Prevailing Gales
An exhibition and Lunchtime talk by Sue Pedley
In February 2026, Maritime Museum Tasmania will present a remarkable new exhibition by Tasmanian-born artist Sue Pedley, whose practice draws together memory, materiality and the many ways maritime histories are carried across time and place. Pedley’s exhibition, Prevailing Gales, invites visitors into an atmospheric reimagining of one of the most extraordinary encounters in Tasmania’s seafaring past: the 1830 meeting between Tasmanian convicts aboard the brig Cyprus and samurai from Japan’s Awa Domain. Her work brings this cross-cultural moment into the present, tracing the threads that connect oceans, archives and lived experience.
Central to Pedley’s approach is a deep sensitivity to materials. Using handmade Awagami paper, indigo dye, inks, cyanotypes, rope, plaster and sound, she explores how stories take shape and how they drift, fragment and resurface. These are the same materials once used by samurai illustrators, creating a tactile link to the Japanese manuscripts that recorded the Cyprus encounter. Long forgotten, these documents were rediscovered by researcher Nick Russell, whose work has helped confirm the accuracy of the convicts’ accounts and shed light on the Japanese perspective.
Pedley’s exhibition does not simply retell the narrative. Instead, it meditates on what it means for a Tasmanian ship and its unwilling crew to arrive in a nation closed to the world, and how this encounter rippled across geographies and centuries. Through her installations, Pedley evokes the uncertainty of the mutineers’ journey, the vigilance of the samurai, and the shifting boundaries between fact, memory and imagination.
Prevailing Gales continues Pedley’s long-standing interest in the sensory and emotional dimensions of maritime space, as seen in earlier works exploring coastlines, navigation and displacement. Here, she expands that investigation into a layered story of cultural meeting, resistance and the enduring forces of the sea.
When: 20 February - 24 May
Where: Maritime Museum Tasmania, 16 Argyle Street, Hobart
Cost: $16 museum entry (concessions available)
Lunchtime Talk
In this Lunchtime Talk, Sue will discuss her creative process for Prevailing Gales, from initial research and fieldwork through to material choices, experimentation, and final presentation. She will reflect on how historical sources, lived experience, and contemporary practice intersect in the development of the work.
This talk offers a behind-the-scenes insight into the making of a major new exhibition and will be of interest to artists, historians, and anyone curious about how maritime stories are translated into visual form.
The session will conclude with time for questions.
When: Tuesday 14 April, 12-1pm
Where: Royal Society Room, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Dunn Place, Hobart
Cost: Free, but bookings are essential. Please register here.
Visit the Maritime Museum's site here for more information.
