Lisa Waup 
Journeyed, 2021 
Digital image 
9.64 x 3.35 m  
Courtesy of the artist  

By taking the gallery to the roadside, Billboards responds to the new ways audiences experience art in the public space. Mixed-cultural First Peoples multidisciplinary artist Lisa Waup’s work Journeyed presents a detailed and visual account of a journey. Using large scale screen-prints of disassembled road signs, the artwork considers the motifs of travel, and questions government jurisdiction on the unceded land of this country. Journeyed spans space and time, navigating the dead ends, closed roads and prohibited zones that road signs denote. Through her appropriation of federally mandated signage, Waup reimagines the ways in which journeys are remembered, and by whose authority we travel through Country. The fragmented visual language of the work offers multiple readings, able to spark curiosity at first glance as well as offering locals and regularly passers-by an opportunity for deeper engagement. Indeed, this is a work that rewards many views, the depths of the layered media becoming clearer as they can be decoded.  

This Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery iteration of Billboards is the first of three in a project that sees First Nations artists partnered with regional galleries to produce a series of roadside billboards across regional Victoria. 

Journeyed is a Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery exhibition presented in partnership with NETS Victoria, curated by Jenna Rain Warwick. Journeyed is on display at 2061 Frankston-Flinders Road Hastings VIC 3915 from 19 February until 8 May 2022.

This project has been supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.