Current & Upcoming Exhibitions
PLIABLE PLANES: EXPANDED TEXTILES & FIBRE PRACTICES
5 August - 15 October 2023
Pliable Planes: Expanded Textiles & Fibre Practices draws together twelve Australian practitioners who reimagine practices in textiles and fibre art. The project takes its title from a 1957 essay by Bauhaus artist Anni Albers that sought to rethink the use of weaving through an architectural lens, interpreting textiles as fundamentally structural and endlessly mutable. Using this concept as a point of departure, the exhibition presents the work of contemporary practitioners experimenting with the boundaries of materiality and spatiality through unexpected approaches to making.
Exhibiting artists reflect on the use of textiles to chart social and cultural change, responding to historical modes of production and presentation, and underlying histories of domesticity and gendered labour. Works seamlessly incorporate traditional textile approaches including weaving, embroidery, knitting, and sewing while exploring broader conceptual and aesthetic possibilities that alter perceptions of material, form, and function. Through expanded painting, assemblage, performative gesture, sound, video, and installation, Pliable Planes disrupts our understanding of how textiles and fibre are defined and used in contemporary practice.
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Pliable Planes: Expanded Textiles & Fibre Practices is a UNSW Galleries touring exhibition presented with the support of the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia touring initiative, the Australia Council for the Arts, and Museums & Galleries NSW on behalf of the NSW Government.
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Curated by Karen Hall & Catherine Woolley
Image credit: Lucia Dohrmann, Quatrefoil 1 – Weft 2022, acrylic on canvas, aluminium bars, unravelled, knotted. Courtesy of the artist, Adelaide. Photo: Jacquie Manning
BOLD
8 August - 22 October 2023
Utilising works from the Western Plains Cultural Centre collection, Bold examines the ways artists express themselves using colour, and the ways we as viewers are influenced by it. Colour can be used to elicit emotion, signal action, and affect us psychologically. It is an integral element in how we engage with the world, and one that has fascinated artists for centuries. This selection of works presents colour as a reflection of the real as well as a way to express feelings, ideas and artifice.
Curated By Kent Buchanan
Image credit: Joan Ross Touching other people’s butterflies (still), 2013, single channel digital animation, 2mins 45secs. Collection Western Plains Cultural Centre, purchased with funds provided by Friends of the Western Plains Cultural Centre.
1X4
8 July - 5 November 2023
Museums use objects to tell stories. It sounds simple but it’s complicated. Objects can tell multiple stories from many points of view. So, who chooses the story? Which story is the truth? In museums, curators choose an interpretation but 1X4 turns this upside down. Each object in this exhibition tells four distinct stories. You can listen to or read each of the four stories … or some … or none and just enjoy the beauty of the objects. Every story is the truth about the object and is a valid way to view the object, but they are all different.
A touring exhibition developed by Newcastle Museum
Image Credit: Newcastle Museum
BOB MONTGOMERY
FIFTY FINE PHOTOGRAPHS
4 March - 22 October 2023
"I am naïve enough to believe that art has a definite relation to what may be called beauty." - Ansell Adams
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Bob Montgomery is well-known to many locals as the proprietor of the former Montgomery's Photographic Studio which operated in Dubbo for many years. But they may not know that Montgomery produced photographs in his spare time. Inspired by the great American landscape photographer, Ansell Adams (1902 - 1984), Montgomery produced hundreds of photographs of the Australian landscape taken during family holidays around the country. This exhibition presents a selection of Montgomery's works over a 40 year period.
Image Credit: Bob Montgomery, Frost on Paterson's Curse, Dubbo NSW, 2nd July 1987. 5" x 4" Arca Swiss monorail camera with roll film back. Negative #87 362B. Plus-X 120 roll film exposed through a 150mm Sironar-N lens for 1 second @ f22/32 and developed 50% more than normal.
FROM THE VAULT
DUBBO A HUB OF PROGRESS
18 March - 8 October 2023
Dubbo's first banker, James Holmes arrived in 1865 carrying (as the story goes) £15, 000 in cash to open a branch of the Commercial Banking Co. in the village of Dubbo. A trusted local bank manager, James Holmes was intimately involved in Dubbo's commercial life and was one of several influential businessmen who helped shape Dubbo's future.
Personal mementoes and family records often make their way into historical records due to their transitory nature; business records often do not. It is for this reason that the collection of commercial records relating to Dubbo's early history, held in our Local Studies Collection, is so unique.
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Through the legal documents and financial records of James Holmes and solicitors George Taylor and his son George Henry Taylor, we can trace the early progress of Dubbo as it developed into a thriving township.
Curated by Simone Taylor
Image Credit: Photographer Unknown, Commercial Bank, Macquarie Street, Dubbo, c.1873, Local Studies Collections, Dubbo Regional Council.
FROM THE VAULT
BEST IN SHOW:
150 YEARS OF THE DUBBO SHOW
16 October 2023 - 5 May 2024
Are you going to the show? - a question asked each year as the Dubbo showground is transformed, with rides and stalls, animals and ribbons, handmade cakes, quilts and of course the Dagwood Dog.
The Show, a distinctly Australian event, is more than just an agricultural festival promoting farming and produce, it offers a blend of entertainment, commerce, and education that celebrates our communities. Even today, more Australian’s visit their local show each year than any other single event. This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Dubbo Show with an exhibition that explores the history and significance of this cultural icon.
From the Vault is supported by Create NSW
Curated by Simone Taylor
Image Credit: L-R: Simone Taylor, Dubbo Show 2023, Dubbo Regional Council; Photographer Unknown, Horse and rider in demonstration, Dubbo Agricultural Show, April 1932. Local studies Collection, Dubbo Regional Council, 1994_425_PHO/ Simone Taylor, Dubbo Show 2023, Dubbo Regional Council
ART IN CONFLICT
4 November 2023 - 14 January 2024
Art in Conflict is an exhibition of contemporary art from the collection of the Australian War Memorial. Three major bodies of work debuted in this exhibition: two recent official war art commissions – Susan Norrie (Iraq, 2016) and Megan Cope (Middle East, 2017) – and a landmark commemorative work by Angelica Mesiti.
A showcase of diverse responses to war, the exhibition includes more than seventy paintings, drawings, films, prints, photography and sculptures. Leading Australian artists are represented, such as Khadim Ali, Rushdi Anwar, eX de Medici, Denise Green, Richard Lewer, Mike Parr, Tony Albert, Paddy Bedford, Robert Campbell Jr, Michael Cook, Shirley Macnamara and Betty Muffler.
Contemporary artists’ responses to conflict bring to light untold stories, reveal neglected histories and deepen our understanding of Australia’s experience of conflict, both past and present.
An Australia War Memorial Touring Exhibition
Image credit: Simon Gende, Plane crash into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, 2012, acrylic on canvas, ART96124, Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.
RONDA SHARPE
INTERWOVEN CONNECTIONS
4 November 2023 - 14 January 2024
Interwoven Connections is a fibre art exhibition by Parkes-based Wiradjuri artist Ronda Sharpe that explores her connections to Wiradjuri culture, country, artefacts and Mother Earth. Sharpe’s practice incorporates recycled mediums and natural fibres, combined with cultural weaving practices to explore the links between Wiradjuri culture and our current throwaway society. Interwoven Connections is a body of work that explores Sharpe’s journey of reconnecting and embracing her unspoken and lost Wiradjuri cultural identity, as she reflects on the ongoing role that cultural artefacts play in the survival and resilience of the voices of the Aboriginal community.
Curated by Mariam Abboud.
This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by the WPCC and supported by Orana Arts. HomeGround is sponsored by Wingewarra Dental.
IN CONVERSATION SATURDAY 4 NOVEMBER 2PM
Image Credit: Ronda Sharpe, The Wiradjuri land and people of the three rivers, 2020, recycled fibre optic cables, aluminium rings, palm fronds. Image © artist.
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HAYDEN FOWLER
BEHAVIOUR
4 November 2023 - 14 January 2024
Hayden Fowler's practice engages with the natural world, animals, and humanity's impact on both. His work acknowledges the psychological, spiritual and cultural significance of the human-nature relationship; and explores animist, indigenous and mythological world views.
Fowler’s practice involves long periods of research and the development of conceptually layered works - depicting scenes ranging from pristine futuristic interiors, to apocalyptic/post-human landscapes and speculative regenerative ecologies. Within these spaces, relationships between plants, animals and technology unfold, weaving mysticism, architecture, technology and life forms into strange new systems.
This exhibition presents newly acquired works to the Western Plains Cultural Centre Collection.
Curated by Kent Buchanan
Image Credit: Hayden Fowler, Australia (detail), 2017, polymer, plaster, sound, 140 x 100 x 100cm. Collection Western Plains Cultural Centre, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program.
STORE KEEP
11 November 2023 - 28 April 2024
Store Keep explores the history of stores and storekeepers and their role in the establishment of regional communities, as well as the sweeping changes sought by growth and wealth.
Dubbo and Wellington were founded by immigrants from France and Belgium, and each community was quick to develop. As the towns grew so did the number and variety of stores.
What does this history of our enterprising storekeepers say about our pioneering spirit? And how has this focus on the art of buying and selling shaped our communities? Dubbo and Wellington are now increasingly defined by trade and their histories as trade centres. Their stores reflect the multicultural mix of Australian society, as well as the expansive needs of rapidly growing economies.
This focus on Dubbo and Wellington's economic history is supported by new research highlighting the high number of women who have run and managed businesses in our past, most notably, hotels. This research challenges historical preconceptions and offers new value in studying our economic history.
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Curated by Kent Buchanan
Supported by Create NSW
Image Credit: Photographer unknown, E. Hands. Tailor, 88 Talbragar Street (c1900-54), c1920. Local Studies Collection, Dubbo Regional Council, 1994_182_PHO
CEREMONY:
4TH INDIGENOUS
ART TRIENNIAL
20 January - 12 May 2024
Ceremony remains central to the creative practice of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. This exhibition and program of events will animate and heal to reveal how ceremony is at the nexus of Country, of culture and of community.
From the intimate and personal to the collective and collaborative, ceremonies manifest through visual art, film, music and dance. Ceremonial practice has a performative element. At its heart is the concept of iteration, the artist’s conscious engagement with what has come before. Iteration can be expressed in the painted minutiae of tali (sandhills) or the click of a shutter.
The Triennial is the National Gallery’s flagship exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. The National Indigenous Art Triennial is made possible through the continued generosity of the National Gallery’s Indigenous Arts Partner Wesfarmers Arts and key philanthropic supporters.
Curated by Hetti Perkins, Arrernte and Kalkadoon peoples, Senior Curator-at-large, with National Gallery Curators
Image credit: Joel Bray, Wiradjuri people, Giraaru Galing Gaanhagirri (still), 2022, commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra for the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial: Ceremony, created in consultation with Uncle James Ingram and Wagga Wagga Elders, and with support from City of Melbourne, Phillip Keir and Sarah Benjamin (the Keir Foundation), City of Port Phillip, Create NSW, Blacktown Arts, Arts Centre Melbourne, and Yirramboi Festival 2020, image courtesy and © the artist
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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.
