Fair Dinkies
Sam Harrison
21 March – 19 April 2025
Image by and courtesy of the artist.
Snowy River Toy Inc. is pleased to present its newest line of toy collectables in celebration of Australia’s rich cultural diversity!
Fair Dinkies is a series of collectable Koalas ironically tasked with representing the vast cultural diversity within Australia.
Simmering beneath the façade of playful innocence, along with promises of equality, safety, and prosperity, is a world of nuanced cultural and political tensions—a friction that keeps its inhabitants suspended in a moral and ethical limbo.
At the exhibition's core, it is a statement that diversity is necessary to create ‘Australian-ness’. As a well meaning commercial product by fictional manufacturers, Snowy River Toy Inc., the Koalas are destined to fail at this task.
Within the frame of the Fair Dinkies store, you are invited to participate in the parody of ‘the great Australian mixing pot’ to explore and question the motivations and mechanics of Australia’s unique form of social conformity.
Sam Harrison is a proud Kamilaroi/Wiradjuri artist working in Meanjin. As a figurative painter combining historical, cultural and contemporary imagery Harrison holds the belief that an artist’s role is to research and understand the morals, motives and circumstances that inform identity. His practice explores the hypocrisies and idiosyncrasies of local, national and global histories to find stories that are worth telling.
@samharrison.art
www.samharrison.art
Fair Dinkies
By Sam Harrison
21 March – 19 April 2025Outer Space
Open Wednesday to Saturday, 10am–5pm
420 Brunswick Street,
Judith Wright Arts Centre,
Fortitude Valley, QLD
Exhibition Text
What does cultural celebration look like in Australia’s diverse multicultural landscape? Fair Dinkies, an exhibition by proud Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri artist Sam Harrison, parodies the social and cultural functions that we refer to as ‘the great mixing pot’ of Australia. The collection explores the relationship and tensions between authentic expression of cultural identity and the strict Eurocentric cultural contract that individuals must conform to be considered a True-Blue Aussie. By referencing the cultural complexity of this country, Harrison positions audiences to question how we interact with each other as well as our approach to diversity.
Public Programs
Artist Talk & Unboxing Party
6 - 8PM
Thursday 10 April 2025
Join us for an artist talk by Sam Harrison that will explore the themes of their exhibition Fair Dinkies and the evolution of the Snowy River Toy Inc. toy collectables.
Pre-order your very own Fair Dinkie! Limited run of 100 collectables.
The Blind Boxes include:
1 x Surprise Koala Dinkie (polyurethane expoxy sculpture)
1 x A4 Print
Blind Boxes will be available to collect at the Artist Talk and Unboxing Event on the evening of Thursday 10 April 2025.
Please note, no specific Fair Dinkie can be selected. These are randomly boxed.
Documentation by Louis Lim