Thread: Connecting Stories and Community

For millennia, clothing and body adornment have shaped, and made visible, connections to land, community and culture. Developed through ongoing conversations between artists and community members from the South-East Queensland city of Logan and the National Portrait Gallery, Thread: Connecting stories and community traces the relationships between garments and the histories, labour and knowledge systems of First Peoples, and offers pathways for deeper intercultural understanding.

First presented at Logan Art Gallery, this exhibition features works from the National Portrait Collection, including 19th-century prints and contemporary photographs. These portraits are shown in dialogue with existing and newly commissioned works by Logan-based artists, Quandamooka woman (with cultural links to Eulo and the South Sea Islander community, Vanuatu) Kyra Mancktelow, Pamela See (Xue Mei Ling) and Sāmoan/Australian collective Lanatina and Sualauvi Ah Kuoi.

The exhibition is the outcome of a creative consultation process grounded in deep listening and reflection with segments of Logan’s diverse community. In bringing different perspectives together, Thread reflects on the shared and evolving cultural landscape of Logan and opens up new ways of thinking about collective identity and collaboration.

These ideas of collaborative and intercultural exchange have informed the core commission for the exhibition: a possum-skin cloak made by Mancktelow, her family, community and Elders over the course of the exhibition at Logan Art Gallery. This work, alongside other responsive artworks made in situ, will be on show for the first time at the National Portrait Gallery presentation.

Thread: Connecting stories and community was co-designed and co-curated by the National Portrait Gallery, Logan Art Gallery and local artists and creatives as a pilot project to develop new ways of working with communities across Australia.

Supported by the Australian Government, Thread: Connecting stories and community was first presented at Logan Art Gallery from June to September 2026.