Fringe Dwellings

Fringe Dwellings interrogates Canberra’s rapid suburban development and considers the aesthetics of progress, and the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous Australia. Dean Cross depicts some of Canberra’s newest “fringe dwellers” with an inquisitive eye. The exhibition explores the aspirational dreams of some of Canberra’s newest fringe dwellers, focusing on the suburb of Bonner, founded in 2010. The artist positions Bonner as a powerful symbol of the Australian Dream, and the exclusion of Aboriginal people from that narrative. His work is often politically and historically engaged, looking to re-contextualise Australia’s colonial past through examining his Indigenous ancestry, and deconstructing myths of Australian identity.