KING & WOOD MALLESONS FIRST NATIONS ART AWARD

We are pleased to announce the launch of the 2023 King & Wood Mallesons First Nations Art Award. In its third season, the Award is a biennial competition established by KWM to promote and encourage the highest standard of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art practice in Australia. The inaugural award was held in NSW in 2018.

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The exhibition will be held in Brisbane in 2023. Opening from 14 September to 14 October at Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM), Brisbane. The exhibition will showcase and celebrate the outstanding contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) artists to Australian culture.

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There will be four awards announced this year as part of the exhibition. In addition to the King & Wood Mallesons First Nations Art Award of $25,000, there will be a QLD Local Artist Award of $5,000 and two People’s Choice Awards valued at $1,000 each. Each prize is non-acquisitive. 

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It’s an honour to be this year’s award sponsor and for the firm to collaborate once again with Exhibition Patron, highly accomplished curator, writer, artist and activist Djon Mundine OAM. Joining Djon is a distinguished judging panel including renowned First Nations journalist, writer, documentary maker, broadcaster and sound artist, Daniel Browning, writer, project manager and consultant Emma Loban, Curator Indigenous Australian Art QAGOMA, Katina Davidson and artist, researcher, curator, and cultural scholar, Warraba Weatherall.

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Shortlisted artworks, as selected by the judging panel, will be on display at the Award Exhibition from 14 September – 15 October 2023 at GUAM, in Brisbane. GUAM will be responsible for the organisation of transport and insurance of the finalists’ eligible artwork from regional depots to GUAM, as detailed in the Expression of Interest document.

The Exhibition is one of the key ways in which King & Wood Mallesons is working to strengthen communities for sustained generational change by centering the voices, perspectives and experiences of First Nations artists so as to recognise the richness, vibrancy and importance of Country and Culture.

SUBMISSIONS CLOSE
3 JULY 2023