Medicine Woven Through the Tide is the first solo exhibition by Quandamooka artist Kieron Anderson. Developed through the OCCUPY Artist Residency, the exhibition brings together ceramics, carving, painting and moving image to explore Anderson’s relationship with saltwater Country, ancestral knowledge and the living systems that have sustained Quandamooka people for generations.
At the centre of the exhibition is the dugong (Bagirang), understood as a teacher, a yuri and a keeper of ecological knowledge. Anderson considers the movements of Bagirang through seagrass meadows, the rhythms of the tides and seasonal cycles of saltwater Country as expressions of observation, patience, responsibility and reciprocity.
The exhibition considers medicine not as something extracted from the landscape, but as something held within relationships between people, animals, plants, tides and ocean. Across ceramic dugong sculptures, carved wood, paintings and projection, Anderson explores how knowledge is remembered through practice and carried across generations.
The works form an active archive of knowledge and kinship, connecting human and non-human life, cultural memory and contemporary practice. The exhibition reflects Anderson’s personal journey of returning to Quandamooka Country as a teenager, learning from men in his community and reconnecting with ancestral knowledge.
Medicine Woven Through the Tide was developed through Kieron Anderson’s participation in the OCCUPY Artist Residency, a Vacant Assembly residency supporting First Nations artists. The residency provided time and space to experiment with materials and extend Anderson’s practice, resulting in his first solo exhibition.
Artist Statement: “Medicine Woven Through the Tide explores the intimate relationship between saltwater Country, ancestral knowledge, and the living systems that have sustained Quandamooka people for countless generations.” Anderson describes medicine as embodied within reciprocal relationships between people, animals, plants, tides and the ocean, with the tide acting as both a physical and metaphorical force carrying memory, sustaining life and returning knowledge.
The exhibition is presented in Aboriginal Art Co, Gallery 2 — Ground Level.
