Courtesy of the artist and MARS Gallery
Artist Jenna Lee will bring her immersive exploration of language, materiality and inherited narratives to Edith Cowan University (ECU) Gallery from 4 September to 27 November.
Written in Stone & Seed & Star invites audiences to consider the ways language carries history, memory and cultural knowledge, while examining the limitations and legacies of colonial systems. The artist addresses ideas around destruction and rejuvenation – of the environment and of human systems, and responds to the entwined nature of natural ecosystems and cultural replenishment.
Lee is a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri woman with Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Irish and Scottish ancestry. Her practice draws on her family history and lived experiences of immigration and being Aboriginal within colonial systems.
Working across installation, works on paper, sculpture and multimedia, Lee is particularly interested in the spaces between words and the subtle nuances that can be overlooked in language.
Courtesy of the artist and MARS Gallery
Books are central to her practice, with Lee often working with dictionaries and language publications that have historically reduced or flattened First Peoples' languages. Using Larrakia linguistics as a guiding framework, she deconstructs and reconstructs these texts, transforming them into intricate new forms.
Her paper sculptures and installations are created through repetitive, rhythmic processes that echo rituals and hold significance across traditional, familial and cultural contexts. The creative process guides the viewer through the exhibition in a cyclical way, from the practice of cool burning to thriving nature, in turn creating and responding to the natural cycle of ecosystems, cultural renewal and replenishment. These quiet meditations on nature, cycles of life and language regeneration invite the viewer to take part in carrying forward the rituals of survival into their own lives.
The resulting works invite audiences into an immersive experience, encouraging reflection on the histories and structures embedded within materials and the ways knowledge is recorded, preserved and passed on.
"Having an artist of Jenna Lee's calibre and stature present her work at ECU Gallery is a significant opportunity for our university and our wider community," said Manager Art, Culture and Collections, Clothilde Bullen.
"Jenna's practice is both deeply personal and intellectually rigorous, inviting audiences to think differently about language, history and the ways knowledge is shaped and preserved. We are proud to provide a space for this important work – her first solo exhibition in WA - and to give our audiences the opportunity to experience Jenna's distinctive practice here at ECU."
Installation view 'Of Smoke and Rain' Northern Center for Contemporary At, Larrakia Country Darwin NT. Image: Jack Bullen
Lee has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Setouchi Triennale 2025 on Teshima Island in Japan, Monash University Museum of Art, National Art School Gallery, TarraWarra Biennial and the National Gallery of Victoria.
Written in Stone & Seed & Star follows Lee's 2025 solo exhibition Of Smoke and Rain at Northern Centre for Contemporary Art and is presented as part of her ongoing engagement with research, family history, language and materiality.
The exhibition is open to the public and completely free, with visitors invited to experience Lee's intricate works and consider the stories, histories and knowledge held within language and material.
A public program will take place on 5 September at the ECU Gallery, which consists of two activities; an artist talk at 10:30am and panel discussion, which will follow at 12:30pm.
The panel will be moderated by Dr Alix Beattie and will feature Lee along with Associate Professor Anna Hopkins from the School of Science and Dr Stephen Van Leeuwen.
Associate Professor Hopkins specialises in conservation biology and molecular ecology and is the Course Coordinator for Higher Degree by Research programmes in the School of Science at ECU.
Professor Van Leeuwen specialises in Biodiversity & Environmental Science at Curtin's School of Molecular and Life Sciences.
The panel discussion will centre around First Nations understandings of the cycles of devastation and subsequent restoration of nature, and by extension humans. The regenerative power of both nature and spirit - as illustrated in Lee's exhibition - will be discussed, as well as fire and traditional cool burning methods as a metaphor for the duality of destruction and fire's crucial role in fostering new beginnings and growth. All are welcome – no registration needed.
