Kluge Ruhe Residency

In 2025, Western Arrernte, Yankunytjatjara, Pakistani and Afghan artist Robert Fielding travelled to the United States for a month-long residency at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection. The residency brought together cultural exchange, institutional learning and community engagement. Fielding, accompanied by his daughter, Mimili arts and health worker Partimah Fielding, and Mimili Maku co-manager Angus, was welcomed onto Monacan Indian Nation Country, where shared histories of resilience and cultural survival created an immediate connection.

Throughout the month, Fielding delivered public talks, met with curators and scholars, participated in critique sessions at the University of Virginia, and engaged with national museums in Washington D.C. His involvement in the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries & Museums (ATALM) conference - which brings together over 1,000 First Nations cultural workers -further deepened conversations around sovereignty, community-centred practice and the responsibilities of artists in global Indigenous contexts. As he reflected: “Far from Country, yet closer to understanding its presence within me.”

This residency forms the foundation for his exhibition Tjukurpa | Handle It, presented at Kluge-Ruhe. Bringing together painting, print, photography, poetry, film and sculpture, the exhibition explores cultural reclamation, truth-telling and the ongoing impact of the Stolen Generations. A storyteller and keeper of Tjukurpa, Fielding draws on knowledge shared by Elders, grounding his work in the cultural and political realities of the APY Lands. As his first international showcase since 2018, Tjukurpa | Handle It affirms Fielding’s position as a leading voice in contemporary First Nations art, committed to truth, sovereignty and the enduring strength of community.