Brian Robinson is a Cairns based artist, whose practice spans painting, sculpture, print-making, graphic design and public art. Born on Waiben (Thursday Island), he belongs to the Maluyligal and Wuthathi tribal groups of the Torres Strait and Cape York Peninsula, and is a descendant of the Dayak people of Borneo

The artwork Malu Githalai (2020) is Brian Robinson’s sculptural representation of the Giant Mud Crab (Scylla Serrata). Robinson’s githalai (the Kala Lagaw Ya word for the animal) pays homage to the coastal ecology of the Torres Strait Islands - the mudflats, coastlines, mangroves and estuaries he explored as a child, and where he fondly recalls accompanying his family on crabbing expeditions. The artwork continues a series of sculptural works focusing on the cultural heritage, mythologies and natural environment of Far North Queensland’s coastal fringe.

Sonja Carmicheal is a Ngugi woman belonging to the Quandamooka people of Moreton Bay. As a contemporary fibre artist, she draws on her family’s deep cultural connection to Quandamooka Country and to her island home, Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island).

Her family also work in the arts and cultural heritage - her daughter Freja is a curator specialising in fibre art, and her daughter Elisa is a painter and weaver.

Sonja’s artwork gulayi (Quandamooka woman’s bag) is a contemporary take on a traditional woven bag. Jandai is the Aboriginal language spoken in the Quandamooka region and gulayi is the Jandai language word for dilly bag.

Through the technique of coiling, Sonja has woven a vessel with both traditional weaving materials and synthetic fibres from reclaimed ghost nets (nets which have been lost or discarded at sea, and which drift on ocean currents and tides before washing ashore).