Call of the clans: In Conversation with Yinimala Gumana

Name: Call of the clans: In Conversation with Yinimala Gumana
Start: 2026-09-16T17:30:00+1000
End: 2026-09-16T19:00:00+1000
Location: Potter Museum of Art

Wed, 16 Sep, 5:30pm - 7pm AEST

Potter Museum of Art

Parkville VIC, Australia

Potter Museum of Art

870 followers · Contact host

Description

Join Yolŋu leader and artist Yinimala Gumana in conversation with Ashley Perry and Kade McDonald.
Yinimala will share Yolŋu perspectives on the University’s Donald Thomson Collection (DTC), including the cultural knowledge and authority it holds, and ongoing questions around access, care, and collaboration in the ethical management of cultural collections.

In June this year, Yinimala curated an on-Country installation of photographs from the DTC as part of the inaugural Dhaḏalal' Festival in Northeast Arnhem Land. The exhibition was the first time these photographs were exhibited in the Homelands and represents the largest-scale Yolŋu engagement with the DTC to date, with approximately 400 Yolŋu community members attending the installation.

Dhaḏalal' Festival was a calling to the north, south, east and west to bring clans together in ceremony. On Wednesday, Yinimala extends this invitation to the people in the room to experience the power and strength of Yolŋu culture and the importance of being on ancestral lands to steward the song and ceremony of the ancestors into future generations. Dhaḏalal' was a bush university that, on this occasion, extends for this evening event, so we too can understand the importance and strength of what the Homelands are about.

The Potter Museum of Art's current exhibition Ngarn Wa’ngal: Art of the gum tree will be open for extended hours until the talk commences at 5.30pm.

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Image credit: Yinimala Gumana, performing at the launch of Tarnanthi 2019, Adelaide, South Australia, Courtesy the artist and Art Gallery of South Australia; Photo: John Montesi.

About the speaker

Yinimala Gumana

Yinimala Gumana is a Yolŋu leader, acclaimed artist, and Senior Ranger of the Dhaḻwaŋu clan. The son of Dhäkuwal Gumana, Yinimala was raised by his father’s brother, Gawirriṉ Gumana, following Dhäkuwal’s death. Yinimala assisted his adoptive father with many of his works before emerging as an artist in his own right in 2004. Since then, Yinimala has exhibited extensively, including at Yolŋu Power: The Art of Yirrkala at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2025) the 17th (2010) and 25th Biennales of Sydney (2026), and his work is represented in major collections of Indigenous art in Australia and the United States. In 2011, he was elected chair of Buku-Larrnggay Mulka in Yirrkala.
- Yinimala Gumana's instagram
- Yinimala Gumana's instagram

Content warnings

Please note that there will be images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are deceased.

Event info and access

Bookings are required, with capacity limits applying to the event.
This event will take place in the Primrose Potter Studio on Level 1 of the Potter Museum of Art.
This event is fully seated with infrared hearing assistance available in this space.
Auslan interpretation can be booked on request. Please contact mc-publicprograms@unimelb.edu.au.
Please visit our accessibility page for additional information about the Potter Museum of Art.
For further access requests or queries regarding this event contact mc-publicprograms@unimelb.edu.au.

Supporters

This event is supported by the Macgeorge Bequest and FireStarter 2026, Arts Indigenous.

Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity

Host information

Potter Museum of Art

870 followers

Contact host

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Since its founding in 1972, the Potter Museum of Art has been located across a number of sites on the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus. The current Swanston Street building was designed by Katsalidis Architects and first opened to the public in 1998. After a period of closure between 2018–2024, the Potter reopens in 2025 with an extension designed by Wood Marsh Architects featuring state of the art teaching and learning studios and upgraded social, events and associated amenities—all of which are accessible through a new, distinctive arched entry on campus.

The Potter has supported generations of artists, curators, writers and academics for over fifty years, making a significant contribution to the cultural and social life of the University and its wider community. Looking forward, the Potter’s exhibitions and public programs, fellowships and residencies, research and publishing activities will be thematically focused and interdisciplinary in approach, continuing to centre the voices of artists and art on the key issues and debates of our time.

The Potter is one of the homes of the University of Melbourne Art Collection, with work spanning antiquity to contemporary practice. While the principal focus of the Collection is Australian art, a range of international works include gifts from distinguished alumni and teaching collections that demonstrate the strong connections between the University’s cultural collections and its academic programs. Notable for its breadth, the Collection – now numbering some 18,000 works – is uniquely connected to the University’s history while also responding to our evolving cultural landscape.

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