Blue Art Journal, launching during the week of the Fair, is a new art journal dedicated to critical writing on local and global First Peoples’ art. It is reshaping the future of arts writing in Australia and across the Great Ocean region. As so-called Australia’s only publication dedicated to critical and experimental writing on local and global Indigenous art, the journal fills an urgent gap in the cultural landscape—one that has limited how Indigenous art is understood, valued and historicised. For too long, First Nations art has been under-reported, misrepresented or framed through non-Indigenous perspectives. This has constrained dialogue and left broader audiences without the depth of understanding our cultures demand. This publication exists to correct this. This is not simply an art journal. It is a cultural intervention, built by and for First Nations people, to assert sovereignty through storytelling, criticism, and creative expression.

Join Hayley Millar Baker, Gunditjmara and Djabwurrung artist and Chair of Blue Art Journal; Susie Anderson, Wergaia and Wemba Wemba poet, writer and editor and Managing Editor of Blue Art Journal; and Georgia Mokak, Djugun arts professional and board member of Blue Art Journal, as they discuss the journal’s importance and their hopes for the future of Indigenous arts writing.