Ngaya (I Am)

For Pride Month, the Gallery presents work by Peter Waples-Crowe. A proud Ngarigo man living in Naarm/Melbourne, Waples-Crowe makes art about the intersection of his First Nations and LGBTQI+ identity. First captured in Eugene von Guerard’s 1868 painting, North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko, Ngarigo Country was transformed in the 20th century by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. On top of a camp and humorous grab-bag of art history and archival video, Waples-Crowe inserts his own image as a counterpoint to decades of Aboriginal erasure from popular narratives of ski slopes and infrastructure.