Cargo Culture draws from the idea of cargo cults - systems of belief that emerge around the arrival of material goods, where objects, such as art, become charged with meaning far beyond their utility.

The works presented in Cargo Culture are drawn from a personal collection consisting of over 100 artworks by artists from across Australia and the globe. They have been accumulated over decades, not by way of a single curatorial thesis, but proximity - through studios, exhibitions, conversations and chance encounters.

On Thursday 12 February this year, a fleeting activation of the same name transpired across the city in a rental truck turned art gallery. This activation inserted artworks into unconventional public environments, in loading bays, side streets and outside major office buildings, stripping away the rituals of the gallery and inspiring new possibilities for art viewing. In motion, the works became interruptions rather than destinations.

Cargo Culture’s iteration at Chapter Gallery manifests as an extended conversation with this personal collection: where the truck was fleeting, a ritual of appearance and disappearance, the gallery offers duration, giving the works time to assert what they carry. In their display, proximity becomes a key agent. Objects and artworks placed alongside one another begin to generate conversations that could never have been predicted at the moment they entered the collection. Formal tensions, conceptual overlaps, geographic distances, and generational gaps create contrasts that are unexpected and often deeply rewarding.

Art is a primary language through which we understand who we are, what we value, and how we remember. There are works in this collection that are not liked in any conventional sense - works not chosen for ease or harmony - but they are significant works, and they provide conceptual sustenance. That tension is essential.

Following this moment of exposure provided by Cargo Culture and Chapter Gallery, the collection will return to a state of private, continuous growth and renewal. With no linear progression or curatorial thesis, the viewer is left to ponder how shall this collection evolve?