Presented by CADCAI and The Pier Cairns.

Come to The Pier Cairns to take part in our Chinese New Year festivities.

Throughout the festival from 6th to the 26th February, you can visit the Chinese pergola display in The Pier Centre Court, take a selfie at the pergola or place a blessing or message of hope on the wall.

Take a photo of yourself at the Pergola for a chance to win a prize. 

Take a selfie at the pergola and upload to Facebook or Instagram. Be sure to tag #thepiercairns to go in the draw to win a $200.00 voucher valid at any outlet within The Pier!

The Pier Cairns is the place to come to bring in the Year of the Ox!

The CNY Pergola will be on open daily from the 6th-26th February, 2021.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Australia witnessed the rise of an important and unprecedented modern art movement led by Central Australian Aboriginal artist, Albert Namatjira (1902-1959). The Hermannsburg School of Artists included a group of young Western Arrernte (Aranda) men who were inspired by the works of Namatjira and a desire to use watercolour painting to portray the beauty, whimsy and magical luminosity of an ancient landscape in Central Australia, 125 kilometres west of Alice Springs. The story of Namatjira was well documented during his lifetime through publications, the popular press and several films. He was born and raised at the Lutheran Mission of Hermannsburg (Ntaria) and like other Arrernte people he was regularly exposed to representational illustrations in the Bible and other religions icons in the church. When he viewed an exhibition of watercolour landscapes by visiting Victorian painters Rex Battarbee and John Gardner in 1934, he was already a competent figurative illustrator of tourist artefacts. He requested instruction in the watercolour technique from Battarbee when he returned to Hermannsburg in 1936. Namatjira quickly mastered the use of watercolours, and launched his extraordinary career in 1938 with a sell-out solo exhibition in Melbourne.

At the peak of his popularity and success in the 1950s, Namatjira was so well known he was arguably the most famous artist in Australia. His sons and other relatives were inspired to follow his example, founding what is known as the Hermannsburg School of watercolours. His influence extended across generations, and beyond the Ntaria region, to inspire numerous Aboriginal artists from all around Australia. Albert Namatjira and the Hermannsburg School features watercolour paintings by the generations succeeding the original Hermannsburg artists, including Enos Namatjira (the eldest son of Albert Namatjira), and other artists outside of the Arrernte people, including Peter Tjutjatja Taylor, Hilary Wirri, and Hubert Pareroultja, who won this year’s prestigious Art Gallery of NSW Wynne Prize for landscape painting. Together these works capture the ethereal beauty of the remote MacDonnell Ranges region, which is some of the most spectacular country in Australia. In his lifetime, Albert Namatjira enjoyed great success as an artist, but he also faced intractable problems as a celebrity who was limited by the restricted legal status of Aboriginal people during his lifetime. He died in 1959 at Hermannsburg but his legacy endures and continues to shape the history of Australian art.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF LES FALLICK, SYDNEY

Cost: Free

LAUNCH: 6pm Friday 12 February

Absent Friends is an exploration of our lost connections to family, friends and the environment as a result of COVID-19. For Teeya Ryan, the environment in her own backyard became a solace and reprieve from the blank white walls of home.

When the world was seemingly shut down, Teeya Ryan immersed herself within local environments to explore and better understand our connections to the environment, and the enhanced intensity and need for the outdoors as a result of being trapped inside. Her goal was to bring the outside in, to replace now-lost human interaction with other life, and to potentially alleviate the claustrophobia felt by herself, her family and the world.

Teeya Ryan won the Tanks Arts Centre Curator’s Award at the 2020 Energy Exhibition and is also the recipient of a RADF grant provided by the Cairns Regional Council, both of which helped greatly to make this exhibition come to life. Absent Friends is her first solo exhibition, and a step into the art world beyond the restraints of school.

Exhibition dates: Fri 12 Feb – Sun 21 Mar 2021

Open: 9.00am – 4.30pm weekdays / 10.00am – 2.00pm weekends and public holidays.

Cost: Free

Venue: Tank 4, Tanks Arts Centre, Edge Hill, Cairns

The Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF) is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Cairns Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.

Ben Quilty is a masterful social commentator and narrator of extremes. He is internationally regarded as one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists and has won many of Australia’s most coveted art awards, including the Archibald Prize in 2011 and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in 2009. This exhibition brings together two major works on loan to the Gallery – Fairy Bower Rorschach 2012 from the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, and Kuta Rorschach No. 2 2013 from the collection of the Bendigo Art Gallery.

Through his paintings, Quilty challenges relationships between the personal and the cultural. The tension in his work is accentuated through the choice of subject matter and his use of thickly applied, smeared and smudged impasto paint surfaces using the Rorschach method. The resulting works have a sense of unresolved urgency that leave the viewer with no place for ease or escape. The Rorschach method involves sandwiching one side of a painting onto another to produce an almost-mirror image. The style is based on the inkblot test that was introduced by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in the 1920s. Quilty chooses images of popular tourist destinations that have a darker history behind them, and, using the Rorschach method, he reworks them to create more sinister images to explore complex issues of Australian identity and history. Fairy Bower is a New South Wales tourist attraction, which is also thought to be the site of an horrific massacre of scores of Aboriginal people in the early 19th century. Quilty’s painting depicts the peaceful landscape, which is then deconstructed to show the dark underbelly of the Australian psyche that is haunted by a colonial history of violence and displacement.

Similarly, Kuta Rorschach No. 2 shows the popular Bali holiday destination that has become inextricably linked to the ‘Bali bombings’ of 2002. This terrorist attack claimed the lives of 202 people from 22 countries, including 88 Australians. The duplication and damage of the image echoes the disturbing and violent history this site may have witnessed and offers a commentary on the temptations faced by Australian tourists who frequently fail to see the consequences of their risk taking activities in this seductively exotic tourist destination. The Entangled Landscape is a rare opportunity to experience two major works by one of Australia’s most influential artists of the twenty-first century.

Cost: Free

ARTIST TALK – Saturday 6 March 2021     /     5.00 – 6.00pm

Members will be given priority on bookings for this ticketed event, with limited numbers able to attend – No bookings will be available before February.

Presented by CADCAI and The Pier Cairns.

The Pier Cairns is proud to partner with CADCAI in bringing the 2021 Chinese New Year Festival to  the community.

CADCAI’s Chinese New Year store at The Pier Cairns will also be open for visitors to learn about the traditions and customs of Chinese New Year Festival.

We will showcase the history and contribution made by the early Chinese in Cairns and region plus have New Year merchandise for sale.

With a Lion Dance performances, and special offers running throughout the festival period, The Pier Cairns  is the place to come to bring in the Year of the Ox!

CADCAI’s Chinese New Year Store will be on open from 10.00am to 2.00pm daily from the 6th to the 26th February 2021!

Presented by Cairns Museum and CADCAI.

This exhibition provides insights into Chinese and Australian culture in Cairns through the  exhibition of costumes,  musical instruments and practices associated with the performance of the Lion and Dragon dance during Chinese New Year.

The objects exhibited will be mix of historical and contemporary items from CADCAI’s collections.

When : 6th February  to 6th March, 2021

Where: Cairns Museum,  Cnr Lake and Shields Streets

Opening  hours:  10.00am – 4.00pm,  Monday to Saturday

Museum entry fee: $15 per person  / $12 per person (concession rate)

Free entry to CADCAI members. 

SAVE THE DATE!!

More information soon…..

Cost: CCoC Member $66.00 / General $85.00

Registrations Close: 22 February

Hosted by Cairns Jockey Club.

Head trackside for a 7 race program!

Gates open 12noon with racing from 2.20pm.

Cost: Entry $10 and children under 15 free.

General admission can be purchased at the gate on race day or on the Cairns Jockey Club website.

Hosted by Cairns Esplanade.

Want to learn to play Beach Volleyball, increase your skills, or just want to have a fun hour of sport?

Elite coaches Joel and Luke lead this weekly clinic.

The session combines skill training and play with groupings for all skill levels.

Come on down and bash a ball!

Cost: Free

2021 Update: Participants are required to sign in electronically with a mobile device via a QR code. Assistance is available if need be.

Hosted by Cairns Esplanade and Zumba Fitness with Gill

Zumba classes feature exotic rhythms set to high energy Latin and international beats.

Before you know it you are getting fit and energy levels are soaring.

It is easy to do, effective and totally exhilarating.

Cost: Free

Update 2021: Participants are required to sign in electronically with a mobile device via a QR code. Assistance is available if need be.