Megan Cope is a Quandamooka artist from Moreton Bay/Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) in South East Queensland, Australia who specialises in sculpture, site-specific installations and painting. Her work considers relationships between people, culture and the environment, seeking to ‘amplify the voices of the land and sea and care for Country’, she states. The installation Whispers Midden (2024) for the 16th Sharjah Biennial is a large midden made from oyster shells while the ‘living’ sculpture Kinyingarra Poles (2024) is made of kinyingarra poles or oyster rods. Both artworks demonstrate Cope’s ongoing engagement with Quandamooka Sea Country and the regeneration of marine ecosystems and cultural practices associated with them. Coastal shellfish reefs and middens are sites of Quandamooka aquaculture and architecture that have been largely destroyed by environmental degradation, dredging and mining. Cope’s work seeks to change our ‘extractive and possessive logic over place’, she says, and instead ‘move towards ways of understanding kinship, connection and Country’. Watch this artist interview to find out more about the artist's practice. 

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