Presented in Partnership with Public Transport Victoria, Yarra Trams and Creative Victoria

First Peoples Melbourne Art Trams 2022

Curated by Jarra Karalinar Steel

From Tue 31 May

TRAMS RUN ON THE TRACKS FOR 12 MONTHS

TICKETS

Tickets not required
Expressions of identity on the move. Six First Peoples-designed trams roll out across the city.
First Peoples Melbourne Art Trams 2022

BLAK LOVE rolls down the tracks; freewheeling character illustrations zip through the city; and a celebration of resourceful women carries you home.

The Melbourne Art Trams return for 2022, with six trams once again featuring designs by First Peoples artists. Curated by artist Jarra Karalinar Steel (Boonwurrung/Wemba Wemba), the collected works each respond to the theme “Unapologetically Blak”.

And more than three decades later a design by acclaimed artist, painter and sculptor Lin Onus (Yorta Yorta) hits the tracks for the first time since 1991—a harmonious symbol of balanced opposites: circles and diamonds, day and night, black and white cockatoos.

Watch the fleet of travelling canvasses wind their way across Country and urban passageways, in a rolling exhibition of Unapologetically Blak First Peoples’ identity and culture.

2022 ARTISTS :

  • Lin Onus (Yorta Yorta)
  • Louise Moore (Wamba)
  • Patricia Mckean (Gundijtmara/Kirrae Wurrong)
  • Dr Paola Balla (Wemba-Wemba/Gundijtmara)
  • Tegan Murdock (Burapa)
  • Darcy McConnell / Enoki (Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Wurrung)

“Melbourne Art Trams 2022 is a celebration of our success, growth and continued desire to be stronger as a peoples; recognising our mob disrupting, and redefining, what being Blak means to them.”

— Jarra Karalinar Steel, Melbourne Art Trams 2022 Curator

Session Details

From Tue 31 May

TRAMS RUN ON THE TRACKS FOR 12 MONTHS

Free to view around the city
  • Melbourne Art Trams run for 12 months

Credits

IMAGES:

TRAM NO.829 BY LIN ONUS, 1991. PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE VICTORIA

GALLERY: 2021 FIRST PEOPLES ART TRAMS BY DEANNE GILSON, JARRA KARALINAR STEEL, THOMAS MARKS, RAY THOMAS, AUNTY ROCHELLE PATTEN AND AUNTY ZETA THOMSON. RISING 2021. PHOTOS: JAMES MORGAN

RISING acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live, learn and work. We pay our respects to the Kulin Nation and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders.