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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.

Ron Bradfield is a storyteller and for many years telling stories and spinning yarns has been his primary artistic medium, weaving words and conversations with generosity, humour, charm, and wit to share stories of his life and those of his loved ones. He does this in a way that opens the hearts, minds, and mouths of those in his company – creating space for everyone to listen and to share, but most importantly he holds space for people to feel - to feel joy or sadness and to feel safe in revealing their own stories.

The ambitious installation work of mother and daughter team, Sonja and Elisa Jane Carmichael, Ngugi artists from Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island, Queensland) and Mulgumpin (Moreton Island, Queensland) sits at the heart of Undertow, transforming FAC’s main gallery into an underwater chasm, enveloping and submerging visitors within a vessel of ancestral knowledge as if held in the ocean’s watery embrace. Presenting their most ambitious installation work to date, comprised of six expansive cyanotype works on cotton and a selection of forms woven in the enduring traditions of Quandamooka women, Dabiyil Bajara, 2021, is a celebration of Quandamooka sea Country.

With Bazaar 2021 just around the corner, we've compiled this handy guide of need-to-know tips and tricks to ensure your day at the market is a successful one. Read on and get excited about WA's favourite Christmas Makers' Market, which returns to FAC from 3-5 December.

In the lead up to Bazaar 2021, we're introducing you to some of our wonderful stallholders including Ronel Koen — a ceramic artist and the creative brains behind Fremantle-based ceramic business Swalō Ceramics. Ronel's practice inspired by the principles of Japanese Nerikomi, where slabs of clay are layered, folded, and pressed, over and over until it creates a beautiful design or pattern. Ronel is part of our inaugural Bazaar Incubator, a mentorship program for emerging makers in the first five years of their practice or who have never been a part of Bazaar.

Senior visual artists and husband and wife duo Richard and Yoshiko Gunning are current Artists in Residence at the Fremantle Arts Centre. Housed in Studio 6, an airy, light-filled space bigger than most studio apartments, Richard and Yoshiko have been steadily working towards a new exhibition, Luminous Pursuit, which opens at Nyisztor Studio on 30 October.

Melbourne-based artist Shaun Wilson is Fremantle Arts Centre's first ever Online Artist-In-Residence. The program was created as a response to creating art during the time of border restrictions and social distancing — providing virtual space for artists to explore and create digital art, to build online communities, and to have dedicated time and space for experimenting on something new. Shaun is developing a project called Revisiting the Decameron, part of a wider investigation ‘Winter Light’ examining the beauty and horror of plague through contemporary art.

Sharyn Egan is a painter, weaver and sculptor. At IOTA21, Sharyn will present her collaborative installation What’s in a Noongar woman’s bag? Naatj Noongar yoka kooda, an exploration into the daily lives of her ancestors, using historical research and oral histories to trace the belongings found in a Noongar women’s bag in the 1800s.