{{Short description|Australian art curator of Indigenous Australian art}} {{use dmy dates|date=December 2025}} {{use Australian English|date=December 2025}} '''Will Stubbs''' is an Australian art curator. He has been coordinator of the Indigenous Australian art centre Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala, Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia, since 2001.
==Early career== Stubbs worked as a criminal defence lawyer in Sydney and then in the Top End for ten years.<ref name=aad2015>{{cite web | title=Award for art co-ordinator| first= Jeremy|last= Eccles | website=Aboriginal Art Directory News | url=https://news.aboriginalartdirectory.com/2015/03/award-for-art-coordinator.php | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250121230028/https://news.aboriginalartdirectory.com/2015/03/award-for-art-coordinator.php | archive-date=21 January 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref>
After moving to Yirrkala in the early 1990s, he worked for Aboriginal legal aid for several years.<ref name=aad2015/>
==Career in art== Stubbs became passionate about Indigenous Australian art, and started working with Yolŋu elders and artists, such as Gawirrin Gumana, Djambawa Marawili, Gulumbu Yunupingu, and Wanyubi Marika in 1995.<ref name=aad2015/>
In 1995 he started working at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, an art centre in Yirrkala where many notable Yolgnu artists created and exhibit their work.<ref name=garrapara/> In 2001, he assumed the role of coordinator of the centre, taking over from his former colleague there, Andrew Blake. In 2007 he launched a digital archive and film-making studio called The Mulka Project. Over the period of around 15 years, he doubled the size of the art centre. His promotion of Yolngu art has led to many Australian and international exhibitions, including at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris in 2006.<ref name=aad2015/><ref name=lochrie2015>{{cite web | last=Lochrie | first=Conor | title=Archie Roach, Tony Doyle among Australia Council awards recipients | website=The Music Network | date=27 October 2015 | url=https://themusicnetwork.com/archie-roach-tony-doyle-among-australia-council-awards-recipients/ | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Will Stubbs | website=British Museum | url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG226674 | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref>
Stubbs has actively encouraged many artists at the centre, including Nyapanyapa Yunupingu and Garawan Wanambi.<ref>{{cite web | title=Aboriginal art: is it a white thing? | website=University of Wollongong | date=30 May 2018 | url=https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2018/aboriginal-art-is-it-a-white-thing.php | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241225195007/https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2018/aboriginal-art-is-it-a-white-thing.php | archive-date=25 December 2024 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Stubbs |first1=Will |chapter="Nyapanyapa Yunupingu: Art of the Artless" |title= Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists From Aboriginal Australia |date=2016 |publisher=Nevada Museum of Art and Del Monico Books}}</ref>
Stubbs has written several articles about artists and Yolgnu art, including for ''Artlink'' magazine.<ref>{{cite web | title=Contributors: Will Stubbs | website=Artlink | url=https://www.artlink.com.au/contributors/3251/will-stubbs/ | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref> and ''Artist Profile''.<ref name=ap>{{cite web | last=Stubbs | first=Will | title=Gunybi Ganambarr | website=Artist Profile | date=2018 | url=http://artistprofile.com.au/gunybi-ganambarr/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250319160255/http://artistprofile.com.au/gunybi-ganambarr/ | archive-date=19 March 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025| quote=This article was originally published in Artist Profile, Issue 45, 2018}}</ref>
He has written or contributed to catalogues accompanying major exhibitions, such as ''Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala'' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which ran from 21 June to 6 October 2025.<ref>{{cite web | title=Landmark exhibition celebrating 80 years of Yolŋu art and culture coming to the Art Gallery of New South Wales | website=Art Gallery of NSW | date= 1 April 2025 | url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media-office/yirrkala/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250920105605/https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media-office/yirrkala/ | archive-date=20 September 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref>
==Recognition and awards== In March 2015, Stubbs was presented with the inaugural Australia Council's Visual Arts Award (Advocate) in Sydney, which recognises his "outstanding success as the long-term co-ordinator of the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala and his passionate advocacy of Indigenous arts and Australia's unique arts centres".<ref name=aad2015/><ref name=lochrie2015/>
He is regarded as an expert in Yolgnu art, and asked for input in forums and for publication.<ref>{{cite journal| journal =Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies| volume =16| issue=4| date =2020 |ISSN=1557-2935 |url=http://liminalities.net/16-4/podcasts.pdf| title = Notes from a Cross-Cultural Frontier: Investigating Australian Aboriginal Art through Podcasts |first1= Siobhán |last1=McHugh|first2= Ian |last2=McLean|first3= Margo |last3=Neale| author-link3= Margo Neale}}</ref> In February 2019 he joined a panel discussion at the Nevada Museum of Art, which included two artists from Gunybi Ganambarr and Barayuwa Mununggurr along with Henry Skerritt, Curator of Indigenous Arts of Australia at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. The discussion, titled ''The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles'' accompanied an exhibition of memorial poles from Arnhem Land.<ref>{{cite web | title=The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles | website=Nevada Museum of Art | date=15 February 2020 | url=https://www.nevadaart.org/event/the-inside-world-contemporary-aboriginal-australian-memorial-poles-a-panel-discussion/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250424165228/https://www.nevadaart.org/event/the-inside-world-contemporary-aboriginal-australian-memorial-poles-a-panel-discussion/ | archive-date=24 April 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref>
==Personal life== In 1995<ref name=garrapara>{{cite web | title=Garrapara: Deep waters and the cycle of life and death | website=Garland Magazine | date=22 June 2022 | url=https://garlandmag.com/article/garrapara/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250925104951/https://garlandmag.com/article/garrapara/ | archive-date=25 September 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref> Stubbs married school principal, scholar, artist, and musician, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr<ref name=aad2015/> (now known as Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs <ref>{{cite web | last=Kirby | first=Ricky | title=The touching family story behind the historic delivery of the Yirrkala Bark petition | website=NITV | date=17 January 2025 | url=https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/the-touching-family-story-behind-the-historic-delivery-of-the-yirrkala-bark-petition/ioxtscawl | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250128190130/https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/the-touching-family-story-behind-the-historic-delivery-of-the-yirrkala-bark-petition/ioxtscawl | archive-date=28 January 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref> Includes photo of Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs.) whom he met when working for Aboriginal legal aid.<ref name="c082">{{cite web | title=Will Stubbs: In Conversation | website=Issuu | date=2 March 2023 | url=https://issuu.com/jgmgallery/docs/mulkunwirrpanda_catalogue_master_spread_medium_res/s/20133290 | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref> They have a daughter, Siena.<ref name=aad2015/>
Siena Ganambarr Stubbs started taking photographs from a young age, and in 2018 published a book of her photographs of birds of North-east Arnhem Land, called ''Our Birds''.<ref>{{cite web | last=Balsarini | first=Claire | title=Siena Stubbs' Yirrkala Birds| website=Aboriginal Art Directory | date=1 May 2018 | url=https://aboriginalartdirectory.com/siena-stubbs-yirrkala-birds/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241214160805/https://aboriginalartdirectory.com/siena-stubbs-yirrkala-birds/ | archive-date=14 December 2024 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title="I feel like I want to spread the message to the world and Australia, I want to show them the special side of North East Arnhem Land" Siena Ganambarr Stubbs #MyPlace | website=Facebook | url=https://www.facebook.com/NITVAustralia/videos/10153816012457005/ | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref> The book was shortlisted in the 2019 CBCA Book of the Year Awards: Eve Pownall Award for Information Books and the 2020 Chief Ministers NT Book Awards for Young Adult/Children.<ref>{{cite web | title=Our Birds: Ŋilimurruŋgu Wäyin Malanynha | website=Magabala Books | date=5 April 2018 | url=https://www.magabala.com/products/our-birds | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250909044224/https://www.magabala.com/products/our-birds | archive-date=9 September 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref> After finishing school, at the age of 18 she worked on The Mulka Project at the art centre. In 2020, she wrote an article for ''NGV Magazine'', later published on the NGV website, about the effects of climate change on Yolngu Country.<ref>{{cite web | title='The past is in the present is in the future'|date= 18 June 2021 |first=Siena| last= Stubbs | website=National Gallery of Victoria | url=https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/the-past-is-in-the-present-is-in-the-future-the-knowledge-practice-and-tradition-of-the-yambirrpa-fish-traps/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250807162654/https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/the-past-is-in-the-present-is-in-the-future-the-knowledge-practice-and-tradition-of-the-yambirrpa-fish-traps/ | archive-date=7 August 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=18 December 2025 |quote=This piece was originally commissioned for and published in ''NGV Magazine'', Issue 28, May–Jun 2020.}}</ref> She moved to Brisbane to study at the Queensland University of Technology, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film, Screen and New Media) in 2023.<ref>{{cite web | title=From Arnhem Land to Meanjin & beyond: QUT grad Siena embarks on media career | publisher=Queensland University of Technology | date=9 August 2024 | url=https://www.qut.edu.au/study/student-insights/from-arnhem-land-to-meanjin-and-beyond-qut-grad-siena-embarks-on-media-career | access-date=18 December 2025}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{official website|https://yirrkala.com/|Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre}} * "[https://bangarra-knowledgeground.com.au/productions/nyapanyapa/a-yarn-with-will-stubbs Unlearning & re-learning: a yarn with Will Stubbs]" (video 39:29 mins, + transcript) Stubbs talks to former Bangarra Dance Theatre artist Yolande Brown
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stubbs, Will}} Category:Australian art curators Category:Living people Category:20th-century Australian lawyers Category:Year of birth missing (living people)