Raf McDonald: Cars and other gifts from the sun

Biannual Façade Commission

29 January to 26 July 2026

Curator: Jacqui Shelton

Loose fabric and cast husks of car parts appear as both paper lanterns and cut-out clothing patterns across the La Trobe Art Institute façade. Made from salvaged fabric – painted, then buried at a former dump turned water regeneration site on Djaara Country – Cars and other gifts from the sun registers through its materials the impact of mass production, industry, and consumption on Country, personhood, and community.

In Bendigo, Raf McDonald continues a practice grounded in the conditions of making, with particular attention to the displacement of bodies under intersecting forces: settler-colonialism, trans-selfhood, and the alienation of workers within neoliberal labour systems. Their work consistently engages the material realities of pollution and industrial waste through a process of burying paintings at contaminated sites, relinquishing control to the staining and mould produced by chemicals in the soil. This method reframes how we consider Indigenous-settler relations in Australia: how can one account not only for their own actions, but also make visible – and work with – the material conditions and ongoing fallout of the past?

Before burial, McDonald uses used egg whites, charcoal and rice glue to paint political cartoons onto the works. Their reference material is drawn from a book found at Bendigo Trades Hall and combined with sketches referencing the widespread protests, strikes, and civil unrest of 1968 France. In referencing these historic student and unionist movements and the form of car parts, McDonald evokes the tensions between collectivist struggles and cycles of creation and decay.

Buried under the earth, McDonald’s material absorbs the traces of pollutants and toxicity found in the soil. They experiment with unknown pollutants to explore the pleasure and magic of chemical reactions between the plant-based tannins and iron oxide chemicals of the site, and their surprising stains on the fabric. By directing attention to what is ‘buried’ in the Country we inhabit, and the enduring material consequences of a culture of disposal, McDonald offers a nuanced reflection on being human in capitalism: messy, unpredictable, mouldy, smelly.

Tile image: Raf McDonald, Cars and other gifts from the sun, 2025. Photo: Jacqui Shelton