King Dingo

A dingo stands tall, crowned in royal regalia, eyes alive with defiance. Landscapes flicker—empire dissolves into Country—as we are led through Australia’s colonial history through the eyes of the dingo, a First Nations everyman.

This bold and irreverent projection by acclaimed First Nations artist Vincent Namatjira, will premiere on the façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia as part of Vivid Sydney 2025. Accompanied by an original score by Jeremy Whiskey, the work fuses humour, striking imagery and music to create a powerful assertion of First Nations strength, unity and cultural reclamation.

Here, in the artist’s most ambitious multimedia work to date, the dingo—Vincent’s totem—takes many forms: the everyman, the leader, the agitator. From the hallowed halls of Buckingham Palace to the raw energy of a rock concert, before a defiant return home to Dingo Country, King Dingo envisions a dream where First Nations culture, leadership and Country are fully recognised.

Artistic statement by Vincent Namatjira

I am proud to be presenting a new commission for Vivid Sydney 2025, and it’s exciting that my work will be projected on the MCA building – in 2021 I had the pleasure of painting the huge foyer wall commission at the MCA, and I guess the only way to go bigger and more epic than that is to take over the entire outside of the building! I’m looking forward to sharing my most bold and ambitious multimedia work ever with audiences for Vivid Sydney!

My new work is a continuation of my recent ongoing series of paintings titled King Dingo that use the dingo – a protector totem – as a symbol of Indigenous power. King Dingo is about a reversal of colonial power and ownership. Following the 2023 referendum and its ongoing fallout, King Dingo represents a powerful and timely celebration of Aboriginal strength, pride and resilience, with the message that ‘this is Aboriginal Land. We are here. We always have been and always will be.’

The theme for Vivid Sydney 2025 is ‘Dream’ and my new work takes place in a dream-like alternate world that is ruled by King Dingo - for my own kids and for future generations, I want proper respect and recognition in this country for Aboriginal Country, culture and leadership to not just be a dream.

Curatorial Statement by the MCA

As part of Vivid Sydney 2025 and in collaboration with projection specialists The Electric Canvas, MCA Collection artist Vincent Namatjira has transformed the MCA façade into a spectacular rock’n’roll experience featuring his major new body of work, King Dingo.

Namatjira’s projection is accompanied by an original score created in collaboration with Indulkana-based guitarist-composer Jeremy Whiskey.

King Dingo continues the Western Aranda artist’s series of subversive portraits, which use wit and caricature to consider Australia’s relationship with ‘The Empire’. He often paints significant figures throughout history to draw out the connections between leadership, wealth, power and influence.

Demonstrating Namatjira’s signature style, King Dingo depicts the dingo – a protector totem and symbol of Indigenous power – in royal regalia or historical attire. In keeping with this year’s Vivid Sydney theme, ‘Dream’, these dingo figures reflect the dream of acknowledgment, reconciliation and recognition of the enduring presence of Aboriginal culture.

Namatjira says, "these new paintings are about a reversal of colonial ownership, looking at royalty and status from a remote Indigenous perspective. King Dingo represents Aboriginal strength, pride and resilience, and respect for Country, culture, and Indigenous leadership past and present."

Namatjira’s work avoids reproducing pre-colonial contact imagery and a separation of past and present. Rather, it intentionally illustrates the entanglements of our national history and cultural memory. As an energetic projection, the work highlights how collective memory is a shared process, reshaping how we perceive history and reminding us that remembrance is dynamic and inclusive.