here & there

Last Friday fellow Canberran, Sharon Peoples, and I were in Sydney for the opening of our group exhibition, Here & There, together with shibori-artist extraordinaire, Barbara Rogers, at her gallery, Barometer, in Paddington.

Barbara Rogers (left) talking to Jane Burns at the Here & There opening

Here & There responds to the concept of time and place - of being in one geographical location whilst making work about a distant other - about our experiences of dislocation and displacement as artists.

For me, this occurred during my 3-month Asialink residency at Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia in 2013.  I was busy making work about Canberra for my exhibition Natural Wonders ( Narek Galleries in 2013) in the heat and humidity of a tropical home-away-from-home. My thoughts about Canberra, in particular Pialligo and Aranda were more distilled and defined despite the thousands of kilometres between us. It seemed that distance enabled me to envision and articulate my thoughts on home with more clarity.

Seasonal Variations I-IV - Julie Ryder

For Sharon Peoples, her pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostella provided the inspiration for new work about walking and thinking, about slowing down to absorb the details of her immediate environment. This camino resulted in her solo exhibition Habitus ( Narek Galleries in 2014).  Sharon states that the word habitus can refer to 'second nature', and that for her embroidery is part of her identity - she embroiders every day. The repetitive and meditative nature of embroidery reflected her camino through Spain - in both walking and embroidering Sharon truly engaged her whole self.

Installation of Sharon People's work in Here &There

For Barbara Rogers, inspiration came from trips to Japan to investigate different methods of shibori. Over many years Barbara has experimented and refined her personal interpretation of carved board clamped resist shibori,  called itajime gasuri.  This technique results in an ikat-like patterning on woven cloth, however Roger's inspiration for this new body of work was found in Meisen silk kimono produced from the 1920's -1950's. Her modern interpretation is bold and graphic, which belies the complicated technique used to produce it.

Barbara Rogers' complex itajime gasuri

We were most fortunate to have Professor Jessica Hemmings officially open the exhibition. Jessica is in Australia for a short time to exhibit the Migrations exhibition (see previous post); to travel and speak in other institutions and to participate in DESIGN Canberra as part of Design Buzz as well as concentrating on writing...and running!

Jessica Hemmings (centre) with Barbara Rogers (L) and Sharon Peoples (R)

We thank her so much for her insightful comments during her opening speech and look forward to hearing her talk with indigenous designer, Lucy Simpson, as part of Design Buzz on 24th November.

Here & There continues until November 28th.

Opening Hours are 11 - 5pm,   Wednesday - Saturday

For those of you who can't make it to Sydney, we will be showing an extended version of Here & There at the Belconnen Arts Centre in April-May 2016

Migrations @ COFA

Jacarandas in full bloom in Oxford St, Paddington....

I had a fleeting visit to Sydney this week to give a talk about my work and to attend the opening of the Migrations exhibition at COFA.  This exhibition has literally travelled the world - from Dublin, Bergen, Omaha, Miami, London, Cape Town and now Sydney. Curated by Professor Jessica Hemmings, editor of 'Cultural Threads: transnational textiles today', this exhibition evolves on each leg of the journey as Jessica packs selected pieces into her hand-luggage and wings her way across the globe, aptly illustrating her writings about the transportability of textiles.

Liz Williamson at the COFA seminar

It was great to catch up with Jessica again at the Seminar and to attend the opening of the Migrations exhibition. It was also wonderful to hear from Liz and students Blake Griffiths and Jennifer Goodwin about their experiences as interns in India.  In the foyer gallery Cultural Textiles : rug project was on display, with design work and some woven rugs by a recent trip to India by Liz Williamson and her students. This was part of the Cultural Textiles fieldwork course conducted in Gujarat in Jan/Feb 2015.

The student's designs were block printed in natural dyes by Sufiyan Khatri in his Ajarkh workshop in Ajarakhpur  in Kutch.

Migrations Exhibition Dublin

As a follow-on from the Cultural Threads: Transnational Textiles Today book launch and symposium that I attended in London earlier this year, Jessica Hemmings has included several of my works in an exhibition, Migrations,  that opens at the National College of Art in Dublin in two days time. If you are in the vicinity, please find this invitation to the opening.

The portability of textiles - the ease with which they move around the globe- and their hybrid position within the worlds of craft, design and art make them particularly apt carriers of culture.  Alongside this portability is the reality that the textile often exists as a multiple.  While versions roam, others stay closer to home.  

Migrations travels throughout 2015 (America, Ireland, Australia) and explores the notion of textiles as carriers of multiple cultural influences put forth in the accompanying publication Cultural Threads: transnational textiles today  (Boomsbury: 2015). Brought together are contemporary artists, designers and an author who all work at the intersection of cultures and use multiple, portable textiles as their vehicle.
 

Jessica Hemmings curator of Migrations & editor of Cultural Threads