Artist Dennis Golding with The Future is Here, 2021, Carriageworks. Image courtesy and © the artist. Photograph Zan Wimberley

POWER – The Future is Here

Dennis Golding

BAMM is pleased to present POWER – The Future is Here, the result of a collaboration between artist Dennis Golding and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from Alexandria Park Community School. Superhero capes were created during a workshop in 2020, led by Golding who was an artist in residence at the school through Solid Ground. Students from Kindergarten to Year 12 designed capes with iconography informed by their lived experiences and cultural identity.

As superheroes, Golding and his young collaborators are empowered and reminded of the strength of their culture in forming their identity and connection to Country. Individually and together, the capes critique social, political and cultural representations of contemporary First Nations experience. This series of capes were first presented in POWER at Blacktown Arts (2021) and then at Carriageworks in The Future is Here (2021). 

A Solid Ground project with Dennis Golding and Alexandria Park Community School, curated by Kyra Kum-Sing, presented by Carriageworks and Blacktown Arts, and touring with Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program.

Artist: Dennis Golding
Curator: Kyra Kum-Sing
Opening:
Friday 10 November 6pm
Exhibition:
2 November–11 December 2024
Where:
BAMM Gallery
FREE

Biographies

Dennis Golding is a Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay artist from the northwest of NSW and was born and raised on Gadigal land (Redfern, Sydney). Through his mother’s lineage Dennis also has ancestral ties to Biripi country situated along the mid-north coast of NSW. 

Working in a range of mixed media including painting, video, photography and installation, Golding critiques the social, political, and cultural representations of race and identity. His practice is drawn from his own experiences living in urban environments and through childhood memories. 

Golding was surrounded by art from his urban upbringing living in an Aboriginal community in Redfern (often referred to as ’The Block’). As a young child, he often watched his mother and grandmother paint on large canvas and sheen fabrics which depicted Australian native plants and animals, cultural motifs, and human figures. Golding developed his professional practice in art school through mentorships with leading curators, educators, and artists. Golding graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at UNSW Art & Design in 2019 and now works independently as an artist and curator. 

Since graduating Golding was awarded the Create NSW Visual Arts Fellowship 2020 and has exhibited at many major institutions including the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney Living Museums, and Carriageworks. Golding’s work can also be seen around Sydney in many public art installations. Golding also co-founded the Re-Right Collective with Carmen Glynn-Braun. 

Through his artistic and curatorial practice, Golding aims to present powerful representations of contemporary Aboriginal cultural identity that inform narratives of history and lived experiences.

Kyra Kum-Sing is a Malera Bandjalan, Mitakoodi woman. Kum-Sing has been the curator at Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative for the past four years and has curated a number of significant and acclaimed exhibitions including Boomalli’s 25th Anniversary Mardi Gras Exhibition: Original Box (2019); Warriors for the Environment (2019); inVISIBLE (2020) and Shell It (2021). 

Kum-Sing also curated Deadly Women of Redfern at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (2018), the July 2018 program for the MCA Art Bar, Dyarra Murama Guwing (the sun setting red) at Lane Cove Gallery (2020) and Dennis Golding’s POWER at Blacktown Arts (2021). Kum-Sing is an Encounters Fellow Alumni from the National Museum of Australia. 

Kum-Sing has a diverse artistic practice which includes painting, drawing, weaving, sculpture, installations and clothing design. She is a consultant for the Aboriginal site heritage and repatriation work on Bandjalan Country in Northern NSW, where she is working on revitalising the Malera Bandjalan language. Kum-Sing also has extensive experience working in services for Aboriginal people, including the Aboriginal Medical Service, Redfern; Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal; and the Yabun Festival. She is a passionate advocate for Aboriginal rights and self-determination and the Aboriginal arts and cultural sector.