At PICA we recognise that we are situated within the unceded lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. We pay our respects and offer our gratitude to Elders past and present. We acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the importance of their care and continued connection to culture, community and Country.

Always was, always will be.

Galleries are open 12–5pm. Our exhibitions are always free.

Alana Hunt

Film Screening: Surveilling a Crime Scene 

Film Screening: Surveilling a Crime Scene 

PICA invites you to join a special screening of Alana Hunt’s 2023 film Surveilling a Crime Scene. 

Shot on Super 8mm film, Surveilling a Crime Scene draws on the artists lived experience experiences on Gija and Miriwoong Countries in the east Kimberely region – through the town of Kununurra and its surrounds, in the remote north-west of Australia. The film aligns and overlays what may otherwise seem like discontinuous domains — a dam, tourism, a historical monument, agriculture, a police station, bureaucratic forms — to produce a silhouette of tools, techniques and procedures of power and oppression. 

Inviting reflection on the uneasy intersections of home, place and occupation, the film concludes: ‘It is a story about the violence that underpins our deceptively simple need for a home on other people’s land.’   

Presented as part of the Kambarang–Birak season at PICA, this free screening extends the themes of the current exhibition A Deceptively Simple Need and prompts timely conversations around belonging, sovereignty and settler presence in so-called Australia. 

The screening will be introduced by artist and writer Maile Bowen, followed by a facilitated Q&A with Alana Hunt joining via Zoom. 

Complimentary drinks generously provided by Cherubino Wines and Rocky Ridge Brewing Co. with catering from Picabar.  

About the artists

Alana Hunt is a non-Indigenous artist and writer, formerly based on Miriwoong Country in Kununurra and now on Gadigal Country, Sydney. Working across image, word, event and relationship, her practice challenges dominant histories and ideas in public and social spaces. Recent exhibitions include like blood thirsty mosquitoes (with Jack Green, 2024) and Surveilling a Crime Scene (2023), and group shows Dreams Nursed in Darkness (2024), Rural Utopias (2023–24), Photo Kathmandu (2023), Kaghazi Pairahan (2023) and Double Dummy (2023). Hunt has published artist books and essays in Hyperallergic, Artlink, Meanjin, Overland and exhibition catalogues. She is the 2024 PICA x CAP Commission recipient, developing her solo exhibition A Deceptively Simple Need.

Maile Bowen is a writer, poet and multidisciplinary artist based in Walyalup on Noongar Country. Her practice spans video, installation and text, and is grounded in an exploration of land, language and belonging. Drawing from her Kanaka Maoli and Welsh ancestry, she examines how colonialism, migration and the erosion of language disconnect us from the natural world. Her work is driven by research, collaboration and a deep attention to place, memory and cultural resilience.