20 Jun 2025
Eight decades of Yolŋu art, culture and power radiate at the Art Gallery of New South Wales this winter
The Art Gallery of New South Wales invites audiences to discover the strength, beauty and innovation of Yolŋu culture in Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala – a landmark exhibition celebrating one of Australia’s most internationally acclaimed arts communities, Yirrkala, in north-east Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.
Opening tomorrow, the major exhibition brings together almost 300 works created by 98 extraordinary Aboriginal artists over eight decades. Spanning multiple generations and art forms – including bark paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture in both wood and metal, alongside video works and immersive digital installations – it traces the history of art from Yirrkala.
Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala is presented in partnership with the Aboriginal-owned art centre Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, established in the 1970s during the land rights movement as an act of Yolŋu self-determination. Decades earlier, artists at Yirrkala were among the first Indigenous Australians to employ art as a political tool, notably through the Yirrkala Bark Petitions of 1963 sent to the Australian Parliament to assert Yolŋu custodianship of country.
Curated by the Art Gallery’s head of First Nations, Cara Pinchbeck, the exhibition traces both the continuity and diversity of artistic practice in Yirrkala from the 1940s to today. It marks key moments when artists consciously altered their practice, such as the recent innovative use of reclaimed materials and metal led by senior artist Gunybi Ganambarr, while highlighting familial connections and cultural continuation.
The exhibition also demonstrates how Yolŋu artists have used art for politics and petition, as seen in the works from the Saltwater Collection of 1997–98 that document Indigenous sea rights, and Maḏarrpa leader Djambawa Marawili’s push to produce a new aesthetic that allowed the next generation of artists to explore new ways of working.
Exhibition visitors can deepen their experience by visiting Yalu, a dramatic and immersive light and sound installation that brings the colours and songs of Yolŋu country to the Nelson Packer Tank, the former wartime oil bunker beneath the Art Gallery’s Naala Badu building.
Yalu is newly commissioned from the collective of Yirrkala artists and digital producers known as The Mulka Project, founded in 2007 within the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre as a digital production studio and living audiovisual archive. Today, The Mulka Project employs the latest technologies to realise complex time-based artworks such as Yalu.
Yalu can mean a crocodile nest, a termite mound, a womb, or a home – a sanctuary that protects new life. Grounded in these ideas of sanctuary, origin and kinship, Yalu evokes the shifting cycles of land and sea and the interconnected flow of culture in this special installation, which is open from 21 June to 20 July 2025 with free entry.
Tonight, the Art Gallery will host a free opening event featuring first access to the exhibition and a special live performance by the legendary Australian band Yothu Yindi. Hailing from far north-east Arnhem Land, Yothu Yindi are one of Australia’s most successful musical acts, producing hit singles such as ‘Treaty’, ‘Timeless land’ and ‘World turning’ and the bestselling albums Tribal voice, Birrkuta – wild honey, and more. The limited-capacity event will be attended by members of the public who secured tickets through a ballot (allocation exhausted).
On Saturday 21 June, when the exhibition opens to the public, internationally acclaimed Yolŋu artists will share their ceremonial practices in a special public opening event in the Welcome Plaza of the Naala Badu building at 10.15am. Sharing living culture with non-Yolŋu audiences is both a celebration and a responsibility, ensuring that Yolŋu protect, preserve and disseminate their sovereignty through art.
The opening weekend continues with the panel discussion ‘Powerful cultural practices’ on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 June (various times), where Yolŋu artists will speak alongside current and former art advisors from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre – free with exhibition entry, no bookings required; and the talk ‘Yolŋu power – art as activism’ on Sunday 22 June at 3.30pm, featuring artists in conversation with Bundjalung and Kullilli man Daniel Browning as they discuss how Yolŋu art and culture are powerful forms of activism – free, no bookings required.
Get hands-on with the masterclass ‘Yolŋu natural dyeing practices with the Yirralka Rangers’ on Saturday 21 June from 11am ($60–$125 adult, bookings required), a rare opportunity to learn firsthand about natural dyeing techniques grounded in generations of Yolŋu plant knowledge. On Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 June at 2pm, join internationally renowned Yolŋu artists to create your own painting using natural materials in the workshop ‘Make a Yolŋu paintbrush’ – free, bookings required. On Sunday 22 June at 11am, observe medicinal extraction and healing practices that have been passed down through generations with the masterclass ‘Yolŋu bush medicine with the Yirralka Rangers’ ($60–$125 adult, bookings required).
During school holidays, children and families can discover the exhibition through bespoke children’s tours led by First Nations educator Nebbi Boii at 2pm on 10, 11, 17 and 18 July. Tour tickets are $25, which includes exhibition entry for one adult and one participating child. Self-guided visitors can follow the children’s labels in the exhibition or pick up a free children’s trail to help develop creative thinking and visual literacy. Throughout the exhibition, families can join free kids drop-in workshops to make stringybark leaves and blossoms and busy bees inspired by the work of Yolŋu artist Gaypalani Waṉambi. General admission to Yolŋu power is free for children under 12 years when accompanied by a paying adult.
Enliven your senses with the Warakirri dining experience, a unique culinary and cultural journey created by Ngemba Weilwan woman Sharon Winsor of Indigiearth. Celebrate the rich world of Australian native foods, botanicals, culture and storytelling with this immersive five-course degustation while enjoying live performances, musical storytelling and insights into Aboriginal culture and cuisine in the Naala Badu building on Saturday 2 August at 12–4pm ($350 per person, bookings essential). Includes an introduction to Yolŋu power and a ticket to the exhibition.
For more events and full program details, visit the Art Gallery’s website.
The exhibition is accompanied by a beautifully illustrated comprehensive publication ($49.95) that offers a range of perspectives on the art of Yirrkala. Contributors include Maḏarrpa leader Djambawa Marawili in conversation with Kade McDonald; exhibition curator Cara Pinchbeck; and Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre coordinator Will Stubbs.
Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala is supported proudly by the NSW Government through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW. The exhibition is presented in partnership with the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre.
Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala is on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the Ainsworth Family Gallery in Naala Badu from 21 June to 6 October 2025. Tickets are now on sale, including discounted 2-for-1 tickets on Wednesday evening for Art After Hours, Mobtix and Gallery Pass tickets that provide entry to both Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala and Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2025.
Assets for media
Hi-res artwork and installation imagery for media use and exhibition B-Roll (for broadcast use only) is available via the links below:
About the Art Gallery of New South Wales On Gadigal Country
The Art Gallery of New South Wales acknowledges the traditional custodians of the Country on which it is located, the Gadigal, and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. From its magnificent site in Sydney, the Art Gallery is one of Australia’s pre-eminent art museums and the state’s leading visual arts institution. Its mission is to serve the widest possible audience as a centre of excellence for the collection, preservation, documentation, interpretation and display of Australian and international art, and a forum for scholarship, art education and the exchange of ideas. The transformation of the Art Gallery – now with two buildings, Naala Badu and Naala Nura – brings together art, architecture and landscape in spectacular new ways with galleries and seamless connections between indoor and outdoor spaces. Naala Badu is the most significant cultural development to open in Sydney in half a century and is a prominent new destination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture.
About Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre
Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre is an Indigenous community-controlled non-profit art centre in north-east Arnhem Land. The art centre is located on Rirratjiŋu country in Yirrkala, a small Aboriginal community on the northeastern tip of the Top End of the Northern Territory, approximately 700 kilometres east of Darwin. The art centre supports artists from over twenty homeland centres in a 150-kilometre radius. ‘Buku-Larrŋgay’ means ‘the feeling on your face as it is struck by the first rays of the sun’ and ‘Mulka’ means ‘a sacred but public ceremony’. In 1976, Yolŋu artists established Buku-Larrŋgay Arts in the old mission hospital as an act of self-determination coinciding with the withdrawal of the Methodist Overseas Mission and the advent of the land rights and homeland movements. Still on the same site but in a greatly expanded premises, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre now consists of two divisions: the Yirrkala Art Centre which represents Yolŋu artists exhibiting and selling art and The Mulka Project which acts as a digital production studio and archiving centre incorporating the museum.