TarraWarra Biennial 2025 : We Are Eagles

Twenty-three artists share regenerative knowledge and transcultural connections to land, object and memory.

Out in the Yarra Valley, in the rolling hills of Wurundjeri country, TarraWarra Museum of Art is hosting its highly anticipated Tarrawarra Biennial 2025. This year it’s curated by Yorta Yorta woman and RISING Curator Kimberley Moulton and is titled We Are Eagles. The title is inspired by the First Peoples political event in 1938 called The Day Of Mourning and a speech Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls gave where he called for equal rights and an end to colonial oppression, stating, “we do not want chickenfeed … we are not chickens; we are eagles.” His sentiments are echoed through the exhibition with works by 23 artists, each centring on regenerative practice and relational transcultural connections to land, object and memory.

We Are Eagles is your chance to experience the companion piece to Matha by Yorta Yorta/Wurundjeri/ Wiradjuri artist Moorina Bonini. The work featured in We Are Eagles is a conceptual installation by the artist with audio that speaks to regeneration of cultural knowledge and language. The film commissioned by RISING projected on the Hamer Hall façade also features this audio and presents visions of river country, scar trees and waterways and communicates the role of ceremony and cultural revival in her family and making Matha, Canoe. Bonini connects her Ancestral connections to both the Dhungala (Murray) and the Birrarung Rivers in this work which is a poetic manifestation of her love for culture and reviving cultural knowledge. 

Another work featured in We Are Eagles is mulunma—Inside Within, a film piece by Wiradjuri choreographer Daniel Riley with collaborators Cass Mortimer Eipper and James Howard which was commissioned for the MOVING OBJECTS project in 2021 by RISING and Kimberley Moulton. The film takes you on a journey deep in the Melbourne Museum collections and explores the relationship between the Western Archive and a First Nations Archive, each built on differing ideologies.

Get on those scenic roads, and get immersed in ways of connecting to history, Ancestral knowledge, and expansive futures. Through waterways, sky country and the stars—to the totemic eagle and more-than-human kin.