Alana Hunt is the fourth recipient of Copyright Agency Partnerships Commission in collaboration with PICA
August 15, 2024
The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) and Copyright Agency are pleased to announce that Alana Hunt is the fourth recipient of the Copyright Agency Partnerships (CAP) Commission.
The $80,000 commission is an annual series presented by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund in partnership with leading Australian arts institutions. The commission supports mid-career and established Australian artists to create and exhibit career-defining new work.
Hunt’s commission, A Deceptively Simple Need, will reflect the artist’s research into state-sponsored films produced in Western Australia during the 1960s and 1970s, now held in the collection of the State Library of Western Australia.
Alana Hunt is an artist and writer. Previously based on Miriwoong Country in the town of Kununurra, Hunt is currently living on Gadigal Country, Sydney. Working over time across image, word, event and relationship, her work sensitively challenges dominant ideas and histories in the public sphere and the social space between people.
Hunt said, “My work is driven by lived experiences and honed through a forensic approach to research. My proposition for the PICA x CAP commission takes root in the final words of my film Surveilling A Crime Scene (2023). A Deceptively Simple Need will examine our settler colony – how the basic need for home is weaponised and profited from, then guarded by the irreproachability and apparent innocence of daily life
“It is absolutely surreal to receive the CAP x PICA commission – to know there is a degree of financial security in the year ahead which will afford me the time to get deep into making work in ways that resonate with, push against and scratch at some of the most pressing yet often unseen facets of life in Australia today. I am full of immense gratitude.”
The centrepiece of the exhibition, which will be displayed in PICA’s Central Galleries, is a new multi-screen sound and video installation. A new publication will be developed as part of the exhibition, continuing Hunt’s interest in forms of circulation. The exhibition will be presented during the Kambarang-Birak Season at PICA and will open on 17 October 2025 and continue until 21 December 2025.
Copyright Agency CEO Josephine Johnston said, “We’re thrilled for Alana. The CAP commission comes at such a pivotal and exciting time in her career, and we hope that it provides her with the creative headspace and gallery support to create something truly special. We excitedly await the exhibition opening at PICA in 2025.”
Hunt’s recent exhibitions include like blood thirsty mosquitoes with Jack Green at Watch This Space, Mparntwe/Alice Springs, 2024; Surveilling a Crime Scene at Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin, 2023; and group exhibitions Rural Utopias at Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2023-4; Photo Kathmandu, Nepal, 2023; Kaghazi Pairahan: Publishing & Resistance in South Asia at Printed Matter, New York, 2023; and Double Dummy, Arles, 2023. Her writing has been published by Hyperallergic, Artlink, Westerly, Meanjin, Overland and un Magazine and in exhibition catalogues with the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Tandanya and The Power Institute, among others. In 2020 Cups of nun chai, the decade long iterative memorial that emerged from the Summer of 2010 in Kashmir, was published by Yaarbal Books, New Delhi.
About Copyright Agency
The Copyright Agency is an Australian not-for-profit organisation that represents 40,000 members across the publishing, media, visual arts, and education sectors. Our mission is to provide simple ways for people to reproduce, store and share words, images, and other creative content, in return for fair payment to creators.
About the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund
The Cultural Fund is the philanthropic arm of the Copyright Agency, providing support to individuals and organisations to run projects that will enrich Australia’s publishing and visual arts industries.
About Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA)
Established in 1989, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts is a not-for-profit arts organisation making space for current and future generations of contemporary artists and audiences. PICA runs a year-round program of exhibitions, performances and events and is known for the leading role it plays in supporting artists to present challenging ideas and boundary-defining new work.