Murrudha: Sovereign Walks

 Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks | Dr Matilda House, Brenda L. Croft, William James Mildenhall, Prue Hazelgrove, Dean Freeman, Cheryl Davison, Shane Herrington

ANU School of Art & Design Gallery | 7 July - 7 August 2026

In her capacity as team leader for the Australian National University (ANU) Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Grand Challenge, Professor Brenda L. Croft drew inspiration from her ancestors' sovereign acts. 

Protesting genocidal conditions imposed on them over eight decades of colonial and unsettler-colonial impact, more than 200 Gurindji (and related nations and clans) stockmen and their families marched off the 2nd Wave Hill Station in outback Australia in 1966. Together with an earlier sovereign action in 1963 by Yolngu people, their 22-kilometer Walk-Off Track garnered national and international coverage and support over nearly nine years of activism. It became seen as the origins of the national land rights movement.

In 1927, senior Wiradjuri walamira (clevermen) Nangar/Yangar (c.1848-1927) also known as Jimmy Clements), and Ooloogan (c. 1840-1928) also known as George John Noble and Marvellous together completed a 3 days, 93 miles (150 kilometres) walk. It was undertaken in order to demonstrate their sovereignty by being present for the official opening of the new federal Parliament House on 9 and 10 May on Ngambri/Ngunawal homelands in the, then, recently established national capital, Canberra. Contemporary press clippings acknowledge their participation as defending their sovereign rights to their traditional Country.

They walked from the Brungle Station (also known as Brungle Community), nestled between Gundagai and Tumut on Walgalu/Wiradyuri Country, across the Brindabella Range to Canberra. It has been (and is) the driving force for the Challenge project

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #14 is the fourteenth outcome associated with the Challenge project "Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – tracking cultural actions through art, Country, language and music".

The Murrudha team and First Nations community members have undertaken two test walks determining Nangar and Ooloogan’s route, with a final test walk undertaken for the 99th anniversary in May 2026.

This exhibition showcases creative-led research in progress since 2020, including audio-visual documentation, alongside creative art and craftworks by a number of First Nations, and some non-Indigenous, artists associated with the project. The room sheet available at the exhibition provides background information regarding the various significant people integral to the project.

At the exhibition’s official opening guests heard a great presentation by Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM singing up Country and were treated to a wonderful performance by the Djinama Yalaga choir. And exhibition curator, Professor Croft, spoke passionately about the project. I mention that because all of those things added wonderfully to the visual art on display.

Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM © Brian Rope

Djinama Yalaga choir © Brian Rope

Professor Brenda L. Croft © Brian Rope

There are 35 diverse works in the exhibition including three audiovisuals to spend time with, two artworks by Dr Matilda House on loan from the Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection, and three photographs. Two of the latter show indigenous people on the steps of Parliament House – one on 10 May 1927, the other on 23 November 2023. The third is of George John Noble aka Marvellous with a dog, pre-1926. These photos are by William James Mildenhall and Prue Hazelgrove.

Aunty Matilda House was born in 1945 and is a proud Ngambri-Ngunnawal woman who has determinedly pursued social justice for Indigenous people in the wider community. She is well known and respected, indeed loved, by the general community of Canberra, all of whom have been at various events when Aunty has welcomed them to Country. It is good to have her artwork included here.

Many Canberrans know about the Mildenhall collection which comprises more than 7,700 images on glass plate negatives and has significant cultural and historical value to all Australians. Hazelgrove specialises in the wet plate collodion process. The inkjet print from her original tintype nicely complements the Mildenhall works.

Still image from: Brungle to Canberra – Final Test Walk 4-8 May 2026 (Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track # 14), projection. Participants: Brungle First Nations community members, Bugang Bila Indigenous Rangers (Tumut, Brungle, Snowy Mountains area), Professor Brenda L Croft, Monika Duggan, Terry Cleary, Rohit Rao (ANU). Drone operator/A-V documenter: Colin Elphick, Numeral Creative. 

Dr Matilda House (Williams), Murumbeeja dooligah, 1996, Edition 1 /6. Printer Jan Hogan and Theo Trembly Studio One Inc Canberra. Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection.

Jimmy Clements (also known as Nangar, Yangar or ‘King Billy’) on the front steps of Parliament House, c. 10 May 1927. Photograph by William James Mildenhall. Inkjet print on archival paper. National Archives of Australia.

Prue Hazelgrove, Nangar and Ooloogan Descendants on steps of Old Parliament House, 23 November 2023, as part of Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #4, 24 November 2023. Inkjet print on archival paper, (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

There is a superb acrylic gouache on rag board by Cheryl Davison, some beautiful wood coolamons by Dean Freeman, and an impressive bark canoe and wooden spears by Shane Herrington. And, last but not least, numerous high quality inkjet prints (from original tintypes) by Brenda L. Croft. Davison’s artwork is inspired by the river that flows from the mountains to the sea (a phrase Canberrans know well) through the Country of her grandfather. Making cultural objects allows Freeman to connect with what his Ancestors used in their daily lives. Herrington’s approach also fosters a deep connection to cultural heritage. Croft’s artworks here are some of her First Nations portraits created since 2019.

Cheryl Davison, Still on Country, 2026, acrylic gouache on rag board, 70 x 57 cm.

 

Dean Freeman, gulaman (coolamons) (installation), 2023-26, wood, dimensions variable

Installation image © Brian Rope

Shane Herrington, Murlin (bark canoe) 2026. Bark, bush string, dimensions variable

And Spears, 2026. Wood, bush string, dimensions variable

Installation image © Brian Rope

Brenda L. Croft, Julie (Dhulanyagan clan, Yorta Yorta/Wiradjuri/Wurundjeri Peoples), 2024 from the series Naabámi (thou shall/will see): Barangaroo (army of me). 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

Brenda L. Croft, Men of High Degree: Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta (clan plangermairreenner, Ben Lomond people, Cape Portland nation, north-east Tasmania), 2023. 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

 

There it is - art, Country, language and music. All feature in this excellent and important exhibition - and in planned associated events. Please see it in person if you are able to.

This review is also available on the author's blog.

Deadpan artefacts: creative experiments with facial expression recognition in photographic portraiture

Visual art exhibition review | Brian Rope

Deadpan artefacts: creative experiments with facial expression recognition in photographic portraiture | Melita Dahl

ANU School of Art & Design Gallery, Wed 22 Apr 2026, 10:30 am - Fri 15 May 2026, 3:00 pm

An early graduate of the ANU School of Art & Design, Melita Dahl later undertook postgraduate study at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. Her work is held in major public collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Museum and Gallery and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, and has been exhibited widely in Australia and abroad. This exhibition is presented as part of a Higher Degree by Research examination.

In the room sheet, Dahl tells us that “Over the past three decades, photography has evolved from its traditional role as an indexical imprint of the world into a fluid, computational space shaped by digital transformation.”

It is within that context that Melita Dahl has used the photographic portrait as a framework for research exploring “datafication of pose and expression through creative experiments engaging with Facial Expression Recognition (FER) technologies.” A key focus has been the neutral category in FER, which closely aligns with the so-called deadpan expression.

Dahl’s practice has long engaged the portrait as an experimental site where cultural and technological forces intersect with the history of photographic practice. While discussing her 2021 Portrait exhibition at Photo Access, I referred to how we try to interpret facial expressions. And how looking into a person’s eyes can supposedly tell us what that person thinks and feels. In essence, that is what this exploration is all about.

Deadpan portrait photography has frequently been presented as an "objective" form of documentation that gives no clues about what the subject might be thinking. Focusing on the neutral face - found to be measurable through facial expression recognition technologies - Dahl traces a correlation with the deadpan. She has used this interplay as a conceptual bridge in her research, connecting the conventions of analogue portraiture with contemporary data-driven approaches. As a result, her works “explore how neutrality operates across the intersecting fields of portraiture, photography and technology.”

The works on display include ten high-quality pigment ink prints on archival paper. There are also three 4K video loops and an “interactive data visualisation”. The latter is a fascinating Web application. It draws on the National Portrait Gallery’s photographic collection. The portraits have been visually and contextually filtered and sorted, then classified and arranged according to pose and expression, particularly the Deadpan. At the exhibition opening, I watched numerous people standing looking at the tiny reproductions of those portraits moving about the projection with information regarding assessed facial expressions, and the video loops, for lengthy periods. The facial expressions I saw on the viewers’ faces revealed nothing to me about what they were thinking!

So, let’s look at some of the exhibits here. Firstly, a 2019 print titled happy (0.96). When you look at the facial expression, do you see a happy face? If not, what sort of facial expression do you see?

Melita Dahl, happy (0.96), 2019, Pigment Ink Print on Archival Paper, 52.4 x 69.9cm

Next, a 2021 print titled Deadpan 9.980549278246. The portrait here is accompanied by some “scores” which provide us with more information than the portrait alone would.

Melita Dahl, Deadpan 9.980549278246, 2021, Pigment Ink Print on Archival Paper, 80x60cm

Here’s a 2026 image from the Perspective Machine series. A fine piece of art.

Melita Dahl, Perspective Machine 02, 2026, Pigment Ink Print on Archival Paper, 60x80cm

And here’s a still from a 2026 video Deadpan/Neutral – A comparative analysis. A triple Deadpan portrait no less.

Melita Dahl, Deadpan|Neutral – A comparative analysis, video still, 2026

All the prints in the exhibition are very high quality and are fine pieces of art as well as providing much information to viewers about the results of Dahl’s research. Those who have not been Doctor of Philosophy students may be challenged by the research concept and outcomes, but that doesn’t matter. Being challenged is a good thing for us all - and what better way to be challenged than by a great exhibition?

If you are unable to visit the exhibition, I encourage you to check out Dahl’s website https://melitadahl.net/. Those of you who can visit the exhibition should check the opening days and hours and be aware that the gallery will be closed to the public during examination times.

This review is also available on the author's blog and in The Printer June 2026.

Beyond the Material: at the Intersection of Glass and the Digital Image

Photomedia-Glass | Brian Rope

Beyond the Material: at the Intersection of Glass and the Digital Image | Kate Baker

SCHOOL OF ART & DESIGN GALLERY, ANU | 10 Mar, 10.30am – 23 Mar, 3pm

Kate Baker is a Sydney-based artist whose contemporary practice merges photo, print and moving image technologies with studio glass.

Before graduating from the Glass Workshop at the Australian National University (ANU) School of Art in Canberra in 1999, Baker studied photography, printmaking and sculpture. In 2017, attracted by its practice-led approach to research, she returned to the ANU as a Higher Degree by Research Candidate, seeking to complete her Doctor of Philosophy and further develop her studio research in a critiqued setting. This is her PhD examination exhibition.

Like most parents, Baker photographs her children. She also videos and draws them. What makes her imagery better or different to those of our children playing on their trampolines? Baker clearly reflects on bonds formed between people. She also uses unexpected arrangements of the body. She sees the images being of abstracted universal people - placeholders for people. Or, if you prefer, metaphors. She sees bodies as containers for our inner feelings, thoughts and imagination.

Works from her Within Matter series explore the intersection between physical beings and the less tangible space of our subjective perceptions. Young figures are captured in various moments where the abstraction of their forms invites us to question where their physical bodies begin and end, and whether there are other dimensions also in that space.

Each artwork results from making ultraviolet flatbed digital prints on translucent panels of glass, then mounting them on architectural steel bases. The freestanding nature of the works allows light to pass through the imagery so they can be experiences more as sculptures than photographs.

Kate Baker - Within Matter 7 (side view cropped)

Unreal and evocative images, along with narratives, are fixed into layers of glass, mirror and, more recently, metal. Baker is closely examining the qualities of glass. Her themes explore the human environment - physical, psychological and emotional layers, inviting viewers to consider the relationship between us and our experiences.

Baker has been both a finalist and winner of national and international art prizes, including the 2018 Hindmarsh Prize, which recognises excellence in the field of Contemporary Art made primarily from glass. These are most definitely excellent Contemporary artworks.

Her research leading to this exhibition saw a reconfiguring of her existing studio practice. She used a broader interdisciplinary approach to explore the intersection of glass and the digital image, incorporating their relationship to light, space and time. Drawing from her own experience, Baker overlaid images, surface treatments and text. The use of highly personal text information, including years of her technical process notes, may initially strike us as ambiguous scribbles before we learn about the source material.

The reflective surfaces offer us opportunities to become actively involved in the works – for they change as we move around the gallery space. This is about how we co-exist and establish emotional ties, how our connections with others change as time passes. This would almost certainly be more pronounced if the lighting on the works was natural, rather than artificial, but it is clear, nevertheless.

Documentation Image 3 - Yun Ha-ANU

Documentation Image 1 (foreground Within Matter background Pulse) - Yun Ha-ANU

One rather special installation, Pulse, projects segments of video onto numerous hanging irregular shards of coloured glass. Distorted images of a performer slide across the glass. A soundtrack of hollow knocking suggests she is trapped inside the glass. Poetically exploring the grief of losing something, the human spirit and the physical boundaries of our bodies personal space, the slivers of glass capture the light and shadows within the installation like a crystalline wind vortex briefly paused.

Documentation Image 2 (detail of Pulse installation) - Yun Ha-ANU

Nick Mitzevich, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, has correctly said Baker’s work is a sophisticated resolution of the glass medium that feels entirely contemporary and rooted in the present.

This review was first published on page 12 of The Canberra Times print edition of 19/3/23 and online here. It is also available on the author's blog here.