In holemtaet hemia (hold this/ hold this tightly), artist Shari O’Dwyer engages visually with her South Sea Islander heritage. Drawing on her mother’s childhood memories of her father’s labour in Queensland’s sugar cane fields, O’Dwyer uses humour through documented performance to explore curiosity, memory, and identity.
The exhibition considers forgotten family history, reinserting these narratives into The Condensery’s bomb shelter—a site where archival documents from Nestlé’s sugar procurement were stored during the 1940s. In doing so, O’Dwyer highlights the important contributions made by her family to the Queensland sugar cane industry.
Based in Meanjin/Brisbane, O’Dwyer works across painting, installation, and moving image to explore her matrilineal South Sea Islander heritage. Her practice is grounded in process-led methodologies, reimagining family connection, storytelling, and memory into both mythical figurations and everyday moments.
Image: Shari O’Dwyer, ‘rituals‘ (Still), 2024, video monitor, 3.24 mins.
