Jess Johnson and Simon Ward is a National Gallery Touring Exhibition supported by Visions of Australia and the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program. Terminus was commissioned with the assistance of The Balnaves Foundation.
Image Credit Jess Johnson and Simon Ward Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, Terminus (still), 2017 - 2018, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, commissioned with the assistance of The Balnaves Foundation 2017, purchased 2018 © Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, courtesy of Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney; Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland and Jack Hanley Gallery, New York
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BEHIND THE LINES: THE YEAR IN POLITICAL CARTOONS 2021:
PROPHECY & CHANCE
29th October - 27th November
Behind the Lines 2021 is rummaging in the fortune-teller’s chest for the crystal ball. Just as predictive models have become ever-present in the news cycle, the exhibition’s current theme, Prophecy & Chance, acknowledges our discomfort with uncertainty and our quest to know what the future holds. Peering into the swirling mists of the ‘Canberra bubble’ our talented political cartoonists have illuminated the complex issues of 2021’s ‘new normal’ - a year peppered with big reports, unexpected outcomes and floundering forecasts. From COVID-19, case numbers to house prices and employment levels, 2021 was a year to expect the unexpected.
The 2021 Cartoonist of the Year is Glen Le Lievre, cartoonist whose work has appeared in The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, MAD, Private Eye, Reader’s Digest, The New Yorker, Time and The Wall Street Journal.
Behind the lines is an annual onsite and travelling exhibition developed by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House.
Curated by Holly Williams, The Curator’s Department
Image Credit: Glen Le Livre, Prophecy & change, Behind the Lines 2021 Image © artist.
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DANDALOOSU
DECOLONISE
10th December - 26th February 2023
Decolonise is an exhibition of textiles by Wellington-based artist DandalooSu, that explores the importance and value of native fauna and flora in agricultural and fashion industries. Drawing on cultural practices of native fibre crafts, knowledge of Gilgai’s (small water holes) and three pivotal dates where imported fibres were introduced into the Australian landscapes, DandalooSu fashion garments, headdresses and ornaments made with native materials is an attempt to highlight our current patterns of consumption. Decolonise is a body of work that aims to reclaim and elevate the use of native fibres within the textile world, and draw awareness to the environmental impact of their modes of production.
This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by WPCC and supported by Orana Arts. HomeGround is sponsored by Wingewarra Dental.
Curated by Mariam Abboud
IN CONVERSATION SATURDAY 10 DECEMBER 2PM
Image Credit: DandalooSu, Celebration, 2017, native fibre spiny sedge and imported raffia. Image (C) Chenoa.
ANDREW SULLIVAN
SURVEY INTO THE CRETACEOUS
10th December - 19th February 2023
“Human courage and endurance have conquered-the explorer must change his methods.”
Roy Chapman Andrews.
Survey into the Cretaceous is a journey into the painters imagination.
The painter has imagined himself as being an assigned artist with a team of paleontologists, scientists and geographers on a survey expedition into the late Cretaceous period. His brief is to record the fauna and express the experience through an artist’s eye. A broad cross-section of species is represented, some now extinct, some still extant today.
Boundaries of reality are not of relevance, barriers between disciplines blurred, this is an act of imagination. The work presented being the product of the journey, tangible evidence of an impossible story.
The analogy of the journey is paramount. As with each individual’s human journey, it is a journey of struggle, learning, growth and ultimately evolution and perhaps, transcendence.
This exhibition is managed and toured by Pompom Gallery
Image Credit: Andrew Sullivan, Out of Purgatory (Purgatorius, Diabloceratops and Dante) 2019?, oil canvas, 137 × 137cm. Image courtesy the artist.
AFTER THE NEWS: A HISTORY OF THE REELS
3rd December - 2 July 2023
Dubbo in 1976 had only been officially a city for 10 years. It had one radio station and two TV channels. From this context sprang a band that would redefine Australian music in the 1980s and beyond. The Reels were a band that defied categorisation, and were quickly embraced by audiences across the country. An endlessly innovative and idiosyncratic band, they skilfully re-interpreted “Gold Oldies” from music’s past into chart topping contemporary hits, and produced original material that quickly saw them enter the annals of Australian Rock history, in spite of chart success.
After The News charts the bands history from its humble beginnings in Dubbo, its evolution through the 80s and 90s and its unique place in Australian Rock Music history.
Curated by Kent Buchanan
FROM THE VAULT
VICTORIA PARK OUR PLACE OF RECREATION, CELEBRATION AND COMMEMORATION
15th July - 12th March 2023
Located in the heart of Dubbo, Victoria Park plays a central role as a place were our community meets for recreation, celebration and commemoration. This exhibition explores how Victoria Park has changed inline with changes attitudes and uses of urban parks from pleasure gardens to urban green spaces.
Image Credit: Aerial View of Victoria Park, Dubbo, 1938, Photograph, Local Studies Collection, Dubbo Regional Council, D0001099
