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Will Green and Connor Patton construct the ancient Pyramids of Giza with legos. Emily Porter | The Daily Independent
EMILY PORTER
Jasmine McGranahan works through math problems in order to solve a riddle. Emily Porter | The Daily Independent
EMILY PORTER
Tami Maddox guides students through a journaling activity after reading a book as a class. Emily Porter | The Daily Independent
EMILY PORTER
Luke Jefferson gives Lion Lead Up camp at Ponderosa a thumbs up. Emily Porter | The Daily Independent
EMILY PORTER
Ponderosa Elementary students listen as a book is read aloud during Lion Lead Up camp. Emily Porter | The Daily Independent
‘The National 2021: New Australian Art’ is on until September across three separately curated venues in Sydney: the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Carriageworks. It’s the last in a series of three biennial exhibitions presenting the work of artists who were either born in Australia or who currently work here; there has already been a ‘National 2019’ and a ‘National 2017’. This one is inevitably framed by pandemic circumstances that have prohibited most international visitors and isolated artists and audiences, as well as by the drought, fires and floods that have so badly affected the country in the last two years. ‘The National 2021’ takes planetary crisis as its premise, and ‘care’ as one of its main subjects. Indigeneity is central, not just in the choice of artists, but also as a way of thinking differently about the exhibition’s concerns, such as artistic collaboration, social responsibility, relationship to the land, i