Collective Grief
a path through shared sorrow and resilience
17 May – 19 July, 2025
artists: Rusaila Bazlamit, Nicole Barakat, Claire B. Bushby, Olga Cironis, Nastaran Ghadiri, Zara Mollaei, Zali Morgan, Elnaz Sheshgelani
In this body of work, I continue to evolve my site-responsive monoprints, focusing on Goolugatup; a place of layered beauty and deep sorrow. Its shifting light and textured terrain carry the weight of loss, resilience, and memory. Through water-based monotype processes, I seek to give form to the grief that lingers here, translating its presence into fluid marks, ghosted impressions, and fragile tonal shifts.
Goolugatup has long been a site of convergence—where freshwater and saltwater meet, where stories surface and submerge, where memory clings to stone, wind, and water. As a Noongar artist, I am drawn to these in - between spaces, where mourning lives quietly beneath the surface. My abstractions hold this tension - between presence and absence, past and future, beauty and ache.
These works emerge from slow time spent with Goolugatup: walking its banks, listening to the silence, observing the stillness that holds so much. They are not fixed representations but tender responses to the grief etched into Country responses shaped by feeling, story, and listening deeply. Each layer of ink becomes an offering, a way of holding space for what cannot be spoken.
Through this work, I continue to ask: how do we honour the grief held in Country? How do we see not just with our eyes, but with our hearts attuned to what endures beneath the surface?
Watercolour Monotypes on BFK.
Contact for more information.
Artwork Documentation by Rebecca Mansell.
The exhibition is a reflection on the deep and interwoven nature of collective grief, and the lasting mark it leaves on societies, cultures, and individuals alike. It is a space where the pain of loss becomes a source of connection, resistance, and transformation.
Through the eyes and voices of artists who have lived through or been shaped by collective mourning, we witness how grief is not only an emotional response but a powerful force that shapes identity, memory, and community. It is the grief of stolen futures, of histories erased and lives cut short, yet it is also the grief that binds us together and fuels movements for justice, resilience, and liberation. From cultural rituals to moments of protest, grief is revealed as a deep, enduring expression of love, solidarity, and the unyielding hope for freedom.
The works featured in this exhibition span across diverse materials, including textile, video, paintings, and sculptures to create a rich and multifaceted exploration of collective grief.