Zena Zada
ngamaka/mother
27 – 30 Nov 2025
Opening event Thursday 27 Nov 6–8pm
Open Fri–Sun 12–4pm
“ngamaka/mother comes from my heart. This new body of work is my ode to the unconditional love and care I receive from Country, my ngamaka (mother). It is also a dedication to my beautiful mother, Noelene Zada, lost far too young. The blood of our Barkandji Ancestors pumped through her veins, and she worked so hard to make us proud and strong. My art-making heals and bolsters, the power of what I can conjure often surprises me, reminding me over and over that my Ancestors have placed within me all I could ever want or need. Ancestral knowledge is embedded within me and I re-inscribe it as it falls from my hands.”
ngamaka/mother marks a new pathway for Zena’s printmaking practice, moving into the realm of collagraph and experimentation with large-scale works. This body of work employs symbols and iconography that speak to custodianship, intergenerational learning and the need to practice, hold and to re-invigorate all that Ancestors have passed on. ngamaka/mother insists that we have been handed all we need to thrive and to enact healing for people and for Country.
Through ngamaka/mother, you are invited to witness forever cycles of deeply rooted intergenerational learning, foundational to the health and healing of people and of Country. The abundance our mother (Country) offers is witnessed, but she watches you carefully as you take. If we fail to be in reciprocity with her our access to abundance can and will be denied.
Zena has purposefully dedicated 2025 to intensive skills building. Working with master printer Basil Hall to create a portion of this new series, her practice has also evolved through learning opportunities at the Australian Print Workshop, and most meaningfully through multiple artist residences and projects with international First Nations communities grounded in land-based practices.
“For me, success is working with my community and continuing to create projects that express powerful notions of what it is to look after each other and to be simultaneously in commune and reciprocity with Country.” – Zena Zada (Cumpston)
Artist Biography;
Zena Zada (Cumpston) is a Barkandji woman with Afghan, Irish and English heritage. Zena is a storyteller, manifesting through her work as an artist, writer, researcher, curator and consultant. She is a member of the Birrarung Council in Narrm and has worked extensively as a freelance writer. Zena began sharing her visual art practice in late 2022, forging an exciting new pathway to telegraph and extend her research and writing skills.
Across 2024/2025 Zena’s artworks were featured as part of the NETS national tour of ngaratya (together, us group, all in it together); The Soils Project at Van Abbemuseum, Netherlands; Lightscape (Royal Botanic Gardens Narrm); DISH (Town Hall Gallery, Narrm), as part of bíal gwiyúŋo (the fire is not yet lighted) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Cultural Medicine: The Art of Indigenous Healing (Medical History Museum, Narrm). In September 2024 she presented her first solo exhibition Return, focussing on plants of place as part of Darebin FUSE Festival (Narrm). Most recently, Zena has been the recipient of various local and international artist residencies and collaborative opportunities focused on First Nations land-based art practices. In 2026 Zena’s work will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art (Narrm) and she is the proud recipient of the 2026 Bandalang Artist Residency at the Australian National University (Kamberri).
“My art making renders me a powerful conduit and feels so different from my other work. I have made the decision to utilise my Mother’s maiden name, Zada, when engaging in my visual storytelling practice.”