Bundanon

Lives / works: Between Sydney, Gadigal lands and Western Sydney, Dharug lands

Gillian Kayrooz is an emerging artist from Western Sydney, who’s practice reflects her personal experience and ongoing engagement with local communities. Kayrooz’s work is collaborative; she invites members of the community to contribute authentic impressions, in a bottom-up rather than top-down conception of history and place. Kayrooz holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts with First Class Honours from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. In 2018 she was awarded the Create NSW Young Creative Leaders Fellowship which led her to exhibit internationally in the Asia-Pacific region. Most recently she has completed residencies in Australia, China and Japan. In 2020 she presented her solo exhibition Argileh at Wedding Cake Rock at Firstdraft, and was an artist at the Parramatta Artists’ Studios. In 2021, Kayrooz became a co-director on the board of Firstdraft and in 2022 she will present a solo exhibition at the Murray Art Museum in Albury.

In residence at Bundanon

At Bundanon I will be working towards my upcoming solo exhibition at the Murray Art Museum in Albury opening in November, 2022. I am also in the development stages of a live experimental work that will use local research and verbatim theatre techniques to capture and document the liminal space of public transport (in particular the T2 CityRail line) as an intermediary social chamber. The work will encapsulate the commonalities of this hour-long train journey from Western Sydney to the CBD as both a local rite of passage and as a sign of resilience for many of the nearby suburban communities.