Arts House, Melbourne, 4A Centre for Contemporary Art Sydney and Kalā Kulo in Kathmandu, have co-designed a reciprocal exchange and residency program for a cohort of First Nations artists from Australia and Adivasi artists from Nepal to connect, foster cross-cultural dialogues and collaborations, and decentralise shared learnings with their local communities of practice.

High Altitude Exchange aims to re-centre the artist’s agency in international conversations & experiences of Indigeneity, with the participants engaging with history, alterity, geopolitics, environment and contemporary issues through their creative & cultural practices. Embedding methods of open inquiry and peer exchange, High Altitude Exchange will harness rigour in imagination, practice and relation.

Following residencies in Nepal in April and in Naarm/Melbourne in October, the Sydney phase, to be held from 3 to 8 November, will mark the conclusion of this cross-cultural collaboration. The week will bring together participating artists for a series of exchanges, conversations and reflections hosted at 4A and across Sydney’s western and southern cultural corridors. Artists will engage in dialogue with local practitioners, explore shared practices and consider how creative exchange can sustain connection across geographies and lived histories.

The week will conclude on 8 November with a full-day symposium at 4A, bringing together artists, curators and audiences for presentations, conversations and screenings of both new and recent works. Through film, performance and discussion, the symposium will reflect on how creative practice can become a space of translation, carrying memory, movement and shared resilience across landscapes and communities.

Symposium Registration:

https://www.trybooking.com/DHFIC

Please note that the lift at 4A is currently out of service; access is via stairs only.

Symposium Agenda:

10:00am — Welcome and Acknowledgement
10:15am — Panel: High Altitude Exchange Publication
11:15am — Panel: International Residency Reflections
1:30pm — Artist Talk: Sparsh Ahuja
2:15pm — Film Screening: Ningwasum (2021) 
3:00pm — Program Wrap-up

Film Screening:

Subash Thebe Limbu, Ningwasum ᤏᤡᤱᤘᤠᤛᤢᤶ, 2021, Single channel video: 44:26, colour, sound 5.1, 17:9

Key dates: 

16 - 30 April 2025
Kalā Kulo, Kathmandu + Mustang, Nepal

20 - 29 October 2025
Arts House, Melbourne, Australia

3 - 8 November 2025
4A Centre for Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia