The Cross Art Projects

Call Directions Website

The Cross Art Projects The Cross Art Projects is a contemporary art gallery in the heart of Kings Cross

The Cross Art Projects foregrounds contemporary work that reflects the multiple relationships between art and life, art and the public sphere and explores the boundaries of this context. We are attentive to the local without sacrificing the scope of indigenous and international views. Cross Art enhances its projects with conversations, roundtables and screenings including talks by local activist, architectural and heritage groups.

The centrepiece of ‘West Papua is not an empty land / Papua bukan tanah kosong’ is the documentary film Pesta Babi: Colo...
22/10/2026

The centrepiece of ‘West Papua is not an empty land / Papua bukan tanah kosong’ is the documentary film Pesta Babi: Colonialism in Our Time (2026) directed by journalist Dandhy Laksono and anthropologist Cypri Dale. It focuses on the escalation in land clearing concessions in Papua under president Prabowo Subianto and his predecessor Joko Widodo. A case study—the Merauke Sugarcane Project—investigates a ‘consortium’ of ten companies owned by two interconnected families active in the palm oil industry. The Merauke concession area is the size of Bali, and consists of forests, savanna and wetlands owned, inhabited and held sacred by Papuans for millennia.

Laksono and Dale methodically refute the shimmering claims made by national food estate and bioethanol projects. Adding the word ‘national’ enables corporate use of the military to intimidate Papuans and bypass customary law rights of indigenous peoples promised in the Indonesian Constitution of 1945. The exhibition features the important documentary work of artists, activists and human rights experts, as United Nations and media access to the region have been denied for decades, allowing dispossession and theft to hide in plain sight. We are indeed privileged to view Pesta Babi/Pig Feast safely here in Sydney, as throughout Indonesia, screenings and discussions on the film circulate by word of mouth due to state intervention and censorship.

The exhibition with screening continues at The Cross Art Projects till 7 November 2026.

__

Images: (Stills from) Pesta Babi/Pig Feast: Colonialism in Our Time, Dandhy Dwi Laksono and Cypri Paju Dale, 2026, 1h 35m


��




'WEST PAPUA IS NOT AN EMPTY LAND / Papua bukan tanah kosong' is now open.With immense thanks to Sophie Chao for her gene...
16/10/2026

'WEST PAPUA IS NOT AN EMPTY LAND / Papua bukan tanah kosong' is now open.

With immense thanks to Sophie Chao for her generous insights on the realities and effects of deforestation and industrial oil palm expansion across the customary lands and territories of the Marind communities in Merauke Regency, West Papua.

The conversation is now available to listen to online:
https://soundcloud.com/the-cross-art-projects/west-papua-is-not-an-empty

Thank you to all who attended—The exhibition is now open and continues at The Cross Art Projects to 7 November 2026, with a continuous screening of ‘Pesta Babi/Pig Feast: Colonialism in our time’.

��Featuring works by: Alyakha Kolektif (Markus Rumbino with Brian Suebu, Syors Deda and Marzamel Kristian Guijangge), Fitri DK, Dicky Takndare, Taring Padi and Muhammad ‘Ucup’ Yusuf.

��




OPENING TOMORROWSaturday 10 October, 2pm:WEST PAPUA IS NOT AN EMPTY LAND'Papua bukan tanah kosong'ARTISTSAlyakha Kolekti...
09/10/2026

OPENING TOMORROW
Saturday 10 October, 2pm:

WEST PAPUA IS NOT AN EMPTY LAND
'Papua bukan tanah kosong'

ARTISTS
Alyakha Kolektif (Markus Rumbino, Brian Suebu, Syors Deda & Marzamel Kristian Guijangge)
Fitri DK
Dicky Takndare
Taring Padi
Muhammad ‘Ucup’ Yusuf
+ Screening of Pesta Babi/Pig Feast: Colonialism in our time

Join us at 2pm for the opening and a conversation with Sophie Chao (Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, USYD), who writes on the adverse impacts of deforestation and industrial oil palm expansion across the customary lands and territories of the Marind communities in Merauke Regency, West Papua

Exhibition runs 10 October to 7 November 2026
The Cross Art Projects

West Papua is not an empty land relays conversations, critique, and shared cultural knowledge amongst leading artists and voices from Indonesia’s post-colonial and environmental movements. Artists from three activist groups—Taring Padi formed in 1998, Udeido in 2018, and Alyakha Kolektif formed a year later—use painting, woodblock, film and sound art with acuity and spirit, to amplify awareness of accelerating land theft in West Papua to regional audiences.

The exhibition centrepiece is the documentary film Pesta Babi: Colonialism in Our Time (2026) directed by journalist Dandhy Laksono and anthropologist Cypri Dale. It focuses on the escalation in land clearing concessions in Papua under president Prabowo Subianto and his predecessor Joko Widodo. Papua hosts the world’s third-largest rainforest and wetlands and is a global biodiversity shield. Deforestation on the island relentlessly continues as Indonesia seeks to maintain its position as the world’s leading producer of palm oil.

Visit www.crossart.com.au for more information

Artwork: Syors Deda, Untitled (from Kiney Waloboney), 2026, oil and acrylic on barkcloth, 54 x 121 cm.

Opening Saturday 10 October, 2pm:WEST PAPUA IS NOT AN EMPTY LAND 'Papua bukan tanah kosong'ARTISTS Alyakha Kolektif (Mar...
02/10/2026

Opening Saturday 10 October, 2pm:

WEST PAPUA IS NOT AN EMPTY LAND
'Papua bukan tanah kosong'

ARTISTS
Alyakha Kolektif (Markus Rumbino, Brian Suebu, Syors Deda & Marzamel Kristian Guijangge)
Fitri DK
Dicky Takndare
Taring Padi
Muhammad ‘Ucup’ Yusuf
+ Screening of Pesta Babi/Pig Feast: Colonialism in our time

Join us at 2pm for the opening and a conversation with Sophie Chao (Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, USYD), who writes on the adverse impacts of deforestation and industrial oil palm expansion across the customary lands and territories of the Marind communities in Merauke Regency, West Papua

Exhibition runs 10 October to 7 November 2026
The Cross Art Projects

West Papua is not an empty land relays conversations, critique, and shared cultural knowledge amongst leading artists and voices from Indonesia’s post-colonial and environmental movements. Artists from three activist groups—Taring Padi formed in 1998, Udeido in 2018, and Alyakha Kolektif formed a year later—use painting, woodblock, film and sound art with acuity and spirit, to amplify awareness of accelerating land theft in West Papua to regional audiences.

The exhibition centrepiece is the documentary film Pesta Babi: Colonialism in Our Time (2026) directed by journalist Dandhy Laksono and anthropologist Cypri Dale. It focuses on the escalation in land clearing concessions in Papua under president Prabowo Subianto and his predecessor Joko Widodo. Papua hosts the world’s third-largest rainforest and wetlands and is a global biodiversity shield. Deforestation on the island relentlessly continues as Indonesia seeks to maintain its position as the world’s leading producer of palm oil.

Visit www.crossart.com.au for more information

Artwork: Fitri DK, Hidden Disaster, woodcut print on paper, 60 x 80 cm, 2025.

IncarcerNation closes at NCCA this Saturday 2pmJack Green (born 1953)1.Boomerang story 1 acrylic on linen 36 x 36 cmThis...
24/09/2026

IncarcerNation closes at NCCA this Saturday 2pm

Jack Green (born 1953)

1.
Boomerang story 1
acrylic on linen
36 x 36 cm

This painting is about Alex Doomadgee. Alex is a Waanyi fella. He was travelling on a Qantas plane and carrying two boomerangs. They wouldn’t let Alex on the plane with his boomerangs. Crazy really. They weren’t fightin’ boomerangs, but ceremonial boomerangs. You can tell ceremonial boomerangs as they are small and the edges aren’t sharp. We use them like a musical instrument to sing with. In this painting you can see the two big fighting boomerangs above the plane. They’d let fella on the plane carrying a guitar, but not an Aboriginal fella with his ceremonial boomerangs. Alex tried to explain the difference but they didn’t listen and took them from him. The story hit the media and this painting tells the story how we see it.

The funny things is the Qantas planes carry a Kangaroo symbol on their tail. The Kangaroo, he’s in our songs and ceremonies. We proud he spoke up, that’s why I painted him riding a kangaroo on the plane, holding the boomerangs and an Aboriginal flag. He’s flying over his country and all his family down at Dry Creek and Fish River are with him holding their ceremonial boomerangs and singing with him. Just a shame he couldn’t just ride the kangaroo through the sky as they’d both be singing to the clap of the boomerangs. — Jack Green

2.
Unlicensed, Unregistered, Prison, 2016
acrylic on linen
46 x 56 cm

Our motorcars take a hammering on the dirt roads and getting them fixed-up costs a big mob of money. Its big mob of money to get the motorcar registered too; money us Aboriginal people just don’t have. On top of this a lot of people don’t have a licence, it’s just too hard to get a licence in remote places. But we gotta travel for work, ceremony, for funerals, health and visiting family. This painting shows everyday life, how the police stop all us mob in our old motorcars trying to get in to town. They stop us and next thing you find yourself in a cage or might even be prison. — Jack Green

📸: 1-3

Billiamook (Gapal) worked as a multi-lingual interpreter for amateur photographer Paul Foelsche. He was locked up on min...
24/09/2026

Billiamook (Gapal) worked as a multi-lingual interpreter for amateur photographer Paul Foelsche. He was locked up on minor charges through the 1880s. Larrakia artist and anthropologist Gary Lee has championed Gapal’s life and art, and has continued to retrieve ancestors from colonial archives, as in his splendid gold-leaf embossed tribute to ‘Gapal’ (2026).�� Cutting to recent times, is Gary Lee’s work ‘Sad Buddha’ (2016). In 2016, the image of a young inmate, Dylan Voller, restrained in a chair and wearing a spit hood was aired on ABC Australia’s Shame. The kids in Don Dale Youth Detention Centre had been held in substandard conditions. The solitary confinement cells were the worst. Lee’s photograph of a young man protectively crouching as if to ward off an assailant, is a reminder of the constant threat of such structural imbalances.

We are grateful to Maurice O’Riordan for his assistance in cataloguing these works

IncarcerNation closes at NCCA this Saturday 2 pm

📸: 1-2 3:
�IncarcerNation continues at NCCA until 26 September��‘Gapal’, gold foil on digital print on Ilford cotton rag paper, 31.4 x 25 cm
‘Sad Buddha’, digital print, 42 x 50 cm

Since the Royal Commission’s findings in 1991, there have been more than 630 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander death...
18/09/2026

Since the Royal Commission’s findings in 1991, there have been more than 630 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody nationwide.

Chips Mackinolty’s ‘Kumanjayi’ (2020) is a cry for those who have died in detention: repeated red stamps of the word ‘Kumanjayi’ — a substitute name used out of respect in Warlpiri after a person passes away — framed against a vast dark prison wall.

With all but two Australian jurisdictions still refusing to stop the imprisonment of children as young as 10, his banner ‘Kids on Country, Not in Custody’ (2020) extends that response nationally.

We are grateful for Bernadette Ryan for assistance in cataloguing these works.

The show continues at NCCA until 26 September.


‘Kids on Country, Not in Custody’, 2020, digital print on vinyl banner, 94 x 300 cm

‘Kumanjayi’, 2020, Ilford Galerie Prestige Cotton Rag Smooth 300gsm, 50 x 80 cm

📸:

Archie Moore’s ‘Cairns’ (2025) comprises two towering ‘classical’ columns built from old volumes of Hansard — one for th...
17/09/2026

Archie Moore’s ‘Cairns’ (2025) comprises two towering ‘classical’ columns built from old volumes of Hansard — one for the House of Representatives, one for the Senate. Each bound volume records elected officials deploying rhetoric and procedure over lives far removed from their own, in debates followed by inertia and silence.

‘Cairns’ is showing in IncarcerNation at NCCA until 26 September.

Artwork courtesy of Archie Moore () and The Commercial (). We are grateful to Amanda Rowell, , and Jaimee Edwards for their curatorial and administrative support.

We acknowledge our amazing patrons , and helene.george (), whose generous financial support made the delivery and inclusion of this work possible.

Archie Moore, Cairns, 2025, found hardcover books (Hansard volumes, House of Representatives; Hansard volumes, Senate), installation dimensions variable (installation views). IncarcerNation at Northern Centre for Contemporary Art (NCCA), 2026 in collaboration with

Image credits: 1 2-5

Image 3 also features: Sandra Saunders, Lore vs Law, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 45 x 122 cm.
Image 5 also features: Vincent Namatjira, Albert selling artefacts to the Police, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 101 x 76 cm.

Address

8 Llankelly Place, Kings Cross (Off Orwell Street)
Sydney, NSW
2011

Opening Hours

Thursday 11am - 6pm
Friday 11am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 6pm

Telephone

+61293572058

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Cross Art Projects posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category