Create Exchange: Wearing Country
CREATE EXCHANGE: Wearing Country is the first major survey of Quandamooka artist and designer Delvene Cockatoo-Collins. Across two venues, the exhibition explores her multi-disciplinary practice through garments, woven works, prints, and rarely seen preparatory materials. At Redland Art Gallery, audiences can experience a selection of striking handmade garments and accessories, presented alongside preparatory work, film footage and stories that trace Cockatoo-Collins’s deep connection to Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). These pieces, shown on the runway at events such as Country to Couture and the Melbourne Fashion Festival, translate family histories and cultural memory into wearable expressions of Country.The second component of the exhibition, held at Redlands Performing Arts Centre (RPAC), focuses on her design commissions, including high-profile projects for the Brisbane Broncos, Brisbane Airport and theatre productions Capricorn and Dear Son. Each commission is grounded in community engagement and storytelling, revealing how design can become a powerful vehicle for connection and cultural visibility. Wearing Country invites audiences into the heart of Cockatoo-Collins’s creative world, where identity, respect for Country, tradition and sustainability are lovingly interwoven. The exhibition runs from September 7 to November 18, 2025 at Redland Art Gallery, and closes on November 9 at RPAC.
Image credit: DELVENE COCKATOO-COLLINS, Mermaid in the Bay (from Future History collection), Presented by Mob in Fashion at Melbourne Fringe Festival, March 2022. Models: Preston Cockatoo-Collins and Xanthe Evans Photo: Josh Howlett.
