Acknowledgement of Country

Dharug

Bayadyinyang budyari Dharug yiyura Dharug Ngurra.
Bayady’u budyari Dharug Warunggadgu baranyiin barribugu.
Bayady’u budyari wagulgu yiyuragu Ngurra bimalgu Blacktown City. Flannel flowers dyurali bulbuwul.
Yanmannyang mudayi Dharug Ngurrawa. Walama ngyini budbud dali Dharug Ngurra Dharug yiyura baranyiin barribugu.

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English

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this Land, the Dharug people, and their continued connection to Country.
We pay our respects to Elders from yesterday to tomorrow.
We extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of Blacktown City where the flannel flowers still grow proud and strong.
We will walk softly on this land and open our hearts to Country as the Dharug people have for tens of thousands of years.

Credit to: Dharug woman Rhiannon Wright, daughter of Leanne ‘Mulgo’ Watson Redpath and granddaughter of Aunty Edna Watson

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Ghosts in the Kitchen, an immersive exhibition that explores the complex relationships between food, culture and identity from the perspective of First Nations peoples within Australia.

Curated by Rebecca Ray, this is a space where food is not merely sustenance but a medium for memory, identity and resistance – a ritual act rooted in kinship, land and spirit. Through the lens of the gothic, this exhibition foregrounds the cultural trauma of colonial food systems while illuminating the powerful resurgence of Indigenous food sovereignty today. The gothic here is not merely death – it is what lingers with Ghosts in the Kitchen not as space of mourning but a place of reawakening.

 

Ghosts in the Kitchen Opening and Performance

Friday 17 October
6 pm to 9 pm 
The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre

Join us in celebration of the opening of Ghosts in the Kitchen with an evening of First Nations performance, dance, poetry and music.

Ghosts in the Kitchen is a group exhibition that explores the complex relationships between food, culture, and identity from the perspective of Indigenous Australian and Oceanic First Nations peoples.

Curated by Rebecca Ray.

Full line up announced soon!

Bios

Rebecca Ray is an experienced Meriam curator and writer, living and working on Gadigal land, where she is the Curator, First Nations Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia. Her practice is concerned with the re-Indigenisation, rematriation and the reclamation of autonomous and sovereign spaces, with an interest in global First Nations relationality and solidarity that inform curatorial and research methodologies. Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Arts (History and Sociology) from Griffith University, Queensland with a research background in decolonisation, identity politics and intersectionality.

She is an alumnus of the National Gallery of Australia’s prestigious Wesfarmers Indigenous Arts Leadership program and held Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identified curatorial and academic positions at the National Portrait Gallery, Australia, Home of the Arts (HOTA) and Griffith University, Queensland.

You can find Rebecca on Instagram here

This project is presented by Blacktown Arts and supported by Blacktown City Council.

Image Credits:

Ghosts in the Kitchen, 2025, design by Kim Gregory
Rebecca Ray, courtesy of MCA

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