Join JCG Curator, Lia McKnight for a guided tour of our Perth Festival exhibition, A call and response across the ocean.

This exhibition brings together living histories of the Indian Ocean in imagery, scents and sounds, reuniting friendships and kin ties that were severed through transglobal acts of colonisation. This reconnection offers a vision of the world in which generosity, empathy and cross-cultural collaboration can begin to heal the wounds of the past.

Lia McKnight has been Lead Curator at John Curtin Gallery since 2023. She has delivered numerous major projects, most recently, A call and response across the ocean, 2026 featuring Cape Town artist Thania Petersen for the Perth Festival, Dirt feeling, 2025 a survey of 124 ceramic works from the Curtin University Art Collection and the major solo exhibition by Chris Pease, Terra Nullius, 2026. Lia graduated from Edith Cowan University with a BA Visual Arts in 1997. She began a Master of Arts Administration at COFA, UNSW in 2002, before heading back to WA in 2003 to start a family. She completed a Master of Arts, Cultural Heritage at Curtin University in 2005 and worked as an Independent Curator before joining the John Curtin Gallery team. Lia is also a practicing artist and has been exhibiting in group and solo exhibitions for over 20 years. Her work is held in private and public collections including Murdoch University, Curtin University, City of Perth and City of Joondalup. Privileging lived experience and emotional geographies as areas of intrigue in both her curatorial and art practices, her research seeks to speculate on the shifting parameters of identity and context.

Light refreshments provided.

The Gallery’s public opening hours during exhibitions are Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 12pm to 4pm. Closed Saturdays and Public Holidays.

For more information, please visit our website: https://www.curtin.edu.au/jcg/

Banner images:

Thania Petersen, JAWAP (still), 2025, single channel video with five channel sound. Edition of 10. Courtesy of the artist and Ames Yavuz.

Photography

This event will be photographed and/or videoed and images will occasionally be used for promotional and marketing purposes, including social media. If you do not wish to be photographed or videoed, please notify staff at event registration.

Accessibility

Everyone is welcome at the John Curtin Gallery. Plan your visit to the John Curtin Gallery.

Contact the host of Perth Festival Exhibition Curator Tour

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