Green Room: SALA program reveal, Tarnanthi’s deadly decade
South Australian arts and culture news in brief.
Ten Years of Tarnanthi
The Art Gallery of South Australia has revealed details for the tenth-anniversary milestone of Tarnanthi festival of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi will mark the decade with a greatest hits collection of 200 works by First Nations artists acquired by the gallery across the Tarnanthi decade, including pieces from Tony Albert, Betty Campbell, Vincent Namatjira, Kaylene Whiskey, Reko Rennie, and John Prince Siddon.
The exhibition will include the return of Kuḻaṯa Tjuṯa (Many Spears), a highlight of the 2017 festival that turned 551 kuḻaṯa (spears) crafted by 59 Aṉangu men into a three-dimensional reflection on 21st century atomic testing across Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Country. The festival’s opening weekend will also feature The Blak Laundry, an installation by Ngugi Quandamooka artist Libby Harward and Gamilaroi artist Dominique Chen that will takeover the AGSA courtyard.
The broader program will also include exhibitions and events at 25 partner venues, along with the annual Tarnanthi Art Fair which returns to the CBD in a new location.
Tarnanthi’s founding artistic director, Barkandji curator Nici Cumpston, said the festival had created opportunities for over 9,000 First Nations artists over the past decade.
“Tarnanthi has provided a platform for conversations, for deep listening and for important cultural sharing. Today, ten years on, Tarnanthi has its own ecology — ambitious, intergenerational, and embracing of both emerging and established artists working in any medium. It has been a privilege to champion artists’ voices through Tarnanthi and to bring world-class experiences with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art to Australian audiences.’”
Cumpston relocated to the United States earlier this year to take up a new post as Director of Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi will run from October 17 to January 18 2026.
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SALA is live!
South Australian Living Artists festival dropped its 2025 program this week, featuring over 700 exhibitions and events across the state. The open-access visual arts celebration has clocked over 10,500 artists in this year’s program, which will leave nary a square inch of wall uncovered across the galleries, cafés, outdoors, libraries, schools, and community halls of South Australia.
This year’s previously announced feature artist will be Sue Kneebone, who will present a new body of work at Adelaide Central School of Art that promises to explore knotty family and colonial histories from Australia to Mauritius. The festival will also see the launch of a new retrospective monograph reflecting on Kneebone’s work, co-written by Elle Freak, James Tylor, Andrew Purvis and Nicole Clift.
We’re also excited about the unveiling of Adelaide Contemporary Experimental’s latest Porter Street Commission, which this year has seen Mark Valenzuela create a major — and evidently spiky — series of pieces entitled Bantay-Salakay. It opens on August 2.
JamFactory will also honour Ngarrindjeri artist and hugely influential weaver Aunty Ellen Trevorrow with the exhibition Weaving Through Time. The latest in JamFactory’s ICON series, the exhibition will be curated by Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna, Narrunga woman Carly Tarkari Dodd and include new work from Trevorrow and collaborator Dr Jelina Haines. Read more about Aunty Ellen’s weaving practice in InReview’s In the Studio column.
As always, the program also includes a range of shows in unexpected locations. This year that includes Jurlique Farm, which will open its gates for an exhibition celebrating the skincare brand’s 40th anniversary with an exhibition of work by artists Shirley Jianzhen Wu, Samuel Mulcahy and Tim Shaw.
Other highlights include Coffee, Turps & Devotion, a joint exhibition from husband-and-wife duo Robert Hannaford and Alison Mitchell Hannaford. Encompassing drawings, paintings and sculpture, the exhibition will be on display at The Light Room Gallery at Immersive Light and Art.
Also falling under the SALA umbrella is the already-opened Frank Bauer exhibition at Samstag Museum of Art.
SALA Festival runs from August 1 – 31, explore the full program here.
South Australian projects share in $7.8 million funding
Windmill Theatre and Country Arts SA have scored a chunk of change from the federal government as part of Creative Australia’s new Creative Futures Fund. The first round will see $7.8 million in project funding directed to organisations around the country.
For Country Arts SA, the funding boost will help develop a new production titled Kumarangk — inspired by the sacred and historically sensitive Ngarrindjeri site in the state’s south-east. Combining an on-site theatrical work, exhibition, and feature-length documentary, the project will be driven by the Ngarrindjeri mi:minar Cultural Authority — made up of Ngarrindjeri mi:minar (women) — in collaboration with Wathaurong/Ngarrindjeri director Glenn Shea and Wotjobaluk/Ngarrindjeri playwright Tracey Rigney.
The funding will also see recently departed Adelaide Cabaret Festival artistic director Virginia Gay co-create a new work alongside Windmill Theatre Company artistic director Clare Watson. The roller derby-inspired Mama Does Derby is a co-commission between Adelaide Festival, Brisbane Festival and Sydney Festival, and feature live skating and presumably a few spills from a cast of actors and ride-or-die derby athletes.
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Read more about the Creative Futures Fund here.
Callout for First Nations writers
Splinter literary journal has opened submissions for non-fiction, poetry, and experimental work for its third issue, which will be dedicated entirely to First Nations writers from around the country. Set to be published in November, the special edition will be helmed by guest editor Jannali Jones, a Gunai novelist, editor, and playwright.
“This issue we’re looking for stories that speak to the weight and wonder of being First Nations, how past and present move together towards the future,” Jones says.
Assisting Jones will be an editorial committee including Yankunytjatjara poet and writer Ali Cobby Eckermann and Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna poet, writer, artist and curator Dominic Guerrera.
“With this issue, Splinter is not only celebrating Indigenous culture but also giving space for Aboriginal writers to be published and read widely,” Guerrera says. “I have seen firsthand the power of storytelling in preserving culture, challenging stereotypes, and fostering understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities.”
Submissions are now open via Writers SA, and close on August 3, 2025.
Stella Day Out
Not content with celebrating women and non-binary writers around Australia via its prestigious annual prize, the Stella Prize is hitting the road next week to bring a one-day mini-festival to Adelaide.
Headlining the Stella Day Out program is 2025 Stella Prize winner Michelle de Kretser who will appear in conversation with Julia Lester to discuss her genre-bending, prize-winning novel Theory & Practice.
She’ll be capping off an afternoon of sessions with two celebrated Adelaide writers, starting with Devotion and Burial Rites author Hannah Kent reflecting on her new memoir Always Home, Always Homesick with moderator (and InReview contributor) Jo Case at 11am. Then, after lunch, Stephanie Radok will unpack her latest book Under the Bed: Inventories 2020-2022 alongside Heather Taylor Johnson (also an InReview contributor).
The whole day is free, and hosted in the Allan Scott Auditorium at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in UniSA’s City West campus.
Find out more and register for sessions here.
Green Room is a regular column for InReview, providing quick news for people interested, or involved, in South Australian arts and culture. Get in touch by emailing us at [email protected]