News

Fremantle Arts Centre's April – June 2022 program has just been released. Read the online version to catch up on all FAC's upcoming exhibitions, evenings of discussion, special events, gigs, art courses and more.

Fremantle Arts Centre has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to implement Groundwork, a new initiative which will bolster the careers of Western Australian artists, supporting them to develop new career pathways for the realisation of bold new work.

In consideration of the continued increase in community cases of COVID-19 and that cases are anticipated to peak at the end of March and into April we have made the following decisions regarding our Learning Classes for April – June 2022: school holiday classes have been cancelled for April 2022; and the commencement of Term 2 classes will be delayed.

Across the vast state of Western Australia Aboriginal artistic practice is thriving – whether it’s the continuation of centuries-old techniques informed by tradition, or forays into exciting mediums – the ambitious output is as rich and diverse as WA itself, and will be celebrated once more at Revealed, Fremantle Arts Centre’s popular annual program dedicated to showcasing the best new and emerging Aboriginal artists who call the state home.

In light of yesterday’s announcement by the WA State Government introducing Level 2 public health measures from this Thursday 3 March, we wanted to share how this will impact Fremantle Arts Centre’s programs and events.

At the Ridges of Our Hands is an initiative of Soul Alphabet, a small organisation committed to amplifying the voices of People of Colour, with a focus on working alongside those belonging to the African diaspora. At the Ridges of Our Hands celebrates the enduring influence that the African diaspora have style and aesthetics globally, recentering the African diaspora at the heart of all that is cool.

Amanda Bell's newly commissioned work Balak (Naked), 2022, approaches the themes of wardarn or oceans through a lens of personal and collective trauma. This significant installation, comprised of neon glass, audio, written word, marri gum and collected yongka (kangaroo) bones, asks us to reflect upon recent histories for First Nations people, those of colonial invasion and dispossession inflicted by the British in their strategic assault and takeover of this continent.

Garry Sibosado is an artist, designer, and jeweller of the Bard people of the west Kimberley. Garry’s works are contemporary explorations of traditional Bard creation narratives, kinship systems and culture, made from guwan or pearl shell, the same material used by his ancestors in fashioning of cultural objects. 

Sam Bloor’s newly commissioned works presented within the galleries at Fremantle Arts Centre and off-site on the carriages of the Tourist Wheel at Fremantle Esplanade Park examine our coastline and the oceans that surround as site of asylum for those fleeing persecution, but also as site of nationalism and systemic racism. Bloor’s works in Undertow, like many in his oeuvre, employ highly-considered text provocations that interrogate Australia’s hard-line stance on border protection

Aotearoa-born, Sāmoan/Australian artist Angela Tiatia makes works that speak to Pacific identity, the impact of colonialism and the realities of the climate emergency in a global context. Tiatia shifts between performance, installation, and lens-based practice, often employing her body as both subject and medium in place-based endurance performance works. Tiatia works grapple with race, power and gender and make nuanced critique on history’s influence on contemporary reality.