Meet the latest recipient of InReview First Nations Mentorship
Gugada and Wirangu artist and poet Jayda Wilson has been awarded the InReview First Nations Mentorship for 2025.
InReview and CreateSA have named the latest recipient of the InReview First Nations Mentorship, now in its third year.
Jayda Wilson is a Gugada and Wirangu woman with Thai ancestry based on Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide, whose art practice is centred in reclaiming language and translation, using poetics, sound, and family archives to explore the memory and storytelling of her own Gugada and Wirangu family history .
Wilson’s work has been exhibited locally and nationally in galleries such as Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, Nexus Arts, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Victoria’s Linden New Art, and Ames Yavuz in Sydney. Her writing has also been published in the Wakefield Press anthology The Rocks Remain, and Splinter literary journal.
“This mentorship with Ren Wyld is an important opportunity for both my writing and visual practice as I gain skills in being able to open up and expand my writing while understanding and developing professional critique,” Wilson said of their appointment. “It’s something I haven’t been able to access or engage with on this scale yet.”
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The InReview First Nations Mentorship program is designed to develop the next generation of First Nations arts critics in South Australia. The mentoring program, in partnership with CreateSA (formerly Arts South Australia), connects experienced First Nations arts writers with emerging voices, as part of a program to strengthen coverage of arts and culture in South Australia. This collaboration will be facilitated through InReview (SA), a not-for-profit platform for rigorous and insightful arts journalism and cultural commentary in South Australia.
The successful mentee will work with First Nations mentor, K.A. Ren Wyld, an award-winning author and critic of Martu descent based on Kaurna Yerta, south of Adelaide. In 2024 Wyld mentored Courtney Jaye, an emerging Ngarrindjeri writer and critic.
Past recipients of the mentorship also include Wakka Wakka textile artist and curator Dameeli Coates, who worked with Mirning artist, writer and academic Ali Gumillya Baker; Ngarrindjeri writer and actor Leesha Cole, who was mentored by Meriam (Magaram), Wuthathi and Bindal Juru journalist and business woman Nancia Guivarra; and Kyron Weetra, a proud Nharangga/Saxon clan man who was guided by Jawoyn writer, visual artist and curator Troy-Anthony Baylis.
Over the next 12 weeks Wilson and Wyld will work together to complete a series of written articles to be published on InReview, with the support of the InReview team.
InReview and First Nations Mentorship supported by Department of the Premier and Cabinet through Create SA