Dale Harding: Through a lens of visitation

Edited by Hannah Mathews and Dale Harding

A co-publication from Monash University Museum of Art
and Powered by Power

Joint Winner, 2022 AAANZ Best University Art Museum Exhibition Catalogue

Hardback with dust jacket
RRP $49.00 AUD
ISBN 978-0-6481529-8-9
121 images, including colour plates
158 pp
34.5 x 26 cm
890 gms

A descendant of the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples, much of Dale Harding’s multilayered practice is motivated by the cultural inheritances of his families, who originate in the Fitzroy Basin and the sandstone belt of central Queensland. Harding’s works pay homage to the stories and presence of matrilineal figures in his family.

Produced to accompany an exhibition of the same title at Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and the Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney, Through a lens of visitation specifically explores the artist’s relationship to his mother’s Country of Carnarvon Gorge and documents a major new commission and first-time collaboration with his mother Kate Harding. A textile artist, who since 2008 has employed quilt-making to tell her stories of family, culture and Country, Kate Harding’s quilts are presented alongside painterly responses undertaken by Dale Harding across various mediums. Together, their works reflect on cultural knowledge as it is held, practiced and transposed across generations, gender and place.

Dale Harding: Through a lens of visitation considers the relationship between the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal  artist, his mother (artist Kate Harding) and the Bidjara and Garingbal/Karingbal peoples from the Carnarvon Gorge area, whilst also responding to the concept of visitation to the Gorge by Modernist artists, notably Margaret Preston and Sidney Nolan. Bidjara and Birri Guba Juru scholar Dr Jackie Huggins’ essay from 1993 on her Mother’s country at Carnarvon Gorge provides a penetrating questioning of non-Aboriginal visitation to the Gorge, and remains as relevant as ever.  Clever design elements identify Huggins’ essay from recent writing, including essays by Deborah Edwards, Nancy Underhill and Ann Stephen that astutely interrogate modernist responses to the land. At the nexus of scholarly research and art practice, this publication offers compelling essays that express a desire for more constructive modes of existence to acknowledge the synergies and intersections between previously separated histories.
— Dr Wendy Garden and Dr Sarah Scott, Judges of AAANZ Best University Art Museum Exhibition Catalogue Prize