Articles by: Darren Jorgensen

Author Biography:

Darren Jorgensen lectures in art history in the School of Design at the University of Western Australia. His most recent book is The Dead C’s Cylma Est Mort, in the 33 1/3 music series by Bloomsbury, and his previous exhibition Everlasting Inscription: Wang Qingsong was at the Cullity Gallery in Perth, 2025.

Strike Camps: Aboriginal Mining Camps of the 1950s and 1960s

Arena Online

Darren Jorgensen

23 Aug 2026

The photographs of the strike camps illuminate a little-known part of Australian and Aboriginal history, in which Aboriginal people ran their own companies and communities long before the government began to support Land Rights and legislate for Native Title.
"From its very inception, utopian spatialization has not been kind to Indigenous people. Anticipating a…

The Utopian Imagination of Aboriginalism

Arena Journal no. 25/26

Darren Jorgensen

Jan 2006

PDF available from Informit

From its very inception, utopian spatialization has not been kind to Indigenous people. Anticipating a program of colonial violence in centuries to come, Thomas More's original utopian society is only founded after the conquest of a foreign land Thus the foundation of 'Utopia' is a hypocritical one, as the peaceable lives of its citizens are only secured as a result of violence towards other lives. The injustices of 16th-century capitalism, outlined in the first book,…
"A series of six exhibitions from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) is scheduled to…

MOMA in Australia

Arena Magazine 124

Darren Jorgensen

Jun 2013

PDF available from Informit

A series of six exhibitions from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) is scheduled to be shown at the Art Gallery of West Australia (AGWA) over the next three years. This rotating display of the MOMA collection raises questions about what Australian public galleries are for and why they do what they do. At least two things have given rise to the partnership. The first is the arrival of a new director of AGWA, Stefano…
"In the wake of a 2007 Senate inquiry into the shoddy 'carpetbagging' practices that work…

Bagging Aboriginal art

Arena Magazine 111

Darren Jorgensen

Apr 2011

PDF available from Informit

In the wake of a 2007 Senate inquiry into the shoddy 'carpetbagging' practices that work to rip off remote Aboriginal artists, one would think that the ethical alternative of remote art centres would be looking good. Yet, in the mainstream media at least, the centres find themselves more embattled, and the journalist whose work sparked the enquiry, The Australian's Nicolas Rothwell, has changed his mind about the centres' place in the greater Aboriginal art industry.…