Curated By Steven Lindsay Ross
Featured artists
Kyra Kum-Sing, Ella Noah Bancroft, Kirilly Dawn, Dennis Golding-Bowman, Jessica Johnson, Nioka Lowe-Brennan, Hayley Pigram, Jeffrey Samuels, Jasmine Sarin, Nola Taylor, Jai Walker and Peta-Joy Williams.
Poets
Bebe Backhouse, Samuel Barsah, Jacyn De Santis, Andrew Farrell, David Hardy, Gavin Ivey, Gary Lee, Vika Mana, Jazz Money and Keith Quayle.
Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative is a key First Nations arts and cultural institution that was established in 1987 and has run an annual Mardi Gras exhibition for 29 years. This exhibition has become a key event for the First Nations LGBTIQA+ community. This year also coincides with Sydney World Pride.
This year Boomalli is proud to partner with Blackbooks, building on a deep and long standing relationship between these two vital black organisations that have nurtured artists and writers for decades.
With the support of Sydney World Pride, Blackbooks has published an Australian first; a poetry anthology of First Nations LGBTIQA+ writers called Nangamay – Mana – Djurali [Dream – Gather – Grow].
Both the exhibition and book titles are in the traditional language of Sydney and were gifted to Boomalli and Blackbooks by senior Dharug knowledge holder, Julie Jones.
For this exhibition, Boomalli LGBTIQA+ artists have selected poems from the anthology to inspire their visual pieces. This beautiful collaboration amplifies the voices of the world’s oldest storytellers and celebrates the power and resilience of the black LGBTIQA+ community. This is a legacy project that will live on long after the glitter has faded.