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The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy
A celebration of NAIDOC 2025
6 July – 12 September 2025
Adelaide Airport
Gates 50, 18, and 14
Curated by: Ali Cobby Eckermann
Featuring: Audrey Brumby, Christine Lennon, Debra Nangala McDonald, Janet Golder Kngwarreye, Jason Koko, Joylene Presley, Kaylene James, Khatija Nampijinpa Possum, Lipsey Whiskey, Lorraine Ferguson, Marion Baker, Marli Macumba, Michael Donovan, Michelle Joy Magias, Mona Whiskey, Rochelle Mbitjana Bird, Shane Cook and Tjimpayi Presley.
In partnership, Adelaide Airport and Guildhouse are delighted to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and showcase the 2025 NAIDOC Week theme throughout the terminal.
Yankunytjatjara poet Ali Cobby Eckermann has led the development of this showcase as the Creative Director, Writer and Curator. Ali has thoughtfully developed this exhibition along the length of the terminal; with key presentations alongside departure Gates 50, 18 and 14.
We invite visitors and travellers to explore, read, learn and reflect on the stories and perspectives of the artists and writers. We encourage guests to support their creative practices, and have provided details for purchase alongside each of the artworks.
We thank Ali and each of the artists for their contribution and generosity in sharing their perspectives, creativity, and cultures. We invite guests to reflect on their personal and collective commitment, responsibilities, and actions in actively celebrating diversity, promoting reconciliation, and nurturing mutual respect in their daily lives.
It is an established cultural and national protocol to acknowledge First Nations people and their ongoing relationship with traditional country.
I pay my respect to the Kaurna people upon whose land this vibrant exhibition is displayed.
This collection has been gathered here to promote the NAIDOC theme for 2025 (The Next Generation: Strength, Vision, Legacy) and marks the 50th anniversary of NAIDOC Week across the nations. In the gathering of these works it was important to give opportunity to artists working in regional communities, and to showcase important work from younger artists. The artists live at different journeys with their craft. This is a stirring showing.
The Next Generation of First Nations artists bring an exciting sphere of creativity. Always as one generation passes another arises to prominence. It is my aim to show this duality, the ongoing connection to land and story shown moving with the influences of the world in which we now reside. Always a deep personal cultural interpretation exists within these representations.
Since the mid twentieth century as the inception of Aboriginal art into a contemporary form was emerging in the remote central deserts and northern Australia we have seen many new visual art styles develop. The growth of the First Nations Art market continues to achieve innovative strengths of expressionism, fostered by the passing down of sacred story and the ongoing connection to land. Today many artists reside away from traditional country and still their artworks portray the love that is held within. The surge of relearning language and song is displayed here in visual form. If you open your heart to a painting you may hear the music of it.
As curator, the inclusion of First Nations book covers was also important. Magabala Books is the prime Indigenous publishing house situated on Yawuru country, in Broome Western Australia, and is a true advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling. Aboriginal and Islander authors have swooped into the Australian literary scene with much success, paving a dedicated pathway to truth-telling via poignant poetry and story written with both a contemporary and culturally based aptitude.
Always was. Always was looking forward. Always will be. Always will be the learnings from the past.
Learn wisely. Our Strength, Vision and Legacy is so beautifully evident here, displayed along the entire length of the Adelaide Airport. Look closely. Find the birds.
Ali Cobby Eckermann
Yankunytjatjara
Ali Cobby Eckermann
Yankunytjatjara poet Ali Cobby Eckermann’s first collection little bit long time was written in the desert and launched her literary career in 2009. These cathartic poems heralded from a new perspective in her life. At age 34 Ali finally found her birth mother and four years following was reunited with her firstborn child. She met both of them for the first time in airports.
In 2011 Ali’s first verse novel Ruby Moonlight won the inaugural Black&Write Unpublished Manuscript award for Ruby Moonlight, winning Book Of The Year (NSW) in 2013. That same year she toured Ireland as Aust. Poetry Ambassador. Ali is Alumni at the University of Iowa attending the prestigious International Writing Program in 2014, and in 2017 received an inaugural Windham- Campbell Award for Poetry from Yale. In 2024 Ali won Book Of The Year (NSW) for She Is The Earth.
In the same year that Ali met her mother she enrolled to study Visual Arts at Tauondi Aboriginal Community College in Port Adelaide, majoring in B&W Photography. In 2000 Ali was one of the first trainees at DesArt, now the peak arts body for Central Aust. Aboriginal Arts and Crafts centres. Ali was the Manager at an art centre on the edge of the Simpson Desert for several years before returning to south Aust. and establishing Aust’s first Aboriginal Writers Retreat. Ali exhibited a restrospective of her photography at the 2023 Biennial at the Art Gallery of SA curated by Jose da Silva. In 2025 Ali is returning to the visual arts creating a series of paintings and hosting the exhibition Nungas In Koolunga at her home during SALA (South Aust. Living Artists) month in August. She is currently employed as the Arts & Cultural Facilitator for the Regional Council of Goyder based in Burra, in partnership with Country Arts SA.
Images: The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy. A celebration of NAIDOC 2025, installation view, presented by Guildhouse and Adelaide Airport, 2025. Photographs Lana Adams.
