Exhibition • Touring

Just Not Australian

18 Sep 2020 – 4 Jun 2023

Above: Installation view at Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre, 2020.
Location
Artspace
43–51 Cowper Wharf Roadway
Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
Sydney Australia

Just Not Australian presents work by Australian artists at the forefront of national debate and practice. This exhibition brings together 20 artists across generations and diverse cultural backgrounds to deal broadly with the origins and implications of contemporary Australian nationhood. Showcasing the common sensibilities of satire, larrikinism and resistance so as to present a broad exploration of race, place and belonging, Just Not Australian interrogates what it means to be Australian at this challenging point in time.

Just Not Australian engages with the moral and ethical undertones of the loaded rejoinder ‘un- Australian’ – a pejorative now embedded in our national vocabulary that continues to be used to further political agendas and to spread nationalistic ideals of what it means to be Australian. Far from a simple comparison, a consideration of what’s not Australian ultimately leads to questions of what is, and the artists in Just Not Australian consider this in detail.

This exhibition begins its national tour from 2020 which marks the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s first voyage to Australia, a timely moment to interrogate Australia’s colonial history and the complexities of presenting and representing national identity.

Just Not Australian was curated by Artspace and developed in partnership with Sydney Festival and Museums & Galleries of NSW. The exhibition is touring nationally with Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Past Locations

Tweed Regional Gallery and The Margaret Olley Arts Centre, NSW
18 Sep – 8 Nov 2020
Wollongong Art Gallery, NSW
21 Nov 2020 – 7 Feb 2021
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW
20 Feb – 5 Apr 2021
Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW
8 May – 1 Aug 2021
Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, NSW
14 Aug – 24 Oct 2021
NorthSite Contemporary Art Centre, QLD
5 Nov 2021 – 5 Feb 2022
Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, Moreton Bay, QLD
9 Apr – 18 Jun 2022
Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery, SA
2 Jul – 4 Sep 2022
Walkway Gallery, Bordertown, SA
17 Sep – 30 Oct 2022
New England Regional Art Museum, NSW
18 Nov 2022 – 29 Jan 2023
Museum of Sydney, NSW
11 Mar – 4 Jun 2023