The Legacy of Trevor Nickolls Exhibition 2025

Client:

Tarnanthi Festival, AIARTS Gallery

The Legacy of Trevor Nickolls is an immersive, Indigenous led exhibition honouring the life, art, and enduring influence of visionary Ngarrindjeri artist Trevor Nickolls. Curated by Gudjal and Girramay artist Kat Bell, the exhibition reimagines Nickolls’ radical “Dreamtime to Machinetime” cosmology through a contemporary, relational, and culturally grounded lens.
Guided by Cultural Engagement Protocols, visitors move through the space as though travelling on Country, encountering poetry carried in soundscapes, animated storytelling embedded in augmented reality (AR), and symbolic encounters with the dove—a shared totemic presence in both Nickolls’ and Bell’s practices. These immersive elements transform the gallery into a living environment where ancestral memory, digital media, and Blak futurisms converge.
Bell’s curatorial approach, shaped by her Birrala Nyina methodology, positions the exhibition as a dialogical space rather than a retrospective. Original and reimagined works by Nickolls sit alongside newly created artworks and AR overlays, inviting viewers into reflective engagement. Through analytical descriptions, reflective prompts, and evocative visual cues, visitors are encouraged to explore the tensions and harmonies between ancestral presence and urban modernity that underpin Nickolls’ practice.
This exhibition reframes Nickolls’ legacy not as a fixed chapter in art history, but as an ongoing conversation—one carried forward by new media, contemporary cultural practice, and intergenerational storytelling. By blending painting, digital animation, sound, and relational curatorship, The Legacy of Trevor Nickolls offers a rare immersion into one of Australia’s most significant First Nations artistic lineages, celebrating the visionary imagination that continues to inspire new futures.

Year:

2025