The sixteenth iteration of the annual Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (CIAF) was held from 11-13 July, 2025 in Gimuy (Cairns), Tropical North Queensland. It was staged once again — and not since its inaugural 2009-2010 years — at the Tanks Art Centre. Nestled in the mountainous rainforest suburb of Edge Hill, at the emerald forested feet of Mount Whitfield, CIAF came to life in what is being lauded by the local community, regional arts communities and the national fine art sector as a great “homecoming” — indeed, a triumph! The new artistic direction of Injinoo artist and curator, Teho Ropeyarn, shored up a dynamic program of sharing and showcasing artistic practices of cultural knowledge. The cornerstone activations were the fine-art Fair and sister activation, the Artisans Showcase (an affordable art market) and the always anticipated Fashion Performances, this year collectively titled ‘Look & Listen’.
Statistics (e.g. attendance and sales figures) for this year’s iteration are still being compiled and collated but early anecdotal indications from exhibitors I spoke with said these markers are heightened significantly from 2023 and 2024. In any case, the final figures will need to consider the cinching of CIAF’s physical footprint this year which focussed on activating the Tanks Art Centre site, rather than a city-wide footprint of satellite events which formerly featured signature exhibitions, music, comedy, and theatre productions. 2025 saw a dedicated effort to bring CIAF back to its core and back to its origins as a ‘survey’ of the local and out-of-region art markets which directly engage with the Art Fair. In reviewing this year’s overall performance, Ropeyarn emphasised important factors and arguably more meaningful ‘key performance indicators’, such as the immersive ‘spirit’ and captivation of CIAF as Queensland’s hallmark Indigenous arts showcase event. It was important to Ropeyarn that people rekindle their love for CIAF as an experiential, spiritual and sensory envelopment of First Nations cultures and communities.
I wouldn’t be speaking out of school in saying that 2025 was a crucial year for CIAF to recommit itself in programming, operations and engagements with the Queensland Indigenous art movement and the people who create it.
Ropeyarn is CIAF’s fifth Artistic Director and has been a part of CIAF since it’s early days. Under the Fair’s third Artistic Director, Janina Harding (2015-2022), Ropeyarn worked partly as the Curatorial Associate. His vision is one of celebrating Blak excellence and joy in the arts and platforming emerging artists, designers, dancers, and musicians. CIAF 2025 featured the heralded likes of Archie Moore, Dr. Terri Janke and Sebastian Goldspink headlining the Talks Program (curated by myself), a wellspring of Queensland-based Indigenous Art Centres and not-for-profit galleries (i.e. NorthSite Contemporary Arts and Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts), return gallerists such as Vivienne Anderson, N.Smith Gallery, Onespace Gallery, and Mitchell Fine Art in addition to many independent First Nations artists. The programme brimmed with celebrity appearances by Sean Choolburra and Tania Major as Masters of Ceremony for Opening Night, cultural dances by the Gimuy Walubarra Yidinji Dancers (led by Jiritju Fourmile) and the Deaf Indigenous Dance Group, alongside artistic masterclasses and demonstrations by senior Badu Island artist Alick Tipoti, Girringun weaver Nephi Denham, designer Samala Cronin of MumRed label, and many others. And also, a musical spot by [one of my favourite singer-songwriters] Jessie Chong-Grainer — a former CIAF Evolution Trainee graduate.
Distributing one of the largest prize-buckets of any national Indigenous art fair were judges Rebecca Ray of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, curator-at-large Sebastian Goldspink (of ALASKA Projects), and myself. Together, we selected recipients for the:
$10,000 Art Centre Award (sponsored by Cairns Regional Council) winner: Hope Vale Arts & Culture Centre
$10,000 Innovation Award (sponsored by Terri Janke & Company) winner: Alick Tipoti, Mawaw Danaka (2025)
$5,000 3D Design, Sculpture & Installation Award (sponsored by Ports North) winner: Kyra Mancktelowfor her full body of work as exhibited by N.Smith Gallery
$5,000 Emerging Art Award (Acquisitive) (sponsored by Energy Queensland) winner: Roy Gray (Bunda Art) in collaboration with Jo Ann Beikoff ‘Milba’ for their Syricarpia Gloulifera (Turpentine/Gulumbi) (2025) “totem pole”, shown through NorthSite Contemporary Arts
There was something powerful about the work which took the top gong – that is, the $25,000 Premier’s Award for Excellence (sponsored by the Queensland Government). Bernard Singleton Junior’s striking, single-block, wood carving statue of a ‘hairyman’ (also known to others more commonly as a Yowie or Bigfoot) titled Offering (2025) brought more than mastery to CIAF. The piece was a sentinel of the Fair just as the subject(s) are watchers and stewards of Country. His furrowed brow staring down at audiences reminded us of the responsibilities we all share which is to tread gently, to keep promises and oaths, and to honour Country and its Lore and Spirits.
Pay Attention! was the theme Ropeyarn chose for CIAF 2025. It was a timely call-to-action in a political landscape which turned its back on Treaty and Truth-Telling pathways in Queensland. The theme charged audiences to participate in CIAF in a way which made them an integral part of the event. It was clear that it was not just the ‘pretty pictures’ on walls that audiences were there to absorb, but the theme itself. Artists felt liberated, seen and empowered through their artistic and cultural messaging. Ropeyarn’s theme for CIAF 2025 reassured artists that what they have to say is important and worthy of attention. After all, the theme was inspired by Tony Albert and lifted from his work Pay Attention (2009-2010). This piece by Albert is in turn inspired by American artist, Bruce Nauman’s lithograph Pay attention (1973) which originally featured the reversed text ‘PAY ATTENTION MOTHER FUCKERS’. What we’re seeing here, is a universal message from art-makers globally of the importance of social and political commentary through visual arts practice.
Applied to the meanings imbued by Tony Albert and Teho Ropeyarn respectively, ‘paying attention’ is also an important function of the education offered through the worldviews, experiences and cultural might of First Nations peoples of Queensland and Australia.
Every congratulation and thanks should be heaped upon the CIAF team and all participating creatives. I remain inspired and heartened by the work of CIAF and Teho Ropeyarn (Artistic Director) as both an event and an Indigenous-led organisation. We are all paying attention and I cannot wait to see what they will reveal for the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair in 2026.
With over a decade of experience as an awarded multi-disciplinary artist, writer and arts worker, Jack Wilkie-Jans brings a wealth of arts, events and project management knowledge to his private consultancy practice: JWJ Consultancy (launched in 2023). Boasting a varied and stellar work history in political advisory services, economic development (including tourism) advocacy and land management across Cape York Peninsula—as well as research, critique, policy development, and copywriting—Jack Wilkie-Jans specialises in all facets of the contemporary Indigenous art sector and Aboriginal affairs. Jack is a qualified Politologist, with a Bachelor of Arts from James Cook University, majoring in Political Science & Internal Affairs; he is also an Alumni of the National Gallery of Australia's Dhiraamalang: Wesfarmers First Nations Arts Leadership Program and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Jack is a Waanyi, Teppathiggi and Tjungundji man from the Gulf of Carpentaria and Mapoon of Cape York Peninsula, with English, Vanuatuan and Danish heritage.
