A NEW art movement could be emerging in Australia—Cultural Vertigo.
A growing number of artists who were born in Australia to immigrant parents find themselves torn between their parents’ heritage and their country of birth.
When the parents have fled their homeland because of a political, religious or existential threat, this feeling is heightened, often triggering feelings of guilt, confusion and disorientation.
Burmese-Australian artist Natalie de Rozario explores this complex web of emotions in her new exhibition A Bag of Rice for a Saturday Child.
“I was born in Perth in the early 1990s and my family arrived from Burma in the late 1950s and early 60s, during the White Australia policy,” she says.
“My art is a way for me to in a sense grapple with not belonging to a specific culture but the third space in-between.
“Looking at my heritage, I am able to reframe, learn and un-learn about the things I’ve inherited.”
De Rozario deconstructs her Perth family home, transforming a treasure trove of old photos, objects and audio into a poignant and at times unsettling exhibition.
The works include charcoal drawings of black-and-white family photographs from 1940s Burma, and a seven-metre textile and charcoal tribute to her bobo (grandad).
In 2016, de Rozario became a full-time live-in carer for her grandparents.
• Natalie de Rozario (far left) at her new exhibition. photos by Danica Zuks
“When I was a carer in his later years, when he had dementia, he would often sing Alice Blue Gown—an audio recording of him singing is also featured in the exhibition,” she says.
“It was from a memory he had while serving in the Burmese Navy, where he cross-dressed and performed. It stands as a brave statement of defining your own ideas of gender, and sense of self. The blue organza fabric is floating about the exhibition as a representation of this.”
De Rozario also explores political issues in her exhibition, albeit filtered through her own emotional lens. One Day is a large-scale diptych responding to the 2025 bombing of a Buddhist temple in Mawlamyine during the Festival of Lights.
“The painting grapples with the complex nature of survivor’s guilt,” she says.
“The work juxtaposes the peace of the diaspora with the violence of the homeland, and the privileges I have of being able to turn off the news.
“This work reflects on the 2021 military coup in Myanmar and specifically references media images of the October 8, 2025, Thadingyut Festival bombing. In a global context, the work asks: Why do our most sacred moments of peace so often become the targets of violence?”
But at the heart of the exhibition is the warmth and deep affection de Rozario has for her family, especially her grandparents, who sadly passed away a few years ago.
“In many ways, this work became a way of holding onto fragments of my elders as they slowly shifted through the next phase of life,” she says.
A Bag of Rice for a Saturday Child is at DADAA Gallery in Fremantle until June 12 with an artist’s talk on June 7. For more info see dadaa.org.au and nattherealist.com.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK