2025 ANNUAL REPORT
This year has seen the continued growth and creative development of the Northern Rivers Community Gallery (NRCG) as a vibrant, dedicated, and engaged arts and cultural organisation. Our team has delivered an artistic program of excellence, supporting 150 artists and delivering 78 exhibitions,
public programs and creative events. Our online engagement continues to growth, with over 400K engagements across all platforms in 2025. NRCG continues to play an important role in supporting arts and culture in the Ballina and broader Northern Rivers region.
2025 presented a range of exhibition highlights featuring local, regional and national artists. Notable exhibitions include; passing place by Col Mac, exploring cultural and family histories of Ballina - Col was a finalist in the 2025 Archibald Prize. Other exhibitions include; Worlds Within Worlds by Emily Imeson - who was a finalist in the 2025 Wynn Prize; Distant Friends by Peter McLean - a travelling exhibition of printed portraits; immersive installation Den Inception by artist duo Immortal Soil and Food
& Drink, an experimental and speculative installation by duo Home School Achiever.
This year NRCG hosted the Southern Cross University (SCU) and Byron School of Art (BSA) Graduate Awards. SCU recipient River Mueller presented My life has changed a lot since I spoke to you last featuring paintings and sculptural works exploring family and mental health. BSA recipient, Katie Pink, presented Bubblegum Bruises which
featured bold paintings, sculptures and ceramics, exploring wild use of colour, materials and unexpected forms.
In 2025, Ignite Studios continued to build capacity, delivering and supporting 54 public programs, workshops, artist talks, events and hires of workshop spaces to over 1361 participants. National film organisation Screenworks continued their residency at Ignite Studios, and the Jordan Edmeades Film Academy delivered film-making term
programs for youth. NAIDOC Week 2025 activities supported a range of community engaged programs in partnership with First Nation’s artists and groups for local Nyangbal artists and community.
NRCG is grateful to the community of artists, facilitators, visitors, and participants who have attended exhibitions and events throughout 2025. The gallery has a dedicated group of gallery volunteers, whose time and energy is invaluable to operations – we sincerely couldn’t do it without you all! Thanks, also to all project partners and
sponsors, we have worked with so many wonderful arts organisations this year. The NRCG team looks forward to 2026 and working with our creative community to support arts and
culture in the Ballina Shire.