Sara Maher: Thinking in my Ancestor’s shadow, 2021. Acrylic and watercolour on birch painting panel, 35 x 44 cm (framed). Courtesy: the artist and Olsen Gallery, Sydney.

In October 2020, Sara Maher spent four weeks on Lunawanna-alonnah (Bruny Island) as the recipient of the Bruny20 Arts Fellowship residency. She spent her time there making, thinking, writing and drawing, navigating histories and places to which she feels she belongs and does not belong.

Lunawanna-alonnah Country has been the home of the Nuenonne people for millennia. The Bruny20 residency gave Maher four weeks to navigate what this might mean as an artist of Irish-European heritage, how to respond as a temporary resident on land marked by violence and mourning, how to connect to place beyond the constraints of European ways of knowing, and how to hold this experience lightly but firmly, turning it over in her hands…

Opening event: Friday 2 July 5.30 – 7.30pm

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