Published alongside the National Gallery of Australia’s 2017 National Indigenous Art Triennial, Defying Empire brings together thirty contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.

The exhibition marked fifty years since the 1967 Referendum, using the anniversary not as a tether to expose how unfinished the dismantling or even address of colonisation has yet to meaningfully move the needle. Importantly, it lets the artists speak from within their own practices rather than reducing the work to a single curatorial thesis. Artists include Tony Albert, Brook Andrew, Megan Cope, Blak Douglas, Julie Gough, Dale Harding, Archie Moore, Judy Watson, Yhonnie Scarce and others, across photography, sculpture, installation, painting, weaving, print, glass and new media. The recurring questions are about who gets to name history, who gets to occupy space visibly, and how art can operate as record, counter-history and assertion of presence. Substantial, highly illustrated, and much more than exhibition ephemera.

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2017. First edition. Large-format paperback, 160 pages, extensively illustrated. Light shelf wear and minor rubbing/creasing to covers; internally clean and firmly bound. Very good condition.