Out of the Everywhen

In 1988, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous printmakers and art organisations from across Australia produced a series of 32 screen-print posters titled Right Here Right Now – Australia 1988 in response to the nation’s bicentennial festivities. It provided a strong alternative narrative to the official message of celebration, acutely capturing the state of our nation as it relates to themes including dispossession of Aboriginal people, the environment, demands for justice and land rights. It also provided a powerful message of survival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.

35 years later in 2023, this significant body of work provides a springboard for a new group of artists to project themselves into the future. How have we have managed to change the course of our trajectory (or not)? What will we get right, what are we still learning, and in what ways has our hubris continued to ignore our future ancestors? Artists in this exhibition invite us to imagine and actively create the world we want to live in.