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Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF, pronounced ki-af) is an arts and cultural event in the northern Australian city of Cairns, that showcases art by Contemporary Indigenous Australian artists. Established in 2009, the art fair is the opening event of the Cairns Festival.
Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF, pronounced KI-AF) was first held from 21 to 23 August 2009 at the Tanks Art Centre in Cairns, exceeding expectation by attracting more than 10,000 people over the three days of the fair. [1] [2] Visitors came from throughout Australia, the United States, Europe, Korea and Japan. Almost one third of visitors to Cairns Indigenous Art Fair in 2009 identified as Aboriginal Australian and/or Torres Strait Islander. [3]
While most of the visitors (an estimated 70 per cent) attended to take advantage of the free cultural programming and to view the art work, the 36 exhibiting organisations sold artwork to a value of more than A$500,000 during the event. [4]
The art market was an initiative of the Queensland Government's A$11.93 million "Backing Indigenous Art" program, which committed to strengthening the Indigenous arts sector of Far North Queensland from production to market. [5]
Michael Snelling was the 2009 and 2010 artistic director of CIAF. [6]
The fair brings together Indigenous art centres, commercial and public galleries, artist collectives, studios and arts organisations to sell and exhibit the art work of Queensland's recognised and leading emerging Indigenous Australian visual artists. [7]
The art fair is presented by the Queensland Government and is the opening event of Cairns Festival. The three-day event also features an academic symposium, traditional and contemporary dance and music program, artist talks and demonstrations, a children's art station and family art activities. It is the only dedicated Indigenous art market in Australia that exclusively profiles the art work of Queensland born or based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. The Art Fair includes both art centres and commercial galleries in a single location. [8]
CIAF adheres to the "Indigenous Australian Art Commercial Code of Conduct". [9]
As of 2024 [update] , Dennis Stokes, a man of the Wardaman, Luritja, and Warramunga peoples of the Northern Territory, and the Wagadagam people of the Torres Strait Islands, is CEO of CIAF. [10] In September 2024 Stokes was appointed a member of First Nations Arts, a newly-established division of the government arts funding body Australia Council focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts, for a term of four years. [11] [12]
In 2009, Cairns Indigenous Art Fair featured the work of more than 150 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists born or based in the Australian state of Queensland. [13] Exhibiting artists included Alick Tipoti, Dennis Nona, Billy Missi, [1] Judy Watson, Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell, Tony Albert, Joanne Currie Nalingu, Arone Meeks, Gordon Hookey, Ricardo Idagi, George Nona and Sally Gabori. A full listing of artists and exhibitors is available in the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair catalogue for 2009. [13]
Musicians and dancers who took part in Cairns Indigenous Art Fair in 2009 were Christine Anu, King Kadu, Seaman Dan, Will Kepa, the Aurukun Dancers and Songmen, Ariw Poenipan, Kulkal Baba (Blooded Feather) and the Baiwa Dance Company. [14]
In 2015, proppaNOW mounted an exhibition, Dark + Disturbing: Gordon Hookey for proppaNOW. [15] Dark + Disturbing is a curatorial project by artist Vernon Ah Kee. [16]
Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock carving, watercolour painting, sculpting, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting; art by Indigenous Australians that pre-dates European colonisation by thousands of years, up to the present day.
Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal peoples of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped with them as Indigenous Australians. Today, there are many more Torres Strait Islander people living in mainland Australia than on the Islands.
Gordon Hookey is an Australian aboriginal artist from the Waanyi people. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1992) and lives in Brisbane, Australia. He is primarily known as a painter but his practice also involves sculpture, installation, drawing, photography, and to a lesser extent, animation.
Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf Country. The waters of Torres Strait include the only international border in the area contiguous with the Australian mainland, between Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Henry Gibson Dan, known as Seaman Dan, was a Torres Strait Islander singer-songwriter with a national and international reputation. His first recording, an album called Follow the Sun, was released in 2000, on his 70th birthday.
Creative Australia, formerly known as the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia.
Richard Bell is an Aboriginal Australian artist and political activist. He is one of the founders of proppaNOW, a Brisbane-based Aboriginal art collective.
Henrietta Marrie is a Gimuy Walubara Yidinji elder, an Australian Research Council Fellow and Honorary Professor with the University of Queensland.
Curtis Warren Pitt is an Australian politician who has been a Labor Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland since 2009, representing the district of Mulgrave. On 14 February 2015, he was sworn in as Treasurer of Queensland.
Danie Mellor is an Australian artist who was the winner of 2009 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Born in Mackay, Queensland, Mellor grew up in Scotland, Australia, and South Africa before undertaking tertiary studies at North Adelaide School of Art, the Australian National University (ANU) and Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. He then took up a post lecturing at Sydney College of the Arts. He works in different media including printmaking, drawing, painting, and sculpture. Considered a key figure in contemporary Indigenous Australian art, the dominant theme in Mellor's art is the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian cultures.
Michael John "Mick" Miller was a notable Aboriginal Australian activist, politician, and statesman who campaigned for most of his life seeking greater social justice, land rights, and improved life opportunities for Aboriginal Australians in North Queensland and the rest of Australia.
proppaNOW is an arts collective for Indigenous Australian artists in Queensland. Aiming to counter cultural stereotypes and give a voice to urban artists, the collective has mounted several exhibitions around the country. The collective was founded by Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd and Vernon Ah Kee in 2003 and formalised in 2004.
Tony Albert is a contemporary Australian artist working in a wide range of mediums including painting, photography and mixed media. His work engages with political, historical and cultural Aboriginal and Australian history, and his fascination with kitsch “Aboriginalia".
Jennifer Herd is an Australian Indigenous artist with family ties to the Mbar-barrum people of North Queensland. She is a founding member of the ProppaNOW artist collective, and taught at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, where she convened both the Bachelor of Fine Art and Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art. In 2003 she won the Queensland College of Art Graduate Students prize, the Theiss Art Prize, for her Masters of Visual Arts.
Megan Cope is an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Quandamooka people of Stradbroke Island/Minjerribah. She is known for her sculptural installations, video art and paintings, in which she explores themes such as identity and colonialism. Cope is a member of the contemporary Indigenous art collective ProppaNOW in Brisbane.
Vernon Ah Kee is a contemporary Australian artist, political activist and founding member of ProppaNOW. Based primarily in Brisbane, Queensland, Ah Kee is an Aboriginal Australian man with ties to the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gugu Yimithirr peoples in Queensland. His art practice typically focuses on his Aboriginal Australian identity and place within a modern Australian framework, and is concerned with themes of skin, skin colour, race, privilege and racism. Ah Kee has exhibited his art at numerous galleries across Australia, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and has also exhibited internationally, most notably representing Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale and the 2015 Istanbul Biennial.
Ken Thaiday, known as Ken Thaiday Snr, is an artist from Erub, one of the Torres Strait Islands. He is known for his headdresses (dhari), masks, shark totems and kinetic sculptures, which connect to his island traditions and culture.
Alick Tipoti, whose traditional name is Zugub, is a Torres Strait Islander artist, linguist, and activist of the Kala Lagaw Ya people, from Badu Island, in the Zenadh Kes. His work includes painting, installations, printmaking, sculpture and mask-making, and is focused on preserving the culture and languages of his people.
Gail Mabo is an Australian visual artist who has had her work exhibited across Australia. She is the daughter of land rights campaigner Eddie Mabo and educator and activist Bonita Mabo. She was formerly a dancer and choreographer.