Image: Pilar Mata Dupont, The Ague, 2018, HD video, continuous loop.
Courtesy of the Artist and MOORE CONTEMPORARY

It’s a wrap. We thank all our our artists, writers, colleagues, commissioning and program partners, collaborators, audiences, and friends who contributed to, the 2021 Samstag program and we congratulate all our UniSA graduating creative students.

In 2021, in a series of exhibitions for Adelaide//International, as part of the Adelaide Festival, Samstag brought together renowned Irish artist Jesse Jones along with Australian based Fayen d’Evie (AUS), James Tylor (AUS), and Taloi Havini (AUS/ the Autonomous Region of Bougainville).  

Later, the Winter Season exhibitions celebrated the work of three exceptional Samstag Scholars – Alex Martinis Roe (AUS), James Nguyen (AUS) and Madison Bycroft (AUS/FR). Bycroft’s BIOPIC or Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée, commissioned in partnership with the South Australian Film Corporation and SALA Festival, was a true highlight.

This year as part of our academic engagement programs we hosted a series of conversations featuring artists, collection curators and historians drawing out the issues around cultural agency, the politics of display, colonial legacies, and generative pathways to repair.  Speakers included James Nguyen and Victoria Pham with Stephen Zagala (South Australian Museum), James Tylor with Dr Frances Wyld (UniSA) and Taloi Havini with Professor Nicholas Thomas (University of Cambridge).

Samstag’s Spring Season – presented with the Adelaide Film Festival – showcased moving-image installations by Pilar Mata Dupont (ARG/AUS/NL), Karrabing Film Collective (AUS) and Omer Fast (ISR/DE), exploring the relationship between fiction and documentary in film.

Finally, it was with great pleasure that we announced South Australian artist Jane Skeer and Victorian artist Trent Crawford as recipients of the prestigious 2022 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship. We wish them well!

Season’s Greetings to you all. We look forward to welcoming you into the gallery at the beginning of March 2022, for our fabulous Adelaide Festival exhibitions with Isaac Julien (UK), Helen Fuller (AUS) with Khai Liew (AUS), and Daniel Jaber (AUS).

– Warm wishes from Erica and the Samstag team