Ellie Buttrose is the curator of the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, a survey exhibition featuring 24 artists across three venues: the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and Samstag Museum of Art. Joining Samstag’s Associate Curator Anna Zagala in the studio midway through the exhibition’s installation  Ellie shares how this survey of Australian contemporary art has unfolded and continues to surprise her, what these artworks and art practices reveal and why exhibition making is an experimental practice.

2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art Yield Strength
Friday 27 February — Monday 8 June 2026

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In 2025 Samstag Museum of Art invited Kaurna-based artist and Samstag scholar Monte Masi to create a new work to be performed across multiple performances in the gallery. Monte joins Associate Curator Anna Zagala to discuss what drew him to art in the first place, the thrills and perils of the improvised unscripted encounters, and his experience living and studying in San Francisco during a tech boom and the tail end of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

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Ryan Presley (Marri Ngarr) is a visual artist living on Yugambeh Country (Logan City, QLD). His practice spans painting, printmaking, sculpture, video, installation, and writing, and is marked by a deep engagement with the visual economies of power, memory, and resistance. 

Commissioned by the University in 2024 to paint a portrait of its Chancellor, the Honorable John Hill, Ryan joins Associate Curator Anna Zagala in the studio to discuss his exhibition Daydreamer, how growing up in Mparntwe/Alice Springs and an early love of drawing shaped his trajectory, and what he hoped to convey of the sitter in the portrait, currently on display at Samstag Museum of Art.

The episode concludes with a throw to Samstag and Ryan’s conversation with art historian Dr Andrea Bubenik.

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Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro have been life partners and artistic collaborators for over 25 years. They join Associate Curator Anna Zagala to discuss their new exhibition, Psychopomp, currently on display at Samstag Museum of Art. The outcome of the UniSA Jeffrey Smart Commission, the work is a cacophonous and vibrant moving image work that explores the porous relationship between science and mysticism. In this conversation, they delve into the history of rocket technology and its link to spirituality, contemporary pagan rituals, and why, after leading a peripatetic life, they decided to settle in the Blue Mountains.

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South Australian artist Louise Haselton was invited by curator Jasmin Stephens to create work in response to North Terrace, the cultural boulevard that runs through Tarntanya / Adelaide, for the exhibition North Terrace: worlds in relief, which recently opened at Samstag Museum of Art.

Louise joins Associate Curator Anna Zagala on the podcast to discuss, among other things, how a pamphlet in the University of South Australia’s Architecture Museum caught her eye, what walking North Terrace yielded, and the tactile pleasure of working with Japanese papers.

Louise Haselton is a visual artist who employs a range of presentations. Her practice explores the inherent qualities of everyday materials, seeking connections and relationships between seemingly disparate materials and objects gleaned from the world around us.

North Terrace: worlds in relief is on at the Samstag Museum of Art, 20 June – 26 September 2025.

The exhibition features Andrew Burrell / Allison Chhorn / Louise Haselton / the ArtHitects (Gary Carsley and Renjie Teoh) / with poetry by Natalie Harkin

ON ART is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation and Solstice Podcasting and produced by Tilly Balding in Tarntanya/Adelaide. The conversation was recorded 16 June 2025.

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Ahead of the launch of Samstag Museum of Art’s group exhibition Direct, Directed, Directly, Chinese Australian poet and artist Chunxiao Qu joins Associate Curator Anna Zagala to discuss her art practice.

Chunxiao Qu grew up in Qingdao, China, before emigrating to Naarm / Melbourne in 2015 to study at Monash University, where she is now based.

She shares why working with language interests her and what it does in her artworks, the impact of one dedicated tutor in shaping her art practice, and what drew her to working with LED neon.

Direct, Directed, Directly is on at the Samstag Museum of Art 28 February 2025 – 30 May 2025.

The exhibition features Richard Bell / Madison Bycroft / Kuba Dorabialski / Danielle Freakley / Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader / Monte Masi / Chunxiao Qu

ON ART is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation and Solstice Podcasting and produced by Tilly Balding in Tarntanya/Adelaide. The conversation was recorded 18 February 2025.

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In this episode, Samstag Associate Curator Anna Zagala speaks with artist Archie Moore (Kamilaroi / Bigambul) and film maker Molly Reynolds. Molly worked with Archie to produce his Samstag Museum of Art / 2024 Adelaide Film Festival moving image commission Archie Moore: Dwelling (Adelaide Issue). The exhibition is on at Samstag until 29 November 2024.

On the day the exhibition launch, they discuss their preparation for the work, how Archie’s love of films and personal history was a source of inspiration, and the curious experience of displaying personal objects, a process that has transformed them into artifacts.

The episode concludes with an address by Djon Mundine OAM delivered to an appreciative crowd in Fenn Place, outside the Samstag Museum of Art, later that afternoon.

You can hear both Djon Mundine and Archie Moore on earlier episodes of the ON ART podcast.

Djon Mundine – Episode 24

Archie Moore – Episode 28

ON ART is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation and Solstice Podcasting. It is produced by Tilly Balding in Tarntanya/Adelaide. The conversation was recorded on 22 October 2024. 

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Kaurna/Adelaide-based artist, researcher and 2024 Samstag Scholar Ash Tower joins Samstag Associate Curator Anna Zagala to discuss his love of learning, what influenced him to select the British School at Rome, Italy, and the importance of preparation. 

ON ART is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation and Solstice Podcasting. It is produced by Tilly Balding in Tarntanya/Adelaide. The conversation was recorded on 4 September 2024. 

Learn more about the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship here.

Instagram link: Ash Tower

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Dr Irene Watson (Tanganekald, Meintangk, Bunganditj and Potaruwutj) sits down with Dr Vernon Ah Kee (Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Gugu Yimithirr and Koko Berrin) for a yarn, six years after the pair first worked together on Vernon’s commission to create an ephemeral site-specific artwork of Kaurna language words on the grounds of UniSA, City West campus. Recently refreshed, the artwork embeds Kaurna concepts, extending Vernon’s long-standing commitment to art activism and a language-based practice.

The pair talk candidly and with a great sense of mutual respect about reciprocity, justice, and the importance of speaking truth as two First Nations people contending with a settler culture that only wants to hear ‘happy’ stories.  

https://unisa.edu.au/connect/samstag-museum/art-on-campus/

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Saudi/Palestinian artist Dana Awartani joins Samstag Curator Anna Zagala to discuss her art practice, living between cultures, and the importance of her unique art education in both contemporary art and traditional crafts, in shaping her art practice and career. 

Dana shares the background to the two moving image installation works currently on display at Samstag Museum of Art I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered I’d Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming and Listen to my Words, her passion for geometry and what being Arab means to her.

ON ART is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation and Solstice Podcasting. It is produced by Tilly Balding in Tarntanya/Adelaide. The conversation was recorded on 4 April 2023.

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