4 May - 14 July 2013

Curator Anita Angel, Charles Darwin University Art Collection and Art Gallery

Therese Ritchie and Chips Mackinolty are pioneers of a powerful and persuasive graphic art of protest, propaganda and peoples’ politics. Both arriving in the Northern Territory in the early 1980s, they have worked ‘together, sideways and apart’ for more than three decades, capturing the lives, landscapes and major events that have defined this region as their ‘home’ and an enduring Australian frontier.

The first combined survey of their work, Not Dead Yet revisits the Darwin studios of the Werehaus Artists’ Collective in the 1980s, Green Ant Research Arts and Publishing in the 1990s and the original ‘hotbed’ of protest art in the 1970s – the Tin Sheds at Sydney University. Drawn from a corpus of eight earlier exhibitions, and a large body of art created over four decades, the exhibition includes many works shown for the first time.

 Invitation | Media Release | Come Out Festival 2013 Booking Form |

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27 July - 29 September 2013

Curator Lisa Harms, with FUAM Collection Manager, Nic Brown

In the late 19th century, a vast, yet temporary, architectural spectacle of glass and cast iron was erected in London for The Great Exhibition of 1851. Showcasing the achievements of the Industrial Revolution, the ‘Crystal Palace’, as it was coined, also demonstrated man’s triumph over nature and promoted Great Britain’s superiority on the world stage. How do we read such achievements in the 21st century – within a climate of heated and conflicting debate toward protection, preservation and exploitation?

New work by nine contemporary Australian artists, Morgan Allender, Troy-Anthony Baylis, Domenico de Clario, Siamak Fallah, Lisa Gorton, Julie Henderson, Brigid Noone, Lee Salomone and Sera Waters, presented ‘in conversation’ with objects from South Australian museums and archives, provide ranging responses to Australia’s colonial past. Works include projections, soundscapes, sculpture, painting and performance set within a purpose-built space.

Media Release - Artist sets up camp at Flinders | Media Release - Arts SA Funding

5 October - 8 December 2013

Curator Heidi Pitman, with FUAM Director, Fiona Salmon

Thriving in poor soils, spinifex (Triodia sp.) is a tough, spiky, hummock grass that covers more than twenty percent of the Australian continent. While providing habitat for reptiles, birds and small mammals, it defines much of the country’s arid landscape. Traditionally spinifex has been an important resource for Aboriginal people – foremost as a source of resin and as a building material for windbreaks and shelters. It also has medicinal and combustive uses and many other innovative applications.

A collaborative project between Flinders University and the South Australian Museum, the exhibition draws on ethnographic material culture, historic photographs and contemporary works of art to explore the enduring significance of spinifex to Aboriginal Australia. Presenting spinifex in its material form, as a subject and as a marker of identity, the exhibition also flags non-Indigenous interests in this perennial grass.

Spinifex Country is presented across two sites: Flinders University City Gallery and the South Australian Museum’s Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery (Temporary Space).

14 December 2013 - 16 February 2014

Curator Melanie Fulton

Exploring important new territory in the South Australian visual arts landscape, this exhibition investigates and interprets the past 100 years of the iconic Minda Incorporated, South Australia’s residential institution for people with intellectual disabilities. Undertaken by artists from Disability and Community Arts organisation, Tutti Incorporated, the project celebrates the unique partnership Tutti and Minda have shared since 1997.

Their Shadows in Us is a multi-arts initiative interpreting archival research, interviews and imagery gathered by artists from Tutti’s supported studio and several key emerging South Australian contemporary artists. Collaborative in nature, the exhibition is informed and implemented by current art, theories, technologies and approaches to art-making. It encompasses a broad exploration of Minda’s past and present though layered sensory experiences encompassing a variety of audio, visual and tactile encounters.