Agenda Setters: Nina Fitzgerald

With her dynamic Laundry Gallery in Garramilla/Darwin, Nina Fitzgerald is reshaping how collectors discover and engage with First Nations art—bridging remote art centres with new audiences through a welcoming, contemporary space that’s earning international recognition.

Words | Faraday Boydell

It is without a doubt that Nina Fitzgerald is playing a decisive role in reimagining Garramilla/Darwin’s cultural identity, positioning the city as an essential destination for connoisseurs of world-class cultural experiences and collectors of internationally celebrated contemporary art.

An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman with family connections to the Limilngan-Wulna people of the NT, the Mualgal in the Torres Strait, and the Wuthati of the Cape York Peninsula, Fitzgerald is more than just a gallerist. She operates a suite of ventures that blend culture with commerce in ways that support (rather than compete with) her prolific, national network of First Nations artists and creative businesses, and which aim to amplify the impact of the work being done by artists at remote art centres.

Opened in 2022, her most notable project is the dynamic Laundry Gallery, a multidisciplinary creative hub that reimagines how First Nations art is experienced and accessed. Housed inside the iconic old Parap Laundromat, the gallery’s monthly exhibition roster spotlights the work of exceptional artists and resituates age-old stories in the context of the contemporary world.
For emerging collectors of art, Laundry Gallery has become a vital point of entry: an accessible, contemporary hub that bridges the distance between First Nations artists and remote art centres, and the audiences eager to engage with them.

Artworks are presented in ways that blend a fresh, contemporary curatorial approach with artist-led, culturally grounded storytelling; and the distinctive cool power of the space gives the gallery a welcoming presence that attracts younger buyers and those who might not be comfortable in a white-cube setting. This is where Laundry stands out from its peers: a new generation of visitors are warmly invited into meaningful contact with artworks and stories that might otherwise feel geographically or conceptually out of reach.

As a values-driven gallery, Laundry recognises that its role is to deepen visibility and create new forms of engagement without disrupting the integrity of existing community-led cultural enterprises. The laundromat origin story, at once a nostalgic nod to Garramilla’s past and a metaphor for spinning new stories, captures the ethos shared by Fitzgerald and her business partner, Laura Shellie. By blending old and new, Laundry positions itself not in competition with remote art centres (who often manage the sale of work by their artists in-house), but as a platform that elevates and strengthens what is already there.

What is clear is that Laundry Gallery breathes fresh air into the Garramilla cultural scene, offering a dynamic, future-focused program that offers an exciting, new take on traditional stories and established practice. Its recent inclusion on Condé Nast’s 2026 must-visit list underscores its rapidly growing cultural relevance, and signals Nina Fitzgerald’s rising influence as a key figure shaping how collectors engage with First Nations art.

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First published in Art Collector issue #115 (January–March 2026).