Ghosts in the Kitchen: Food, Memory, and Resistance in First Nations Australia

Ghosts in the Kitchen, is an immersive exhibition that explores the complex relationships between food, culture and identity from the perspective of First Nations peoples within Australia. Curated by Rebecca Ray, this is a space where food is not merely sustenance but a medium for memory, identity and resistance – a ritual act rooted in kinship, land and spirit.

Through an Indigenous gothic lens this exhibition foregrounds the cultural trauma of colonial food systems while illuminating the powerful resurgence of Indigenous food sovereignty today. The gothic here is not merely death – it is what lingers with Ghosts in the Kitchen not as space of mourning but a place of reawakening.

With: James Ahmat Snr, Simone Arnol, Dylan Bolger, Elisa Jane Carmichael, Nicholas Currie, Penny Evans, Jacqueline Jacky, Kerry Klimm, Steven Russell, Bernard Lee Singleton, Kristine Stewart, Bankstown Koori Elders Group, Merindah Funnell, Emma Hicks. Guest curated by Rebecca Ray