Approach to material & process honours Country
D Harding, Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal people, Australia b.1982 / Woori red 2024 / Ghungalu red soil, gum acacia, wool felt, farrier nails / Nine blankets: 110 × 180cm (each, approx.) / Artwork supported by members of the Harding and Lawton families / Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane / View full image
D Harding’s approach to material and process honours the artist's Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal Country around the Carnarvon Ranges (Kooramindanjie) in Central Queensland. The ongoing research and connection to Carnarvon Gorge has informed many of Harding's works, which respond to ancient artistic and cultural practices while examining colonial and settlement histories through the lens of family experience.
D Harding, Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal people, Australia b.1982 / Woori red 2024 / Ghungalu red soil, gum acacia, wool felt, farrier nails / Nine blankets: 110 × 180cm (each, approx.) / Artwork supported by members of the Harding and Lawton families / Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane / View full image
For the Asia Pacific Triennial, Harding presents Woori red 2024, an installation of woollen felt blankets, saturated with a mixture of gum acacia and earth pigments collected in a shared process with family members from two generations on a journey across Country. Embedded into the fabric by Harding with ‘Woori’ or Woorabinda red, from Ghungalu territory, the blankets embody Country and its stories. Reflecting on the significance of natural pigments as a marker and identifier of Country, Harding has said that they and their cousins can identify a specific location ‘just by pure pigment, an ochre’ and expand on their connections to and ancestral stories associated with that site and colour.
The variegated hues, rigid texture and irregular shape of the blankets evoke hides or pelts of animal skin. Hand-felted by Harding in homage to ancestral possum-skin cloaks, the blankets hold a powerful presence, speaking to multiple layers of complicated histories and identities.
Artwork in progess using Ghungalu red soil 2024 / Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane / View full image
D Harding, Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal people, Australia b.1982 / Woori red 2024 / Ghungalu red soil, gum acacia, wool felt, farrier nails / Nine blankets: 110 × 180cm (each, approx.) / Artwork supported by members of the Harding and Lawton families / Courtesy: The artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane / View full image
Edited extract from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024
Art that leaves a mark
Asia Pacific Triennial
30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
Brisbane, Australia
Free entry