Rosanna Raymond
Rosanna Raymond
Sistar S'pacific (aka Rosanna Raymond) is a leading artist, performer, and cultural activist whose work has been instrumental in shaping contemporary Moana Nui arts across Aotearoa, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. Working across performance, installation, writing, curatorial practice, pedagogy, and body adornment, her practice spans more than three decades and is grounded in Moana Nui philosophies of relationality, embodiment, and continuity.
Central to Raymond's practice are her acti.VĀ.tions, embodied performances that critique and reframe institutional and museological systems. Her work operates simultaneously as institutional critique and cultural affirmation, opening spaces for dialogue around cultural memory, ecological belonging, and Indigenous sovereignty.
Raymond is the founding Creative Director of the internationally recognised collectives SaVĀge K’lub and Pacific Sisters. In recognition of her contribution to the arts, she received the Creative New Zealand Pacific Senior Artist Award in 2018 and was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to Pacific arts.
Project Summary
Mothers Refusal | APY Gallery | Sydney, Australia
In October 2026, Rosanna Raymond will participate in Mothers Refusal, an Indigenous-led exhibition and cultural exchange programme presented at APY Gallery in Redfern, Sydney. Developed through a curatorial partnership between Dissident Kin and the APY Art Centre Collective, the project will bring together Raymond and acclaimed Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens in a dialogue centred on connection, exchange, and shared creative practice.
As the first project of its kind to expand the partnership’s programme to include a Moana Nui cultural exchange component, the exhibition will create space for contemporary Indigenous-to-Indigenous dialogue across the Pacific. Raymond will present a significant body of work spanning more than fifteen years of practice, including rarely exhibited photographic series and body adornments that explore Indigenous presence, femininity, resistance, and body sovereignty.
Accompanied by artist talks, workshops, panel discussions, and public programmes, Mothers Refusal will strengthen relationships between Moana Nui and First Nations communities while contributing to ongoing conversations around Indigenous sovereignty, cultural continuity, and self-determined artistic practice.