Samstag is currently closed while we install our new season exhibitions. 

Our galleries will reopen on Thursday 16 October with Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healy: Psychopomp, the AFF Expand Moving Image: 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!! and Ryan Presley: Daydreamer.

Wirltuti season

Wednesday 16 October — Friday 5 December 2025

Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healy: Psychopomp

Samstag Gallery 1 (lower level)

Artistic collaborative duo and Samstag Scholars Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healy’s practice reflects a preoccupation with the dynamics of global mobility — the networks, standards and financial systems that enable and restrict the movement of people and goods in the modern era.

In this ambitious new work, Healy and Cordeiro premiere Psychopomp, a cacophonous and vibrant moving image work. Exploring the porous relationship between science and mysticism, the pair turn their attention to rocket technology and its link to spirituality.

From the way in which NASA’s Apollo, Mercury and Gemini mission names are directly inspired by gods of antiquity, to pioneer rocket scientist Jack Parson’s conversion to Aleister Crowley’s occult Thelema movement, Cordeiro and Healy identify a strong spiritual thread in the history of rocket and space exploration. Melding Crowley’s poem Hymn to Pan, a significant historical text, with footage of farming fertility festivals in Thailand and Laos, Psychopomp explores the expressive potential of motion, technology and pagan rituals.

Alongside the new commission, Samstag will present a concise selection of significant earlier works by the artists. 

Psychopomp is the outcome of the 2024 UniSA Jeffrey Smart Commission.

AFF Expand Moving Image Commission: 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!!

Samstag Gallery 2 (upper level)

Nisa East / Anna Lindner / Yasemin Sabuncu

5 STEPS... originates from the 2023 Adelaide Film Festival (AFF) EXPAND Lab, a development initiative bringing together filmmakers, artists and screen-based practitioners to develop collaborative approaches to making moving images. The AFF EXPAND Lab has been initiated by the Adelaide Film Festival and delivered in partnership with the Samstag Museum of Art, Illuminate Adelaide, Art Gallery of South Australia and the Balnaves Foundation, with support from Arts South Australia.

5 STEPS... offers a satirical, critical reflection on the trends of commodified, masculine “wellness” in times of existential crisis. The multi-channel installation draws on experimental performance, surrealism and dark humour to examine the way wellness subcultures can be coopted to sell individualistic visions of liberty and success. A series of compelling character studies of the “alpha” personalities and fitness evangelists that populate the manosphere, the work examines the psychological mechanisms of rejecting failure, vulnerability and introspection, and the pursuit of infinite growth at any cost.

Ryan Presley: Daydreamer

Samstag Gallery 3 (upper level)

In 2024, the University of South Australia commissioned Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley to paint a portrait of its Chancellor, The Honourable John Hill. To accompany the unveiling of this commission, Samstag will display a selection of works by the artist.

Presley’s figurative paintings weave personal and cultural motifs with art historical references. Raised a Catholic, his art practice explores religious iconography, often featuring intricate patterning and human figures set against seductive and lyrical dreamscapes composed of clouds, sand dunes and industrial motifs.

In 2022, Presley was the subject of a major solo exhibition, Fresh Hell, a co-commission by Adelaide Contemporary Experimental and Gertrude Contemporary. Last year, the National Portrait Gallery commissioned the artist to create a work for the gallery.