Julie Gough is an artist, writer and curator. Living in Hobart, Julie is a curator, First People’s Art and Culture, at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Her Briggs-Johnson extended family have lived in the Latrobe region of Tasmania since the 1840s, with Tebrikunna in north east Lutruwita (Tasmania) their traditional Trawlwoolway Country. Julie’s research and art practice involves uncovering and re-presenting subsumed and conflicting histories, often drawing on her family’s experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Since 1994 Julie has exhibited in 30 solo exhibitions and more than 130 group exhibitions that include: TENSE PAST, solo survey exhibition, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 2019; Eucalyptusdom, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2021; Divided Worlds, Adelaide Biennial of Australia Art, 2018; Defying Empire, National Gallery of Australia, 2017 and touring; The National, MCA, 2017; With Secrecy and Despatch, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2016; UNDISCLOSED, National Gallery of Australia, 2012; Clemenger Award, National Gallery of Victoria, 2010; Biennale of Sydney, 2006; Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2001; and Perspecta, AGNSW, 1995. Julie holds PhD and Honours degrees from the University of Tasmania (Visual Arts, 2001, 1995), a Masters degree (Visual Arts) from the University of London, Goldsmiths College (1998), and Bachelor degrees in Visual Arts (Curtin University, 1994), and Prehistory and English literature (University of West Australia, 1987). Gough’s artwork is held in most Australian state and national collections. In 2018 a monograph on her art, Fugitive History, was published by UWA Press and a short fictionella, Shale, was produced by A Published Event. In 2019 the survey exhibition Julie Gough: Tense Past was held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. In 2021 the publication Tense Past is in production.
What does Hatched mean to you?’
It was a huge honour to be selected for Hatched – before it was even named Hatched. I completed a BA (sculpture) degree at Curtin University in 1993, and relocated to the School of Art, Hobart, UTAS, Tasmania to continue my art studies (Honours) in 1994. The journey to Tasmania was my homecoming – finally. My time at Curtin somehow encouraged, propelled and consolidated into a realistic proposition this cross Country trek to the land of thousands of generations of maternal ancestors; to the place I grew up close to, yet absent from. Given this relocation – 4133km from Curtin University to the University of Tasmania it was a fantastic surprise and serious confidence boost to be selected to participate. The installation work I created in situ in PICA, Always more Questions than Answers, still epitomises my process of collecting and collating experiences, objects, fragments, and histories into alternative navigable interfaces, to refocus on the overlooked or elusive. PICA is the MOMA of Perth – epic, aspirational, the high level experimental layer of the arts fabric of West Australia. To be at PICA for Hatched 1994 was a career moment, a gift, a pause in which to take stock and realise “artist” was a feasible life path.
