The National Gallery of Australia’s 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial, After the Rain, is set to open on December 6.

It follows previous triennials – Culture Warriors in 2007, unDISCLOSED in 2012, Defying Empire in 2017 and Ceremony 2022. 

The national collecting institution is justly proud of having snared First Nations artist Tony Albert as artistic director but “curator” is a title he shies away from, I find when I catch up with him by phone to his Brisbane studio.

With an acute eye and an outgoing personality, Albert burst on to the national scene years ago through his satirical exhibitions of vintage “Aboriginalia” – objects produced for tourist consumption – but his practice since has spanned many genres. 

“After the Rain is the first artist-led indigenous triennial,” Albert says.”So I’m bringing a different take to the idea of being a curator. I’m not setting myself up to be an authority, but I’m pulling together the best things I’ve seen.” 

Taking a pragmatic view, he notes that with big biennials and triennials at big galleries, fewer projects allow more time and resources for artists to create their most seminal works.

“I wanted to do fewer projects which would allow more time and energy to free up artists to make their most seminal works to date.” 

 “Immersive,” Albert says, is how he wants viewers to see this triennial. 

To this end, he has divided the exhibition into 10 sections, engaging artists Alair Pambegan, Aretha Brown, Blaklash, Dylan Mooney, Hermannsburg Potters, Iltja Ntjarra (Many Hands) Art Centre, Vincent Namatjira, Jimmy John Thaiday, Naminapu Maymuru-White, Thea Anamara Perkins, Yarrenyty Arltere Artists and Grace Kemarre Robinya, and Warraba Weatherall.

The projects, he says, are “very immersive and challenging in their use of space. I want to transport visitors into these incredible installations.”

Working with the national collection opened up the possibility of focusing on Albert Namatjira, simply because the NGA holds no fewer than his 98 paintings. 

“He’s such a hero to us all – the first Aboriginal person to get Australian citizenship – and he understood why his art had value.” 

Tony Albert adds that he has established a relationship with Namatjira’s work and family. He didn’t realise the artist’s house outside Hermannsburg still existed until he visited it and devised the idea that “Albert’s house” would sit at the centre of the exhibition. A large glass-dominated replica will be the exhibition’s “pulsating heart”.

In their research, which involved Namatjira’s grandson Vincent, they came across 13 historical letters Albert Namatjira wrote to his mentor Rex Battarbee, revealing what great mates they were.

Vincent Namatjira, already prominent for his in-your-face portraits of public figures such as Gina Rinehart and as a winner of the Archibald Prize, has created Royal Albert, a portrait of Albert as king of his world, a signal to all the artists to continue telling their stories.

He has also created a portrait of every featuring artist for the entrance of the triennial.

“My idea was to get the artists in, to allow them to lead the installation.”

Another key installation, of special interest to Canberrans, has been created by Thea Anamara Perkins, maternal granddaughter of pioneering Aboriginal activist Charlie Perkins, who once said: “We know we cannot live in the past but the past lives in us.”

It forms a neat connection with the triennial’s history, since her mother, curator Hetti Perkins, was responsible for the last indigenous triennial, Ceremony.

“This is a kind of three-generational look at Charlie’s leadership through their eyes – we see him on the beach with his grandchildren; we see him as a family man – a representation of Blak excellence to which we can aspire. It’s been a privilege to document their lives so abundantly.”

But the triennial isn’t just for Canberrans. 

Another installation links back to the first triennial in 2007 that featured work by the late Arthur Pambegan. Since then, his son Alair Pambegan has completed 600 red, white and black ochre-painted flying fox sculptures for the Queensland Art Gallery collection, and now 500 for the triennial.

“Alair painted his flying foxes in my Brisbane workshop to achieve a monumental outcome, honouring his father’s custodianship,” Albert says.

Concluding the exhibition will be three-dimensional, soft-sculpture weavings from Yarrenyty Arltere Artists’ featuring flocks of birds gathered around tactile fabric droplets and an ancestral woman, Beautiful Ulkumanu.

“If you consider the title After the Rain, it looks at water as a ceremonial cleanser and a source of renewal. People will be able to walk through a veil of rain,” Albert says.

The 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial: After the Rain, NGA, December 6-April 26.

At a glance:

• Aretha Brown exhibits a new mural, The Birth Of A Nation: The True History Of Australia, and her Decolonise Yo’ Self! conversation cards.
• Alair Pambegan presents Kalben-aw, an installation of 500+ ochre-and-wood flying fox.
• Warraba Weatherall’s Mother-Tongue explores the cultural links between body and land in Kamilaroi knowledge systems.
• House of Namatjira brings together 57 artists from Ntaria/Hermannsburg and the broader Namatjira community. 
• Resilience in Bloom showcases Dylan Mooney’s large-scale portraits celebrating queer love among people of colour.
• Jimmy John Thaiday’s Just Beneath the Surface uses ghost-net sculptures and video art to confront climate impacts on Torres Strait communities.
• Naminapu Maymuru-White’s Milŋiyawuy (Milky Way) immerses audiences in Yolŋu cosmology through major bark paintings.
• Thea Anamara Perkins’ Still I Rise presents new and archival paintings that draw on family history.
• Yarrenyty Arltere Artists & Grace Kemarre Robinya share vibrant visions of Country renewed by rain through major soft sculptures and Robinya’s largest painting to date.
• ALWAYS remember the rain by Blaklash offers a lifestyle-design installation focused on renewal.