THE EXHIBITION

Therese Ritchie's We Need to Talk About the Stalker turns years of unwanted intrusion into photographic portraits: bodies inscribed with text, faces hidden behind masks drawn from film, meme and popular culture. Confronting and dark, the works make visible an experience too often left unspoken.

Photography by Paz Tassone

Artist talk by © Therese Ritchie

We need to talk about the stalker by Therese Ritchie

Northern Centre for Contemporary Art

3 Vimy Lane, Parap, Northern Territory, Australia

9 October–14 November 2026

Hi there, thanks for being here tonight. Talking about

this is difficult. It’s complicated. I have written some

things down, which I would like to read, then I am

open to any questions you want to ask.

One of the most exhausting parts of this crucible is

constantly having to explain myself—to describe

the nuances of the experience. When I come to think

of it, the stress, the anxiety created by persistent

intrusion, self-doubt, despair, anger and fear is all

quite challenging.

There’s also the derailment of living with paradox

on a daily basis. Unfettered madness and delusion

is not chronological or reasonable, it breaks things

down, bends time, gaslights, contradicts and

grooms the unsuspecting.

When referencing the Alien, in Alien 4, Sigourney

Weaver’s character, Ripley sighs, “You’ve been

in my life so long now, I don’t remember a time

without you.” I think of this a lot, and it is both

comforting and infuriating.

Comforting because the line resonated, it felt true.

Something about my experience—that there is no

absence of this person—was reflected back to me.

Infuriating because the stalker had gotten what she

wanted, without my consent. It is what she predicted

or threatened. She was destined to change the way

I work and we were somehow important, together.

Without trying I seem to know so much about her.

Her words, “Don’t you want to get to know me? You

should get to know me, we have mutual friends.”

So when I talk about the paradoxes I mean the state

of being safe, but unsafe; certain, but uncertain,

knowing but not knowing, hopeful but hopeless,

simultaneously.

They are not simple states to navigate.

I also feel a grief—all the time—but no death

or fundamental physical harm has occurred. My

feelings are often deemed premature, because, in the

words of the police, “Nothing has really happened

... yet”, or, “We can’t do anything until she does

something”, or “but you’re not really in any danger

right now are you?”. Why can’t they understand

that when the stalker is physically absent she is

psychologically present?

I have worked with this paradox a lot, and over time

it has inspired me to look for moments where I have

felt safe. Breathing life into those moments, extending

them to pocket and remember for another time.

My grief or loss is difficult to see, even by myself

as I am experiencing it in real time. In reading

about loss, I came across Pauline Boss’s work on

ambiguous loss. She describes ambiguous loss as

“a loss that remains unclear and without official

verification or immediate resolution which may

never be achieved”. Quoting Gilder Radner, she

adds,“Some stories do not have a clear beginning,

middle or end”.

That about sums it up.

I do find myself immersed in ambiguity and a

strange sense of loss. A kind of loss that has marked

me with an inky sadness. Because others do not see

the loss or the uncertainty I live with, this kind of

ambiguity has created a disenfranchised grief, and

whilst all loss is stressful, clearer losses are losses

that are validated or visible, ambiguous loss is

grief on ice, where you wait for things to get back

to normal. But there is no going back, there is no

closure, there is no normal.

Ambiguous loss can also become traumatic because

the loss is something that you cannot see. The

trauma results from this ambiguity, from feeling

stuck or powerless, worthless, overwhelmed and

without help.

I have accepted that she will not stop. That was

a relief actually, I wasted a lot of years trying to

stop her and believing that she would stop. I put

down all efforts to try and control her, or get others

to manage her behaviour. I know from personal

experience growing up with my mother, that if

you are enmeshed with someone who has a mental

health issue, you are controlled by that mental health

issue. There is no understanding, no predicting,

no reasoning, no way to escape its randomness or

cruelty. The best one can do under such duress is to

learn how to see around corners.

Let me be clear, there is no comparison between

the stalker and my mother. I knew and loved my

mother. She was ruthlessly impossible and wretched,

but there was reciprocity, I had a relationship with

her. She gave me life. I did not, and do not know

the stalker and do not have, and have never had, a

relationship with her. As much as she seeks to be,

she is not relevant to me.

Now that there, is the head fuck. Everything I

do; say; don’t do and don’t say; my friends; my

art practice; even what I wear, is collected and

stitched into her delusion. Every loop of thread is

an attempt to be relevant and insinuate herself into

my life. I am a modern prometheus, Frankenstein’s

monster. A monster she has made up; a monster she

blames and resents with a dangerous bitterness; a

monster she seeks intimacy with through repeated,

unwanted intrusions. A monster that has, over time,

sent her into psychosis after psychosis because—to

quote her—I have “ruined her life”, “stolen her

motherhood and children”, “sexually assaulted her”

or “pity-fucked her”. A monster that will ultimately

be destructive to its maker.

I have also accepted that I do not want closure,

because closure won’t happen. There is no closure

on this one. It cannot take me back in time. I

remember to remember, that although people tell

me not to be stressed, or to let it rule my life, my

anxiety and despair is not a psychiatric disorder, it

is a normal response to an abnormal situation—the

not knowing, the lack of information, the confusion,

the injustice, the aloneness, the mad-making lies and

gossip, the violation of being sexualised, the fear of

the unknown, the lack of systemic support and the

lack of certainty.

I live with uncertainty, every day. I am told—to

quote a lawyer—“You just have to put up with it”.

I’m told, because I don’t want to leave the NT, I

have to learn to live in a town that is safe and unsafe

at the same time. To survive it, I chose to increase

my tolerance to this ambiguity. Face it head on. The

result is my show, We need to talk about the Stalker.

I began by exploring my fears—and in particular—

how I felt when I considered the fact that one day

she might kill me. It is not as bad as you think. It

did bring out the best in me.

Acceptance is not collapsing. Acceptance is the

beginning of enquiry, connectivity, creative curiosity,

and action. Acceptance also brings clarity and

insight into the experience—especially a traumatic

one. Acceptance had turned my experience into an

equaliser. Placing me in other peoples shoes.

One day, as I wrote and mused, I asked myself,

“When I describe my ambiguous loss who else am

I describing? A list began to form in my mind. And

it grew and continues to grow. Curiously, the more

this list has expanded, the more love I feel (that was

a surprise).

Here are some that I have put into words:

I am describing the ambiguous loss of a child or

partner of an addict who is physically present but

psychologically absent.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of a child who

is unsafe.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of being

homesick or dispossessed.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of people

disappearing without resolution.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of giving up a

child or having your child taken away.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of being in a

war zone. Gaza, where your culture and family are

annihilated, dismembered in front of a silent world.

I am describing the ambiguous and gradual loss of

mobility, of friends and family members due to old

age and/or illness.

I am describing the cascade of ambiguous losses that

was Covid. Loved ones dying alone in hospitals with

no family members, family members in quarantine

unable to attend the bedside of dying parents;

deaths without funerals, loss of businesses, homes,

ceremonies, rituals, education, friendships, freedom

and trust in authority, trust in science, politicians and

in a world that was once safe and predictable

I am describing the ambiguous loss caused by

Artificial Intelligence.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of siblings

whose families are irrevocably broken apart by bitter

inheritance disputes.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of estrangement.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of suicide.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of bullying.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of incest

and murder.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of covert sexual

assault, where the advance is sexual in nature,

unsolicited and has a negative impact on the person

experiencing it but is difficult to prove.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of family,

credibility, community, or faith because people are

born queer or in a body that does not feel like home.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of climate

change. Direct results such as catastrophic floods,

heatwaves, fire, tectonic eruptions, melting glaciers

and landslides, loss of homes, environment, animals,

birds, insects. Indirect results via systemic causes

of climate change—the most ambiguous of grief

because it is paradoxical. Splitting our minds,

as causation is difficult to define, governments

repeatedly failing to act, institutions selling us

out for the dollar, and our links to and roles in

this system make it impossible to know who to be

angry with or how to grieve the loss of it, or how to

affect change.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of our

democratic systems as they fall prey to fascism

and technology.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of our lives

and communities to billion dollar data centre and

capitalistic driven developments.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of control of our

livelihood to the few and super wealthy.

I am describing the ambiguous loss, the dreadful

compounded loss and grief we all bear when we see

that things we love are falling apart.

I am describing the ambiguous and unresolved

loss and grief of racism, the ongoing slaughter by

racial politics and bureaucracy. Lifetimes of being

diminished and rendered irrelevant through the

denial of country and critical experiences of culture,

lies, murder, rape, theft and incarceration. A death by

a thousand cuts scorching generations. Unspeakable

because of its multi dimensional and dynamic

momentum, reaching from the past into the present

and shaping the future before it happens.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of misogyny,

of living in a cock forest. It starts and ends with

misogyny. You don’t need to mansplain the paradox

of being safe and unsafe at the same time to young

girls and women.

I am describing the ambiguous loss of every woman

who has walked into a police station and said: I think

my partner or husband is going to kill me.”

And you all know how that turns out.

My point is, I am describing our humaneness, our

vulnerabilities, our shared pain, and I am facing it,

and not everything that is faced can be changed,

but learning to live with the ambiguity and the

paradoxes—whilst it doesn’t make the stalker’s

behaviour right, legal or safe—has created a

resilience in me and a tender-heartedness towards all

humans who are living with this same kind of loss.

Thank you

Opening Speech by © Samantha Bowden

We need to talk about the stalker by Therese Ritchie

Northern Centre for Contemporary Art

3 Vimy Lane, Parap, Northern Territory, Australia

9 October–14 November 2026

Good evening

Here we are, on unceded Larrakia Country, sitting

and standing outside, in the build up.

The air con is on inside, so I’ll make this short.

Therese, thank you for asking me to open We need to

talk about the Stalker. It really is an honour.

Your gift to our community through this body of

work, will live on in the local and global canon

of creative responses to the unending horrors of

violence against women and queers.

We need to talk about the Stalker is about the crime

of sexually violent stalking experienced over a 20

plus year period by one woman, here in Darwin.

Welcome to the crime scene.

You’re all part of this story now, this story of

sexually violent stalking has no ending.

Tonight you arrived as witnesses.

By the time you leave, you may find

yourselves implicated.

The subject of the sexually violent stalking is the

artist, Therese Ritchie.

She lives here in Darwin.

You know her.

She’s why you are here.

In We need to talk about the Stalker, Therese asks us

to come with her to witness what she and others who

are stalked live with every moment of every day.

We need to talk about the Stalker has been legalled.

Its glorious images tell the stories and impacts

on one woman being stalked by another, here in

Darwin, for over 20 years.

Like the stalking, the work documents, it repeats,

it accumulates.

Like the stalking, it doesn’t end.

It goes around and around.

It surrounds you.

There’s nowhere to hide.

You’re in the crime scene, you’re reading the

evidence. You’re becoming the evidence.

You may feel uncomfortable with what you

encounter inside.

Try and feel Therese’s generosity in her images,

have your consciousness raised by them, by her.

Stay with it.

She has to.

As you will soon see, read and feel, the stalker’s

choices and actions are sexually violent.

They are homophobic.

They are misogynistic.

They are scary.

They are unrelenting.

They are an extreme expression of power

and entitlement.

They are an extreme refusal to accept her autonomy.

After twenty plus years of reporting, explaining,

and living with the stalker, in We need to talk about

the Stalker Therese turns her experiences and

observations into form.

She turns evidence into something that can be seen,

felt and shared.

She asks us, when is a crime not a crime?

She asks us, where does justice reside if not in the

justice system?

She asks us to consider the ordinary, normalised

instances of individual, state and tech bro

surveillance that every day we accept, that we invite

into our lives, into our homes, into our pockets.

Therese explains that stalking is not simply about an

individual perpetrator and an individual victim. She

shows us how stalking reaches into our communities

and our institutions.

At the individual level we all engage in stalking

like behaviours.

We like posts.

We want to be seen to like posts.

We follow people.

We want people to follow us. To like us.

We want to know where somebody is, what they’re

doing, who they’re doing it with, and why they

haven’t replied to us.

At the systemic level, stalking exists within a

culture of surveillance and control enacted through

legislation, AI, publicly funded and privately

operated physical security on our streets and digital

surveillance in the cyber waves around us. And of

course, especially here in the Northern Territory,

stalking exists within this police state.

We need to talk about the Stalker asks us to

recognise the state sanctioned culture of stalking

and surveillance, how it is legislated for, what the

long term implications of it are, and how companies

and governments profit from it—here in the NT and

around the world.

Therese asks us to confront another

uncomfortable reality.

When will the stalking stop?

The evidence tells us the stalking is likely to stop

only when either the stalked or the stalker no longer

draws breath.

This is because the stalker will not stop, and neither

the stalked nor the state can stop her.

Therese is being stalking right now.

The stalking will not stop when we move into

the gallery.

It will not stop when this show is packed up and the

next one is on the walls behind us.

It will not stop because we want it to.

It will not stop because she wants it to.

The stalking will continue tonight when you’re

having dinner.

Tomorrow morning when you have breakfast.

When you see Therese at the markets on Sunday.

When you go to her next exhibition.

When the magpie geese leave.

When the dragonflies arrive.

When another election comes and goes

So in closing, what can we do to make the

stalking stop?

As a community, we have the power to create the

conditions for a different story in the future.

We can believe Therese.

We can believe her work.

We can believe that the state cannot stop the stalker.

We can do better for people who are being stalked.

Instead of asking

But why is she stalking you?

What did you do to her?

We can say, I believe you.

We can say, I will do my best to remember that you

live with a stalker every minute of every day.

When we forget she has a stalker we can say, I’m

sorry, I forgot you have a stalker. I believe you. I

know the stalker didn’t go away.

Instead of saying, go to the police.

They will help you.

We can believe her when she says the police can’t

help her.

And when she does have to go to the police, because

she does have to go to the police, we can go with her

so she doesn’t have to be alone to hear the police say

We can’t help you.

But if you were in a relationship with her, we could

help you.

But if you feared for your life, we could help you.

So just stay safe, put up CCTV cameras, and get on

with your life.

Instead of saying if only the loophole in section 77

of the NT Mental Health Act was fixed!

We can say, thanks Therese for pointing out the

loophole that is section 77 of the NT Mental Health

Act, leave it with us, we’ll fix it!

We’ll make it an election issue!

And we won’t ask you to make the campaign

artwork for free.

To make the stalking stop, we can ask ourselves:

Who am I stalking?

Who is stalking me?

Can I put my phone down today, just for an hour?

Can I get off social media today, just for an hour?

Can I use AI just a bit less today?

In We need to talk about the Stalker, Therese doesn’t

offer easy answers.

That’s not what she does.

She does however offer us an invitation.

An invitation to pay closer attention.

To ourselves.

To each other.

To the state.

To the tech bros.

Believe her.

Believe this work.

Therese, thank you for making We need to talk about

the Stalker.

Congratulations.