FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS, or for as long as we remember
A sensory installation by Raki Nikahetiya, a Sri Lankan-born, Austria-raised artist whose practice bridges artisanal craft, experimental photography, and land-based installation. Shaped by his experience of displacement during civil war, Nikahetiya’s work explores questions of home, identity, and collective memory.
In this exhibition, audiences are invited into intimate, multi-sensory encounters with the idea of home. Touch, sound, objects, and story converge to map a tactile and emotional landscape. At its centre are the voices of eight protagonists who call these lands home.
They offer quiet yet powerful reflections on what it means to leave, to return, and to belong. Each shares a mundane, yet deeply significant memory — fragments that the artist carefully gathers and weaves into the spatial fabric of the installation. Here, objects act as witnesses, and presence becomes a form of honouring the layered histories held in land and lineage.
Date and Time
13-30 Nov (Thur-Sun)
11am-8pm
Location
MOORES Building art space
Entry
free
Image Credit
Photo One by Laurent Ziegler. photo two: migrant memory, 2023-24. Courtesy the artist.
Born in 1983 in Sri Lanka, Raki Nikahetiya and his family left the country during the civil war, relocating to Austria. Growing up between two cultural poles, he studied Economics, focusing on sustainable development and migration in Vienna before working as a photojournalist and joining the United Nations in 2009. Nikahetiya moved to London in 2013, where he continued his work in international development and environmental conservation before shifting full focus onto his art practice after studying at the Slade School of Fine Art.
Now based between Colombo and New Delhi, Nikahetiya is interested in individual as well as collective identity, memory and migration. His interdisciplinary approach to art-making pushes his practice further through the use of photography, collaboration with artisanal crafts and communities, land art as well as the use of scientific processes. Nikahetiya is the co-founder of sā, the highest land art Biennale in Asia, focusing on regenerative art and transboundary collaboration.
Moores Building Art Space
42-46 Henry St, Fremantle
Event Information:
This event is held indoors and undercover.
The exhibition can be entered at any time during opening hours.
The exhibition includes fog and low-lighting.
Food and beverages will not be available at this event.
Parking: There is ample parking along Marine Terrace or at Marine Terrace Car Park.
Public Transport: Moores Building is a 8-minute walk from the Fremantle Train Station, which is the final destination for the Fremantle Train Line, as well as several bus routes.
Wheelchair access is available to the Gallery via a ramp.
No accessible toilets are available at this venue. The nearest Accessible toilets are located at Esplanade Park Public Toilets.
ACROD parking is available along Henry St.
Please note this exhibition includes fog machines and low-lighting.
