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.
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
Located in Mount Druitt, Garage Graphix Community Arts Inc. was an outstanding example of community arts practice and leadership in Australia. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ‘The Garage’ produced hundreds of political and socially relevant screen-printed posters with, for, and by the western Sydney community. It led the field in the development of community-based art workshops, community activism, and the telling of western Sydney stories and concerns. As a result, Garage Graphix occupies a unique place within the broader history of political poster making in Australia.
Central to the significance of Garage Graphix is the Aboriginal Arts Program. Led by First Nations workers, this pioneering program was one of the first of its kind in Australia. The Program trained and mentored First Nations arts workers to produce issue-based posters with local First Nations organisations and communities. The artworks produced through this program are key examples of the development of suburban First Nations art.
After the Garage closed its doors in 1998, an archive of objects, records, and over 400 posters, were placed in storage under the passive management of Blacktown City Council. With the assistance of Community Heritage Grants, funded by the Australian Government through the National Library of Australia, a process has commenced to increase public access to this important collection. This evolving microsite contains exhibition documentation, artwork images, scholarly essays and resources related to Garage Graphix.
The Significance Assessment prepared, by Dr Lee-Anne Hall for Blacktown City Council, provides a comprehensive analysis of the importance of Garage Graphix.
In the 1980s Garage Graphix put Mount Druitt on the Australian cultural map. It was an astonishing explosion of energies, ideas and images, admired around the country for the way the ‘Garage’ tackled urgent social and political issues. Forty years later, Garage Graphix posters are still fresh, powerful, and relevant.
'Talking Posters: Garage Graphix 1981–1998', presented a selection of screen-printed artworks, calendars and photographs, alongside original equipment and materials from the renowned ‘Garage’ in Mount Druitt in western Sydney.
In the 1980s Garage Graphix put Mount Druitt on the Australian cultural map. It was an astonishing explosion of energies, ideas and images, admired around the country for the way the ‘Garage’ tackled urgent social and political issues. Forty years later, Garage Graphix posters are still fresh, powerful, and relevant.
The Garage Graphix Community Art Workshop Poster Archive Statement of Significance provides a formal assessment of nearly 400 posters produced at Garage Graphix premises in western Sydney from 1981 to 1998.
‘The Poster Centre’ was an open and mobile screen-printing studio workshop run by artists for diverse community members throughout 2022. It was inspired by the 'Talking Posters: Garage Graphix 1981 to 1998' exhibition.
The Poster Centre in 2019 was a creative studio response to the Garage Graphix archive of screen-printed posters. Printmaker, Wendy Murray, was invited to setup an open print studio at The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre for 6 weeks.
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