Critical Path is delighted to announce Amelia O’Leary as our 2026 Truth Telling Research Resident.
Amelia O’Leary will begin research into their new project **The Ancient Future of Interdisciplinary Practice**
FROM THE ARTIST:
This residency will explore a truth that has long been obscured through colonisation: that First Nations peoples have always practised interdisciplinary art. I want to uncover how Western systems separated art into disciplines; dance, theatre, music, visual art and literature; when, in my culture, these forms have never existed in isolation. They have always been interconnected, embedded within Country, ceremony, kinship, language and everyday life.
As a Gamilaroi and Wadawurrung Yinarr artist, I have often found myself moving across dance, choreography, sound design, filmmaking, writing and performance. While these approaches are frequently described as “interdisciplinary” or “cross-disciplinary,” I am interested in questioning whether these labels are themselves products of a Western framework. For First Nations peoples, making across forms is not just innovative, it is ancient.
Through this residency, I want to tell the truth by challenging the dominant history of contemporary art, which often presents interdisciplinary practice as a recent development. Instead, I want to reveal that First Nations artists have always worked in interconnected ways, where movement carries story, sound holds memory, visual symbols contain knowledge, and performance is inseparable from community and cultural responsibility.
This research is also deeply personal. As I continue reconnecting with my culture and language, I find myself searching for artistic frameworks that reflect my own ways of thinking rather than inherited colonial structures. I want to investigate how these ancient knowledge systems can reshape the way I create, moving away from making works that fit within artistic categories and towards works that exist as living ecosystems of story, movement, sound and place.
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AMELIA JEAN O’LEARY
Amelia Jean O’Leary is a queer First Nations Gamilaroi and Wadawurrung Yinarr dance artist and storyteller based in Sydney, Australia. Their work is a contemplative exploration of the complex and brutal terrains they inhabit, transforming dance into acts of sovereignty through deeply authentic, emotionally resonant performances grounded in lived experience. Since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2021, O’Leary has rapidly emerged as a compelling voice in contemporary dance and performance. Their work has been presented at Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Fringe, Dancehouse, FRAME: A Biennial of Dance, and internationally at Matriarchs Uprising Festival in Vancouver. Their accolades include the Best Emerging Indigenous Artist award at Melbourne Fringe and Green Room nominations. O’Leary continues to create bold, unapologetically First Nations and queer work across dance, theatre and performance.
Image: Amelia O’Leary, I Love You, 2025, photo credit: Ella Clarke-King.
Image description: A photo of a person standing nearby a stained glass window. They are looking up and their arm is folded with their elbow reaching upwards too.
This Truth Telling residency is a part of Critical Path’s First Nations program curated by Jasmin Sheppard. It is supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principle arts investment and advisory body, as well as the NSW Government through Create NSW. This project is delivered in partnership with Powerhouse and AIATSIS.