We are honoured to present our line-up of evening speakers for Oatlands Art Retreat 2025
Book to hear individual speakers
Can't attend the full retreat but would like to come along to hear one of our individual speakers? Use the links below to register.
Brigita Ozolins
Dr Brigita Ozolins is best known for her large-scale installations about our relationship to language, history and culture, such as Kryptos (2011) at MONA and A Tasmanian Reading Room (2019) for Detached Cultural Organisation.
Inspired by a love of books, libraries and literature, and using a wide range of materials, her work is based on the idea that language is a powerful cultural tool that both shapes and restricts who and what we are and how we think. Brigita has been awarded grants by the Australia Council, Arts Tasmania and Qantas, has had residencies in New York, Paris, London and Latvia as well as Tasmania. She has completed numerous commissions for public and private organisations including the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the City of Hobart, Ten Days on the Island, Mona Foma, Dark Mofo, Libraries Tasmania and the Soros Foundation Latvia, as well as MONA and Detached. She is represented by Bett Gallery, Hobart.
Learn more about Brigita's work and biography at her website
Brigita will be speaking at The Kentish hotel at 6:30pm on Sunday November 30, 2025.
Dr David Ashley Kerr
David Ashley Kerr is a Tasmania based curator. Ash's collaborative approach to curatorial practice is informed by formative experiences in site activation and cross-disciplinary projects in Melbourne's thriving ARI scene from 2011-2015, and later in Germany working with curator led project spaces, residencies and arts NGO's across the EU in Northern and Central Europe from 2015-2023 in a wide range of academic and curatorial contexts. Hear Ash discuss his role in the Tasmanian arts scene as well as artwork inspired by the midlands and Tasmania more broadly.
See more information on Ash at his website
Alan Townsend
Alan Townsend is a heritage consultant with Southern Midlands Council and a wallpaper historian. He also recreates historical wallpapers and has produced work for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the National Trust.
Alan is interested in the stories hidden - both literally and figuratively - within the walls of our houses. A raconteur and Oatlands local, he is currently writing a book that tells the story of Tasmania's social history through the wallpaper colonial Tasmanian's used in their homes.
Read an ABC interview with Alan about his work here.
