Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander First Nations readers are advised that this announcement may contain the names of deceased people. The family has granted permission.

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics presents proppaNOW: There Goes the Neighbourhood! featuring the work of Aboriginal urban artist collective proppaNOW, recipient of the 2022–2024 Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, at the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, Parsons School of Design, The New School. Join us for the exhibition opening and walkthrough with proppaNOW’s Lily Eather and Camila Palomino, VLC Curatorial Assistant on October 13, from 5–6:15 pm EDT. 

proppaNOW originated in Brisbane, Australia and has been active since 2003. For the past two decades, the collective has organized support and visibility for Aboriginal artists, while also expanding and correcting ideas of what Aboriginal art can and should be. This exhibition marks the first institutional presentation of the collective in the Western hemisphere. The exhibition title announces their arrival to the United States, invoking the group’s ironic and incisive sense of humor as well as their approach to political action through art, while also referencing one of the collective’s earliest exhibitions.

There Goes the Neighbourhood! presents the work of proppaNOW members Tony Albert, Vernon Ah Kee, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey, and the late Laurie Nilsen and their unwavering commitment to pushing for greater visibility for Aboriginal struggles and rights, within Australia and beyond. Anchoring the exhibition is Gordon Hookey’s personal collection of political posters, which document issues that have concerned Black Australians from the 1960s into the present. Covering topics from First Nations land rights, health, and environmental degradation, these posters were instrumental in disseminating resources and information about central issues that proppaNOW has fervently advocated for in their individual and collective practices. In dialogue with these posters, the main gallery features artworks by proppaNOW that encapsulate their efforts in supporting each other as individual artists while working together to push social and political activism for Aboriginal sovereignty.

Showcasing the collective’s range of artistic and activist approaches in pursuit of Aboriginal creative expression and political agendas, select videos by proppaNOW members are screened at Kellen Auditorium on October 13th at 4:30 and 5:30 pm; October 19th at 6:30 pm and October 26th at 6:30 pm. In the accompanying exhibition guide, proppaNOW member Warraba Weatherall revisits the collective’s 2003 founding statement “We Have a Dream,” contextualizing the group’s ongoing struggles and achievements in social justice within Australia and for First Nations communities and artists.

proppaNOW is one of Australia’s leading Aboriginal artist collectives challenging the politics of Aboriginal art and culture. The collective is focused on generating contemporary art that is thought provoking, subversive, and re-thinking what it means to be a “contemporary artist”. proppaNOW takes working-class frameworks, which surrounded most of the artists growing up, of impoverished and oppressed peoples, and drives it into the art world. This has spurred the composition of contemporary liberation art, talking about the daily struggles of coming against the forces of modernism and capitalism. The focus and support for each other has also allowed the collective to foster the projection of the individual member’s careers. proppaNOW received the Jane Lombard Prize for their exhibition OCCURENT AFFAIR, an exhibition celebrating the work of the collective originally installed at the University of Queensland Art Museum, and is traveling throughout Australia into 2025. Following the announcement of the prize at the 2022 VLC Forum, the collective invited three new members: Shannon Brett, Lily Eather, and Warraba Weatherall, who join Vernon Ah Kee, Tony Albert, Richard Bell, Megan Cope, Jennifer Herd, Gordon Hookey, and the late Laurie Nilsen.