Megan Cope and Djalo on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), Quandamooka Country, 2020. Photo: Rhett Hammerton.
About
Megan Cope is a multidisciplinary artist and Quandamooka woman from the Moreton Bay region of South East Queensland, Australia.
Her works are informed by her community and heritage. Cope creates sculptural installations, public art and has a socially engaged practice focussing on Indigenous stewardship, cultural continuum and custodial ethics as contemporary art practice. Recently she created living sculptures as forms of Land Art in the intertidal zone on her ancestral home.
Her work is deeply rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems and collaborative processes, highlighting the interrelations of land and sea ecosystems and connecting communities. She has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally, and her art often invites public participation, blurring the lines between maker, material, and audience.
Kinyingarra Guwinyanba (2022–ongoing) is an important living sculpture created on Country, for Country. It is installed in the intertidal zone on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) in Moreton Bay, and is an ongoing collaboration with her community and Country. “Off Country” iterations have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including Hawai’i Triennial 25: Aloha Nō (2025) and Busan Biennale 2022: We, on the rising wave (2022).
Her work has featured in numerous international group exhibitions, including Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry, Sharjah; Hawai’i Triennial 25: Aloha Nō, Honolulu; Thailand Biennale 2025: Eternal [Kalpa], Phuket (2025); Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns, Eora/Sydney; Soils, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2024); Busan Biennale 2022: We, on the rising wave, Busan; and Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022).
Her solo exhibitions include Whispers, Sydney Opera House, Tubowgule/Bennelong Point (2023); Low Pressure, Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane; Unbroken Connections, Redland Art Gallery, Capalaba (2022); Fractures and Frequencies, UNSW Galleries (2020–21); and Unbroken Connections, Canberra Glassworks (2020).
Her large-scale sculptural installations have been curated into numerous national survey exhibitions, including Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres, Art Gallery of South Australia, tarntanya/Adelaide; NGV Triennial 2020, National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm/Melbourne (2020); The National, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Eora/Sydney; Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra (2017); and Sovereignty, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Naarm/Melbourne (2016).
Cope is a member of Aboriginal art collective proppaNOW, recipients of the prestigious 2022–24 Jane Lombard Prize for Arts and Social Justice.
In 2024, she received the Creative Australia Award for Emerging and Experimental Arts. In 2017–19, she was the Official War Artist commissioned by the Australian War Memorial and travelled to the Middle East, resulting in Fight or Flight series, now held in the Australian War Memorial Collection.
She is represented by Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane.