Artists Vincent Namatjira OAM and Jarra Karalinar Steel have been awarded the annual galang residency, a program delivered through a partnership between Powerhouse and the Cité internationale des arts.
Now in its third year, the residency supports Australian First Nations creative practitioners through two three-month residencies in Paris in June and July 2025.
Vincent Namatjira. Photograph: Rohan Thomson. Courtesy the artist and Iwantja Arts, South Australia
Namatjira will be the first artist to travel to Paris, with his residency commencing in June, where he will investigate historical depictions of First Nations people within French collections, examining how Indigenous subjects were represented in colonial-era art and how these visual legacies are manifested today. His research will inform new artworks that draw connections between Australia’s colonial past and broader global histories of subjugation, empire and resistance. Namatjira’s project will culminate in a series of new paintings that will reinterpret European representations of authority and challenge dominant historical narratives.
Jarra Karalinar Steel, Rising Trams, 2021. Photograph: James Morgan
Steel’s residency in July aims to expand her visual language through research, experimentation and engagement with contemporary art, museums and archives. Her research will focus on Blak Futurism, cultural revitalisation, and the intersection between First Peoples’ perspectives and broader narratives of identity, while drawing from her Yaluk-ut Weelam heritage. The work developed during her time in Paris will contribute to the development of a larger ongoing project that will reflect on connections between Indigenous and diasporic experiences.
The 2025 galang residency selection panel – Powerhouse Associate alumni, Wiradjuri artist writer and curator Dr Brook Garru Andrew, Head of the Residency Department Cité internationale des arts Vincent Gonzalvez, and Powerhouse Director First Nations Beau James – expressed their support for Namatjira and Steel’s proposed projects, which will provide avenues for reflection on the impacts of Indigenous representation in art and history.
For more information about the 2025 galang residency program, visit powerhouse.com.au/galang-residency.
