D Harding
Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal people
Born 1982, Moranbah, Australia
Lives and works in Brisbane, Australia

D Harding’s approach to material and process honours and embodies their Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal Country around the Carnarvon Ranges (Kooramindanjie) in Central Queensland. Their ongoing research and connection to Carnarvon Gorge has informed many of their works, which respond to ancient artistic and cultural practices while examining colonial and settlement histories through the lens of family experience.

For the Asia Pacific Triennial, Harding presents Woori red 2024, an installation of woollen felt blankets, saturated with a mixture of gum acacia and earth pigments collected in a shared process with Elders, family and community on Country. The variegated hues, rigid texture and irregular shape of the blankets evoke hides or pelts of animal skin. Hand-felted by Harding in homage to ancestral possum-skin cloaks, the blankets hold a powerful presence, speaking to multiple layers of complicated histories and identities.