Celebrating city cultures

Adelaide’s public art celebrates our rich and vibrant Aboriginal and culturally diverse identities.

Community Forum for Art will enable the active participation of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities and facilitate intercultural dialogue in public.

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The Cultural Marker is a celebration of Tarntanyangga / Victoria Square’s importance as a place of cultural, spiritual and physical significance to the Kaurna people and its important contribution to Adelaide’s identity. It was created by artist Jacob Logos and launched as part of NAIDOC Week 2017. Jacob Logos and Aboriginal Education Officer, Taylor Power-Smith, worked with members of the Kaurna community and wider Aboriginal community, including school children from Challa Gardens and Gillies Street primary schools, to develop this significant artwork. The Cultural Marker features beautiful illustrated interpretations of Kaurna words etched into locally sourced granite, to provide a creative and cultural experience while also acting as an educational tool.

Jacob Logos, Cultural Marker (detail), 2017, with illustrations from students at Challa Gardens and Gillies Street Primary Schools, Victoria Square / Tarntanyangga

For the installation of the Cultural Marker in Francis Street, Jacob Logos, Taylor Power-Smith and the school students from the original project have come together again to revisit and expand on the ideas from the original project. Working with the school students, Taylor Power-Smith has recorded the words from the Cultural Marker in the Kaurna language while Jacobs Logos has reimaged the original drawings to compliment the soundwork.

Artists:

Artwork - Jacob Logos, with illustrations from students at Challa Gardens and Gillies Street Primary Schools.

Soundwork - Taylor Power-Smith with the voices of students at Challa Gardens and Gillies Street Primary Schools.

Image: Cultural market artwork installed in Francis Street

Adelaide based visual artist, Laura Wills, and Kaurna\Narungga and Ngarrindjeri artist, Carly Dodd, have collaborated to create artwork wraps on the two main switchboard units in Gawler Place. 

Expanding on their collaboration for The Parklands Project and Wills Gawler Place based artwork Flow, the artwork wraps draw inspiration from the nature and seasons of the local environment. Exploring opportunities for audience discovery, these artworks include the ‘hidden’ elements and narratives in Flow to create a connection between the artworks at this busy intersection of Rundle Mall.

Learn more about Reconciliation in the City of Adelaide

Laura Wills and Carly Tarkari Dodd, Tracking Connections, 2020, Gawler Place North (installation view)

Paul Mantirri Munaitya Herzich, Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna artist has created the artworks Kardi Munta (Emu Net) and Kardi (Emu) in Pelzer Park / Pityarilla Park 19. The inspiration for these sculptures came from community consultation and early paintings of Emu Nets on the Adelaide plains at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The Kardi Munta in the paintings were constructed from sheoak branches bound by the inner bark of River Red Gums with the materials used in this sculpture designed to mimic this materials. Herzich is a contemporary Aboriginal Landscape Architect and visual artist who has a focus on Aboriginal people, art and country, and is a descendant of the Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna people of South Australia, and he is also a descendant of German Lutherans who migrated to Hahndorf, South Australia in 1838.

Image: Paul Mantirri Munaitya Herzich, Kardi Munta (Emu Net) and Kardi (Emu) (installation view),2020, mixed media. Photo Sam Roberts.