Exhibition: Ngaya (I am)

Dennis Golding, Cast in cast out, Purchase 2021, Museum of Sydney Collection, Museums of History NSW (Artwork (c) Dennis Golding)

The Museum of Sydney presents Ngaya (I am), an exhibition featuring 30 significant Aboriginal objects removed from Country around 200 years ago.

‘A cut-and-paste, punked-up look at my Country’ is how Peter Waples-Crowe describes his five-minute video installation Ngaya (I am), a self-portrait of the artist as a queer Ngarigo person from the Snowy Mountains region of south-eastern NSW.

Mixing images of people and landscape with song and dance – and humour – this compelling video installation explores the multiple identities of Waples-Crowe, who was adopted and raised in the Illawarra region on the NSW South Coast and later reconnected with his Ngarigo heritage. The work reinstates the artist in the landscape from which he was removed. More broadly, it asserts the ongoing presence of the Ngarigo people in the land that still holds their stories despite pervasive Western imagery that would deny their existence, language and connection to Country.

Ngaya (I am) is accompanied by historical photographs of the Snowy Mountains region held in the State Archives Collection.

When: 16 March – 25 August 2024

Where: Museum of Sydney, corner of Bridge and Phillip streets, Sydney NSW 2000 (plan your visit)

Admission: Free

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