Kirli Saunders

Kirli Saunders is a proud Gunai woman, with Dharawal Yuin, Biripi and Gundungurra ties. She creates, to connect to make change. An award-winning multidisciplinary artist, consultant, experienced speaker, and facilitator advocating for the environment, gender and racial equality and LGBTIQA+ rights, in 2020 Kirli was the NSW Aboriginal Woman of the Year. In 2022, she was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her contribution to the arts, particularly literature.

Kirli’s books, The Incredible Freedom Machines (2018, Scholastic), Kindred (2019, Magabala) and Bindi (2020, Magabala) have been celebrated by the Prime Minister’s, QLD, WA, Adelaide, Victorian Premier’s Literary, ABIAs, Kate Challis RAKA, Speech Pathology, ABDA and CBCA awards. Her 2022 forthcoming titles include a visual poetry collection, Returning (Magabala), and a picture book, Our Dreaming (Scholastic). Her writing features in magazines and journals including Vogue, Overland, Kill Your Darlings, and in public art with partners, Red Room Poetry, Aesop, and The Royal Botanic Gardens, Victoria. Kirli’s first Solo play, Going Home has been commissioned by Playwriting Australia and will take the stage in 2023. Kirli is a board member for Merrigong Theatre.

Kirli’s solo visual arts exhibition, Returning, showed at SHAC Gallery in Nov-Dec 2021 and was supported by Australia Council for the Arts. Her works have been exhibited at Shoalhaven Regional, Wollongong Regional, Good Space, and Red Earth Arts Precinct Galleries. Her art has been commissioned by Fender X Children’s Ground, State, and Local Government. She was a collaborating artist for VIVID, with TRACES alongside Kamsani Bin Salleh, Google, and Magabala at Sydney Opera House. In 2022, Kirli Saunders took to the runway with First Nations Fashion and Design for Australian Afterpay Fashion Week. She has modelled for Seed, Witchery, and Zoe Kratzmann. Melding cyanotype, plant-dyed silk, native pelts /furs, found timber and Dharawal language, Kirli creates a textural poem which pays homage to Country, who has been at the centre of stories and art, for First Nations Peoples for all times.

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