Image: Bundanon, New York
Bundanon’s opening weekend on 31 October and 1 November celebrates two exhibitions, ‘Ngangkaṟi Ngura — Healing Country’ by Betty Muffler and ‘Bait-al-Nahl — The House of Bees’ by Mehwish Iqbal. Both exhibitions run from 31 October 2026 to 14 February 2027. The opening weekend includes artist talks with Muffler and Iqbal, live music, and free entry to the Art Museum. Bundanon Art Museum is located at 170 Riversdale Road, Illaroo, NSW 2540.
‘Ngangkaṟi Ngura — Healing Country’ is the first major institutional solo exhibition by senior Aṉangu artist and ngangkaṟi, or traditional healer, Betty Muffler. The exhibition brings together new paintings created especially for Bundanon alongside major loans, tracing Muffler’s practice since 2020 with a focus on the powerful monochromatic works for which she has become widely recognised, made with acrylic paint and oil stick on linen. Her paintings reveal wavy lines of water connecting to radiating, circular waterholes and emu tracks, conveying both the detail and immensity of her Country.
‘Bait-al-Nahl — The House of Bees’ positions the hive as its central motif, presenting it as a structure of shared habitation, production and nurture that recalls human communities ebbing and flowing around the globe through migration and displacement. At the centre of the exhibition are five new handwoven silk works developed with artisan communities in India, Thailand and Pakistan. Bundanon describes Iqbal’s presentation as an ambitious, multidisciplinary exhibition showcasing newly commissioned textile works.
