World Oceans Day Indigenous art

Australia: Defending the Oceans is now open at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 8 June 2017.

The Government provided more than $100,000 to support the exhibition which includes works by artists from the Pormpuraaw Art and Culture Centre and Cairns-based artist Brian Robinson.

The Pormpuraaw Art and Culture Centre will present 28 new sculptural works made out of ‘ghost nets’. This is the term given to large, drifting commercial fishing nets that have been discarded or lost at sea, causing environmental hazards that kill or injure marine life such as including turtles, whales and sharks. The nets are collected and transformed into evocative and engaging artworks.

Brian Robinson will exhibit his sculpture Stingray: Ocean Guardian, which relays the creation story of the Great Barrier Reef and acknowledges his heritage and the stingray as one of his family’s totems.

Find out more:

• See the Minister's website