Dale Harding: Through a Lens of Visitation

A descendant of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples of central Queensland, Dale Harding’s multilayered practice is poetic and political in its materiality and process, and has a strong focus on community, family and place. His works give visual expression to the complex and often painful histories of discrimination enacted against Aboriginal communities, while paying particular homage to matrilineal female figures in his family—engaging and bringing forth their stories.

'Through a Lens of Visitation' explores the artist’s relationship to his mother’s Country, Carnarvon Gorge, and includes a selection of existing works and a major textile commission with Kate Harding. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication of writings by women scholars that reflect on the history of the Gorge and speculate on its resonances within Australian modernism. In an effort to progress a discourse of Indigenous modernisms, Harding practices a productive mode of existence: one that observes the synergies of previously parallel histories.

Image: Dale Harding, Moonda and The Shame Fella 2018, glass, xanthorrhea resin and lead, 3 parts: 210 x 12 x 2 cm; 215 x 15 x 5 cm; plinth 200 x 120 x 20 cm. Collection of the artist