MAMA announces nginha - 2025/2026 Artistic Program

Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) announces nginha – a program of exhibitions and events for 2025 and early 2026 that marks the Museum’s 10th anniversary. nginha takes its title from a newly commissioned artwork by the celebrated Wiradjuri poet and academic Jeanine Leane that is central to the 15-month program. Translating as ‘here’, the concept of nginha informs three distinct seasons:

• you are here: presenting artists from the MAMA region, along the upper Murray river, Southern NSW, and North East Victoria.
• gathered here: contemporary perspectives on the MAMA Collection and the almost 80-year history of collecting in Albury.
• here and now: a series of supported artists’ projects that cement MAMA’s place as a generative hub for new artwork in regional Australia.

Jeanine Leane’s new work is a poem in Wiradjuri language that takes form throughout the MAMA building. Alongside this commission, the you are here season presents an evolving program of projects and exhibitions featuring the work of over 30 artists, highlighting the strength of creative practice in the region through performance, photography, painting, printmaking, weaving, and sculpture. Featured artists include Matthew Scherf; Malcolm Jagamarra Maloney; Phil and Marg Murray with Tamarra Murray, Teagan Murdock and Aiden Murray; Ashe; Beth Peters; Marley Dawson; Kate Smith; and The CAD Factory.

The CAD Factory is an artist-led organisation collaborating ethically with people and place to create a local, national and international program of experimental work from their base in Sandigo, NSW. The CAD Factory’s Vic McEwan and Sarah McEwan, alongside invited collaborators, will present an immersive exhibition of the organisation’s 20-year archives and new works that point to the future of artist led initiatives in regional environments. A program of artist talks, workshops and performances celebrating the you are here season will be held over the 2025 June long weekend.

Artist Marley Dawson, raised in Albury, will extend the ideas of his recently unveiled public artwork Bungambrawatha, into the MAMA Kids Gallery. Bungambrawatha uses semi-petrified trees dredged from the sand mines of the Murray River floodplain to reflect on the vast history of the region. The tree components central to the new Kids Gallery commission have been carbon dated at 12,000 years old.

D Harding works in a wide variety of media to explore the visual and social languages of their communities as a cultural continuum. A descendant of Bidjara, Ghungalu, and Garingbal peoples, they maintain and draw upon the spiritual and philosophical sensibilities of their cultural inheritance within the framework of international contemporary art. Harding will create a significant and substantial new work for the nginha gathered here season, linking to their own glass and xanthorrhoea resin works acquired by MAMA in 2021.

Four guest curators will present their unique perspectives on the MAMA Collection. Talia Smith is an artist and curator from Aotearoa and now based in Sydney who exhibited at MAMA in 2022. Her curatorial practice focuses on First Nations photographic, moving image and archival practices, with an interest in artists reclaiming the colonial tool of the camera. Madeleine Steer is an emerging curator from Albury, who is currently studying at Monash University. Steer is a recent alumna of the MAMA RAW program that supports young practitioners in the region. Sally Denshire is an academic and poet and a dedicated volunteer at MAMA. Hayley Millar Baker is a lens-based artist based in Melbourne. Her identity is deeply rooted in her Aboriginality, belonging to the Gunditjmara, Djabwurrung, and Nira-Bulok Taungurung peoples through her maternal lineage. Millar Baker’s work is in the MAMA Collection and she was the recipient of the 2020 John and Margaret Baker Fellowship through the National Photography Prize.

Four collection exhibitions will be presented concurrently, pivoting on the Museum’s 10th anniversary on 2 October 2025 that will be marked by a celebratory program of activities, performances and talks. Collectively the exhibitions consider not only 10 years of MAMA but the development of a public art collection for Albury that began in 1947. From this history, the nginha gathered here season builds dialogues with the MAMA Collection into the future.

The final season of nginha, here and now, commencing in early 2026 presents a series of ambitious new commissions by artists from Albury and across the country. This series of works cements the reputation of MAMA as a significant hub for artistic generation in regional Australia. Details of the 2026 commission artists will be announced at a future date.

Blair French, MAMA CEO said: “nginha highlights MAMA’s connection to the artists and communities of the Murray region. As the Museum moves towards and beyond its 10th anniversary moment, MAMA invites reflections on the histories of the region and artistic interventions that generate meaningful experiences of the present. MAMA looks to its role in shaping collective futures in the region and beyond. Gathering together a diverse array of artistic and community participants, nginha reflects MAMA’s commitment to place and to creating welcoming and dynamic experiences for all visitors.”

Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA)is a regionally transformative, globally engaged art museum located on Wiradjuri Country, on the Milawa / Murray River. In addition to the river cities of Albury and Wodonga, MAMA is connected to communities across the southern plains of New South Wales, through North East Victoria, into the Alpine region. MAMA enriches the cultural life of this region through development and presentation of an extensive exhibition program; care and presentation of the MAMA Collection; a wide-ranged suite of education and public programs; and studio classes and creative learning programs. The impact of its work in recent years has placed MAMA at the cultural heart of the region and earned a national reputation.

Image D Harding, The boys - lift, 2020, Murray Art Museum Albury installation view. Image Jeremy Weihrauch