Big Weather

Big Weather exhibit featuring works by Fiona Foley, Julie Gogh, Nicholas Hovington, Anchor Kolumba, Laurie Nona, Dot Peters and many other Indigenous artists from Australia (National Gallery Victoria, 2021).

  • Big Weather (2021-2022) art exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria featured a collection of paintings, photographs, films, weavings and sculptures by over fifty Indigenous artists from Australia. This exhibit recognized the significance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ cultural knowledge for deep understanding of natural environments, landscape evolution, weather systems and climate change.                                                                               

Big Weather exhibit featuring “Stolen Climate” by Clinton Naina (on the left wall), “We are on fire (not in a sexy way)” by Karla Dickens (gallery floor), and “Fire Story for Kulin Nations” by Donna Blackall (right wall) (National Gallery Victoria, 2021).

How is this related to climate?

  • The works displayed in Big Weather address climate change by drawing inspiration from the impact of extreme weather- and climate-related events like flooding or bushfires in Australia:
    • “Eye of the Storm” (2020) by Treahna Hamm (photo below), for example, honors loss of wildlife due to climate change. This art piece depicts a baby kangaroo in its center as a tribute to animals who died in Australia’s bushfires (2019-2020). 
    • “Stolen Climate” (2020) by Clinton Naina (photo above) is made with cotton and bleach as reflections of the world history of colonization and slavery and their relation to global industrialization that results in destruction of native lands and fuels modern-day climate change.

“Eye of the Storm” (2020) by Treahna Hamm (National Gallery of Victoria, 2021).

References and additional resources