Recollection

Curated by Alinta Maguire & Louise Brand

23 August - 15 February 2026

After decades of quiet rest in Wollongong Art Gallery’s collection storerooms, every bark painting from the First Nations collection has emerged in this exhibition to stage a powerful gathering of Ancestral beings, totems and narratives. Connections span Communities across West, Central and East Arnhem Land, Groote Eylandt and the Tiwi Islands, reflecting the dynamic patterns and innovations of bark painting practices across Country in the Northern Territory.

This exhibition is framed as a recollection – of intrinsic cultural and Ancestral memory – and celebrates this distinct genre of First Nations artmaking, as both cultural practice and fine art. Set within the historic and idiosyncratic architecture of the old Council chambers, the exhibition invites contemplation of the collection as a facet of colonial ethnographic processes: recording, possessing, classifying and manufacturing knowledge. Recollection recontextualises The Chambers as a space of First Nations agency, Dreaming, lore and cultural continuity.

The entire collection comprises works donated to Wollongong Art Gallery, with many included in a significant donation during the 1980s from Dr Ronald and Mrs Alison Fine. Many of the works, particularly those by Ancestors, require further provenance research. Provenance documentation ensures the history of each work’s location and ownership is accurately traced – from its creation to the present. This ongoing work is vital to strengthening ethical collection practices within cultural institutions and supporting the process of truth-telling.

Image: David Malangi, Gumumarringu the Ancestral Hunter (detail), c.1985, natural pigments on bark, 157.0 x 90.5 x 7.0 cm. Gift of Dr Ronald and Mrs Alison Fine, 2003.