Daisy [Dale Collier] Creative Australia Application - R-26-495577 - Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups (V3)

Example of previous work - Bang Bang, 2025. Performance residue with amplified concrete clap sticks, consumer waste plastic, and rawhide kangaroo skin drums

Example of previous installation work - Daisy, Bang Bang, 2025. Installation and performance residue with amplified concrete clap sticks, consumer waste plastic, and electromagnetic solenoid triggered rawhide kangaroo skin drums

Title:

Birgananna: beyond the butcher dance is an exciting new commission project to be produced and presented at West Space & Canberra Contemporary.

Project Summary:

Birgananna: beyond the butcher dance involves the creative development, production of new work, and multi-staged exhibition of a gripping and timely artistic project at the interstices of contemporary art, carceral systems, and eco-social practice.

The project will enable the artist to collaborate on a major commission with developments towards two confirmed exhibition outcomes at West Space in 2026, and Canberra Contemporary in 2027. This will be realised through 4 key phases and will take shape as an expansive iterative installation of new experimental audio-visual and multi-art form works.

Consultation & Creative Development: Jun - Aug 2026

Collaboration & Production: July - Sept 2026

Exhibition at West Space (Wurundjeri): Oct - Dec 2026

Exhibition at Canberra Contemporary (Ngunnawal): Sept - Nov 2027

Birgananna: beyond the butcher dance is an exciting new commission project to be produced and presented at West Space & Canberra Contemporary

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Birgananna: beyond the butcher dance is an exciting new commission project to be produced and presented at West Space & Canberra Contemporary · ·

The Creative Team

  • Daisy-Profile

    Daisy - Project Lead Artist

    Daisy is a queer koorie artist who embraces the humour and humility of survival and belonging in a schismatic deep-fake post-truth context. Daisy's projects fuse experimental sound, video installation, and performance. Their work offers vital insights in critical theory and creative practice about how Indigenous futurism and relational knowledge systems contributes to anti-carceral resistance, ecosocial survival, and First Peoples justice. Daisy has exhibited at the AGSA’s Ramsay Art Prize, Parliament of NSW, Blak Dot Gallery, Gertrude Contemporary, Incinerator Gallery, The Lockup, Bus Projects, SEVENTH, Rabbit Poetry Journal, MeMo review, and UNprojects. 

  • Nicholas Currie Profile

    Nicholas Currie - Key Artist Collaborator

    Nicholas Currie is a descendant of the Mununjali clan of the Yugambeh language group, with connection to Kuku Yalanji, and currently lives on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/Melbourne. Humour and kindness are undercurrents to the major themes addressed in his works: contemporary Indigenous perspectives, hauntology and exploration of identity within current Australia. Currie has exhibited at Connors Connors, Sullivan + Strumpf, Futures Gallery, Kings Artist Run Space, Blak Dot Gallery, Koorie Heritage Trust, Outer Space, Craft, Incinerator Gallery and the Margaret Lawrence Gallery. He has a BFA Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts.

  • Geometric drawing of an outline square with sections divided by vertical, horizontal, and half circle lines.

    Tahmina Maskinyar - West Space Curator

    Tahmina Maskinyar is an arts worker and writer. Born in Kabul and raised near the Djarlgarro Beelier (Canning River) on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja, she is committed to amplifying the existing capacities of others and aims to facilitate space for creative practice to flourish and intersect with critical discourse. Her experience spans academia, not-for-profits, volunteer boards, and government. Tahmina’s writing has been published in Architecture Australia, un Magazine, Art Guide, and West Space Offsite.

  • Sophia Cai Profile

    Sophia Cai - Canberra Contemporary Director

    Sophia Cai 蔡晨昕 is a curator and writer based in Kamberri/Canberra, Australia. Sophia’s ongoing research interests include Asian art histories, the intersections between contemporary art and craft, and building communities of practice rooted in feminist and anti-racist work. Sophia is the current Artistic Director + CEO of Canberra Contemporary, one of Australia’s leading contemporary art organisations, and the Deputy Chair of NAVA, a peak advocacy body for Australia’s contemporary arts sector, while maintaining an independent writing and curatorial practice.

  • Tristen Harwood profile

    Tristen Harwood - Arts Writer & Editor

    Tristen Harwood (Ngalakgan) is a writer, critic, and editor. He is a Tutor in Critical and Theoretical Studies at the Victorian College of the Arts. He is currently undertaking a PhD at RMIT University, which looks to understand the historical relationship between carceralism and Indigenous art making. Tristen is a contributing editor at MeMo review and a board member of the Plumwood Committee. His most recent book is Variations A More Diverse Picture of Contemporary Art (2023), co-edited and authored with Grace McQuilten and Anthony White. Tristen has published in Art Monthly Australasia, The Age, The Saturday Paper, MeMo Review, ArtReview, Art Guide, Overland, Artlink, Un Magazine, and various exhibition catalogues.

  • Tabitha Glanville profile

    Tabitha Glanville - Independent Curator

    An emerging curator, Tabitha situates her curatorial practice in the quiet strength of her Kamilaroi father, and the deep creative and spiritual aptitude of her mother. Tabitha enters the art world with a dedication to research and emotional accessibility, accompanied by a constant view to decolonise. Eschewing selective solidarity, she endeavours to provide space and breathe air into creative practices which follow earnest paths to truth-telling and current discovery.

Our strengthening connection and human touch allows integrity, creativity, and trust to shape the way we work together. These aren't just words—they’re a foundation. We believe in doing great work, building real relationships, and making an impact. Daisy and Nicholas met working at the Koorie Heritage Trust and have collaborated on multiple projects. Nicholas will be a key collaborator. Tristen will be producing a catalogue essay for the project, he and Daisy previously worked together on MeMo Review's Art and Crime Edition. Tahmina has recently been introduced to this project as a key facilitator and curatorial advisor at West Space. This team will also expand to include direction and curatorial advise from Sophia Cai and Tabitha Glanville for the Canberra Contemporary exhibition in late 2027.

Used to be a River, 2019
Excerpt from 2 Channel HD audio-video installation with river sand, lomandra longifolia, empty buck, coal from Wilpinjong near the Goulburn river, canoe and paddle.

Duration: 6:45 mins

Dimensions variable

Tera Echo, 2025. Installation view at Blak Dot Gallery, Brunswick VIC

Absolute Pixie Dust: Yam I am, 2025. Installation view at BUS Projects, Brunswick VIC

Giwambang Warraal (Moonlight Echo), 2020.

Generative sound installation with Mundubbera grevillea (Grevillea moonlight/whiteana), analog synthesizer and plant bio-data.

Giwambang Warraal is an installation that uses living plant bio-data to generate a soundscape specific to the displacement of a young Mundubbera grevillea, trapped in a padded cell. Usually flowering in full sun and a well-drained soil, the Mundubbera grevillea struggles for life on this cold concrete floor. A sweet and adaptable native species, unearthed from Country, confined without sunlight, and connected by wires to the variables of systematic measurement.

Entered in as a number, as an artwork, into a new custodial relationship, a place not a prison, with another context that compels protection, care, supervision and guarding... and water, and natural light.

This site-responsive act of resistance considers parameters for survival within the drastically altered context of confinement, without Country. In an entanglement, with unfamiliar electrical currents and historical narratives of displacement, disconnection and Indigenous incarceration, the moonlight Grevillea echoes defiantly.

Installation view in the padded cell, The Lock Up Contemporary Art Space, 2020.

If I Could Fly, 2019

Video excerpt from site-specific performance at Bundanon Trust, Yuin Country

Single channel HD audio-video

Duration 4:45 mins

Field Dressing, 2025
Excerpt from 2 Channel HD audio-video installation with red ochre, kangaroo pelt, reserve bank money bag, white ochre on eucalyptus, heavy duty steel bars, kangaroo incisor necklace, and synthetic polymer and oil on linen.

Duration: 9:00 mins

Dimensions variable

Metamorphosis, 2024

Installation with single channel HD audio/video, wintal transparent television, lupa media player, timber pallets, and sleeping bag, red ochre, heart shaped brick, tradex paint, Australian Dreaming book, and synthetic polymer paint on canvas

Duration 3:23 mins

Dimensions variable

Used to be a River, 2019. Installation view at The Lockup Artspace, Newcastle NSW

Examples of previous work