This year's exhibition will focus on changes to the Territory's water supply.

"I am excited to be presented with this unique opportunity to be the next SPARK NT curator and develop my curatorial practice as a regional arts worker," she said.

"Exploring the dual role of the curator as activist appeals to me.

"As a SPARK NT curator, Artback NT has provided me with a new platform to materialise these interests through the development of a touring exhibition.

"As an emerging curator holding strong concerns for my community, I am thinking about what I can contribute and how I can implement tangible change as an arts worker. I see communalism as our only way out if the Territory is to have a liveable environment and sustainable future," Ms Ansaldo said.

Her debut curatorial project as part of the SPARK NT Curator program will be Groundswell: Recent movements within art and territory.

The exhibition is being developed for tour through the Northern Territory in 2020 and 2021.

Groundswell will showcase a selection of powerful reactions with particular focus on the creeping changes to the Territory's water supply.

The exhibition will chart these changes by grouping artistic responses thematically into the prevailing resource issues of Access, Contamination, Scarcity and Culture.

Artback NT executive officer Louise Partos said: "Groundswell is a timely and pertinent exhibition for the Territory.

"Social and political awareness of our rapidly changing climate has now reached a tipping point nationally. The narration of art within Carmen's exhibition will pose poignant questions and engender insight into the prevailing issues of our fragile environment."

Groundswell will feature more than twenty works by Northern Territory artists including Jacky Green, Kelly Lee Hickey, June Mills, Aly de Groot, Patricia Phillipus Napurrula, Winsome Jobling, Lee Harrop, Maicie Lalara, Mel Robson, Jennifer Taylor and Tarzan Jungle Queen.

Exhibited works will extend through vast geographies, perspectives and artistic mediums to stake their claim, spanning visualised data to ceramics, oil painting to recycled sculpture and printmaking to stand-up comedy. The commonality however, is their shared determination to bridge the message of each individual artist to the collective shared concerns of the Territory's citizens.

Carmen Ansaldo currently works at Katherine Regional Arts and organises the Darwin Free University.

She has worked in remote and regional art centres within the Northern Territory and Western Australia, as well as major arts institutions such as the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art.

Groundswell: Recent movements within art and territory will tour the Northern Territory from September 2020 to May 2021.

Venues include Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin; Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts & Culture Centre, Katherine; Nyinkka Nyunyu, Tennant Creek and Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs.

While you're with us, you can now receive updates straight to your inbox each Friday at 6am from the Katherine Times. To make sure you're up to date with all the news, sign up here.