×

Carriageworks

Until the 26th of September 2020 you can conduct your own reading at the biennale installation at Carriageworks. Onsite there is an installation of unbound booklets from the production of NIRIN NGAAY – you can take a selection and do your own reading. Go visit!

Reading NIRIN: Andrew Rewald

In this video, Andrew Rewald reads 'On the Movement of Plants' from NIRIN NGAAY. Watch here

Reading NIRIN: Karla Dickens

Karla Dickens reads her contribution, 'Ready, Willing and Able'. Watch here

Reading NIRIN: Gladys Milroy

In this video, Gladys Milroy reads her story, 'The Black Feather'. Watch here

Reading NIRIN: Jessyca Hutchens

In this video, Jessyca Hutchens introduces us to the book. Watch here

Printed matter & NIRIN publications

Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter speak with Brook Andrew about their own artistic processes in printed matter and how they came to collaborate and produce two publications for NIRIN. The two publications, the exhibition catalogue NIRIN (edge) and the 'reader' NIRIN NGAAY (see the edge) were created in collaboration with (editors) Jessyca Hutchens (Assistant Curator to the Artistic Director) and Brook Andrew. Watch here

An artist’s book by Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter.
Edited by Jessyca Hutchens, Brook Andrew, Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter.
Commissioned for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney.

The Biennale of Sydney team and authors of this publication acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation; the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation; the Bidiagal, Dharawal and Gamaygal people, on whose ancestral lands and waters NIRIN gathers.

NIRIN is a safe place for people to honour mutual respect and the diversity of expression and thoughts that empower us all.

NIRIN NGAAY is a compilation, a collection, a volume, an Artist Book, a Reader, an artwork, a sprawling, excessive heterogenous space of connections. Published as part of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), titled NIRIN, A Wiradjuri word meaning ‘edge’, this book is a space where ideas, themes, research, and experiments arising out of NIRIN find places on pages. Traversing many disciplines and forms, encompassing new and previously published works, complete works as well as excerpts and fragments and responses, each piece may ask for new modes of reading and seeing. Instead of disorienting, we see many lines darting and weaving across these works, beautiful moments of syncing and overlap, affective and abstract resonances, moments of density, as well as pauses to breathe deeply. Read and see and touch at random or with resolve – we hope that you will appreciate the way these works unfold and twist together, creating movements of meaning between them. ‘NGAAY’ is a Wiradjuri word meaning ‘see.’ To really see ‘edges’, might also be to sense and feel and trace them, they come into view with clarity, hover in the periphery, or drift away like memories.

Buy the book

Copies of NIRIN NGAAY can be purchased at the
Biennale of Sydney Shop

Book credits

First published in 2020 by the Biennale of Sydney Ltd.

Published with generous support from Aesop and the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

This publication is copyright and all rights are reserved. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced or
communicated to the public by any process without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

© Biennale of Sydney Ltd
All texts and artworks © the author or artist.

Published for the exhibition the 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, 14 March – 8
June 2020.

ISBN: 978-0-9578023-9-1

Biennale of Sydney
Chief Executive Officer: Barbara Moore
Artistic Director: Brook Andrew
Editors: Jessyca Hutchens, Brook Andrew, Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter
Publications team: Sebastian Henry-Jones, Liz Malcolm and Jodie Polutele

Designed, typeset and printed by Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter on a Heidelberg GTO 52. Some sections printed by Printgraphics and Newsprinters.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Biennale of Sydney.

Biennale of Sydney Ltd
Level 4
10 Hickson Road
The Rocks NSW 2000
Australia

Film credits

Director & Producer
Amy Browne

Camera
Amy Browne
Jason Heller

Editor
Jaime Snyder

Sound by
Jaime Snyder
Ben Coe

Nirin Ngaay

Yiradhu marang to all artists and collaborators,

My thoughts and solidarity are with those who have been impacted by the recent fires in Australia, as well as with the animals and plant life that have, in some cases, almost certainly been pushed towards extinction.

I would like to thank everyone for your recent emails, messages and phone calls, for your words of encouragement and action during these unprecedented and tragic bushfires. Many of you have asked me about how NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, is being affected, and even if it will still occur amongst this environmental catastrophe.

Yes, NIRIN will still take place. Sydney is safe to visit and spend time in as are other major cities. If there is any particular concern for an area of Australia you would like to visit during your stay, please let me know and the Biennale staff can respond to your query.

As a First Nations- and artist-led Biennale that asks the urgent questions of our age, it is an endeavour to hold fast. NIRIN focuses on many critical issues and pathways for action, reflecting on the environment and sovereignty as well as coming together. It is a place where creatives will congregate and support communities, and collectively reflect and give visibility to the challenges we face. Now is the time for us all to join hands and come together to discuss, debate and call for action; to grab this moment as a turning point. Family and community are our best allies against grief and disarray. Many artists, communities and collectives drive NIRIN and are working closely with urgent focus that expresses both tension and imagination connecting the environment, healing, collaboration and relationship to land.

These fires are truly a global wake-up call. It is a time for us to stay strong and come together – a pathway that can be led through First Nations methodologies and thinking – showing models of coming together, talking, supporting, and healing together, and emphasising the power of creativity in these processes.

Australia, much like fires in Brazil or recent floods in Indonesia, and plastics choking the oceans, is a magnifying glass for global change within our environments, showing the devastation and scale of catastrophe caused by climate change and human intervention. In spite of all of the challenges we face not only in Australia, but globally, including major shifts in human politics and conflict – and perhaps because of these – I look forward to NIRIN being a space where artists and collaborators can make noise and sustain ideas and pathways for a better future that is not just an imagining but a push for real change – something must shift!

The entire NIRIN 22nd Biennale team and communities look forward to greeting you all very soon.

Mandaang guwu,
Brook