2026 Exhibition Program

Albany Town Hall GallerIES

BINALUP, MENANG | First light, first people

Portrait Exhibition – Menang Elder Carol Pettersen and portrait photographer Nic Duncan
26 June - 26 July | Albany Town Hall 

A Menang-led collaboration between Elders and award-winning portrait photographer Nic Duncan, this exhibition features a series of 29 portraits of Elders and other key Menang people, shining a light on their contributions to the Menang community and the wider Albany community.

Interviews with each featured Elder were recorded, with captions drawn from those conversations accompanying the portraits to share their stories, achievements, and contributions to the region.

Menang Elder, Aunty Carol Pettersen says the project “highlights the contributions of our First Nations people in shaping the community we have today, telling our story in a way that builds pride and confidence in our youth while fostering mutual respect and collaboration.” Uncle Lester Coyne adds, “Many of our Elders are ‘quiet achievers,’ so this is a wonderful way to recognize them publicly.”

This meaningful project will leave a lasting legacy, ensuring the images and stories of the Menang people are recognised, celebrated, and shared with future generations.

The exhibition also includes nine additional portraits of Elders which Nic was commissioned to photograph for NAIDOC Week in 2023.

Nic has been a finalist three times in the National Photographic Portrait Prize and WA AIPP Professional Portrait Photographer of the Year.

Exhibition: 26 June - 26 July 
Albany Town Hall 
217 York St, Albany 
Open Tue - Sat 10-5pm

wangee boodja | first nations works in the city of albany art collection
31 July - 29 August | Albany Town Hall 

Wangee Boodja meaning ‘talking Country’ or ‘connection to Country’ forms part of our Bicentenary 2026 exhibition program. This exhibition will focus on the works of First Nations’ artists in the City of Albany Art Collection.

On Saturday 1 August, join local Menang artist Shandell Cummings who will talk about the works she has in the collection.

Artist Talk: Saturday 1 August, 10.30am, rsvp here

Exhibition: 31 July - 29 August 
Albany Town Hall 
217 York St, Albany 
Open: Tue- Sat, 10-5pm

rich & RARE | JACQUI MALINS 
4 September - 3 October | Albany Town Hall 

In a submersive experience of light and shadow, growth and collapse, accretion and decay, Rich and Rare explores our history and future with native flat oyster reefs.

The (almost) lost world of Ostrea angasi (native flat oyster) reefs are intrinsic to Albany/Kinjarling’s history, as recorded in the name of Oyster Harbour. Jacqui materialises the angasi’s fragility, sensitivity, delicacy and now-skeletal distribution in the form of a piece of machine-embroidered lace. With this ethereal artefact, through photography and video installation, she examines ecological grief, amnesia and collective memory, and invokes the reef’s return and restoration.

After first encountering old bleached ostrea angasi shells in a deposit near Eden, NSW in 2022, Jacqui began a personal investigation that took her from Yuin country on the south coast of NSW to north-eastern Lutruwita/Tasmania and west to Oyster Harbour in

Kinjarling/Albany, WA. Angasi once formed plentiful reefs around Australia’s southern shoreline, some of them hectares in size. Extraction, overconsumption and environmental change brought them near extinction within a century of European arrival. In recent years, Oyster Harbour was one of the sites chosen by the Nature Conservancy Australia to attempt their restoration.

Artist Talk: Saturday 5th September, 10.30am rsvp  here

Exhibition: 4 September - 3 
Albany Town Hall 
217 York St, Albany 
Open: Tue- Sat, 10-5pm