SAM Talks: Troy Firebrace

Join Yorta Yorta artist Troy Firebrace and SAM Curator Belinda Briggs as they discuss the dual contexts of Troy’s Drawing Wall installation, Induction.

Troy uses layers of meaning within his work, encouraging his audience to look again. At a first glance, we might recognise the familiar imagery of a dry riverbed in the summer sun—upon closer inspection, however, we discover some of the complexities of living in the modern world. 

Discover more about Troy’s practice, Induction, and how Troy uses art as a tool to educate students and audiences about Aboriginal culture in this episode of SAM Talks.

Troy Firebrace is a professional artist and an Indigenous lecturer. Through his business, Firebrace Creative, he offers two distinct but interconnected services: fine art and Indigenous education. His work is a powerful, authentic expression of Indigenous identity, a direct result of his research in discovering diverse artistic expression of his own culture.

Troy’s work has been recognised at the highest levels, but his greatest achievement lies in providing Indigenous education to teachers and youth across Victoria. As a lecturer, he is driven by a desire to rectify the lack of Indigenous representation experienced in his own schooling, aiming to help university students who wish to be teachers to gain respect, understanding and skills to embed Indigenous education authentically in their classrooms. As an Artist, he continues the same ambition but for the wider community, using his art as a platform to educate and empower young Aboriginal people to be proud in their identity and find success by following their own passions.

SAM operates on the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta people. The SAM Building, and art museum within it, is located on river country close to the Goulburn River, known as Kaiela to the Yorta Yorta.

SAM recognises the Yorta Yorta as the traditional owners and ongoing custodians of the lands and water of the Country upon which SAM is built, and that sovereignty of this land has never been ceded.