How is Weaving Past, Present, Futures?
Elisa Jane Carmichael
Masters of Fine Art
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
2017
2 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Abstract
I am a descendant of the Quandamooka people from Minjerribah and Moorgumpin, North Stradbroke and
Moreton Island. I come from a long line of traditional women. I am a descendant of the Ngugi people, one of three clans who are the traditional custodians of Quandamooka, known as Yoolooburrabee – people of the sand and sea. This project explores the potential of applying traditional weaving techniques in creating a con- temporary form of fashion that acknowledges the strength and structure of our weaving practices. In the past, our weaving practices supported our ancestors in daily life and activity. In the present day, its importance re- mains and continues to strengthen into the future. The central aim of this investigation and creative practice is to acknowledge that woven forms of dress from the lands of Australia have existed for tens of thousands of years in the past, at present, and continuing into the future. This informs my desire to develop work that acknowledges intergenerational weaving techniques that fashioned the first forms of Australian textiles and body adornments. The resulting collection of my woven garments is thus both a cultural expression and a polit- ical statement. This paper will conclude with a brief introduction to my contribution to Indigenous Australian
Fashion as a practicing Indigenous visual artist.
3 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Keywords
Aboriginal dress, Australian fashion, Coiling, Colonisation, Contemporary Art, Cultural appropriation, Cultural heritage, Cultural practices, Indigenous Art, Indigenous fashion, Looping, Indigenous Fibre art, String,
Traditional practices, Twining, Visual arts, Weaving
4 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Table of Contents
List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6
Statement of Authorship………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………………………………..8
Preface……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9
Chapter 1
1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………….15
1.2 Methodology………………………………………………………………………...………………………19
Chapter 2
2.1 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………………………………..23
2.2 Contextual Review…………………………………………………………………………………………37
2.2 Discussion of Practice……………………………………………………………………………………..42
Chapter 3
3.1 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………..51
3.2 Appendix of Research and Creative Practice Events and Exhibitions…………………..………… 54
3.3 Appendix of Exhibitions Researched…………………………………………………………………….58
3.4 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………59
3.5 Interviewees ………………………………………………………………………………………………..62
5 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
List of Figures
Figure 1. Knotted looping diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage..………………..…….. 24 Figure 2. Knotted looping diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage………………………….24 Figure 3. Knotted looping diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage………………………….25 Figure 4. Distribution of knot forms from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage………………………....25 Figure 5. Knotted looping diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage………………………….25 Figure 6. Diagram of looping techniques from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage……………..…... 25 Figure 7. Diagram of looping techniques from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage…………….…….26 Figure 8. Diagram of looping techniques from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage……………….….26 Figure 9. Knotted and knotless netting diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage.….………26 Figure 10. Looping diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage…..…………………….……….26 Figure 11. Loop-and-twist Diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage………..…………….....26 Figure. 12.Knot and loop stitching diagram from West, 2006, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage………………..27 Figure 13. Cycle of life, Bronwyn Bancroft. 1987………………………………………………………………..……..…….…..38 Figure 14. Wingreeguu, Shirley Macnamara, 2012……………………………………………………………………….…..… 39 Figure 15. A Woman’s Rite of Passage, Glenda Nicholls, 2015………………………………………………………………..40 Figure 16. Examples of process and materials…………………………………………………………………………………...44 Figure 17. Examples of various techniques of looping, coiling and twining using Yunngaire……………………….……… 45 Figure 18. Madonna Bra, Margaret Rarru, 2006……………………………………………………………………………….…46 Figure 19. Visiting our Quandamooka basket and bag at Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford United Kingdom…………………..47 Figure 20. Gathering Strands, Yunngaire Weavers, Redlands Art Gallery…………………………………………………… 48 Figure 21. Visiting our Quandamooka bags at the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum …………………….49 Figure 22. Gathering Yunggaire on country with my Grandmother and Mother………………………………………………50
6 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? Statement of Original Authorship
The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no mate- rial previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.
Signature: QUT Verified Signature
Date: June 2017
7 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to respectfully acknowledge our Elders of the past, our Elders of the present who shared
their stories with me for this project, and our Elders of the future who will continue to share these words.
I would like to thank my head supervisor Kathleen Horton of the School of Design, Creative Industries at
Queensland University of Technology for her endless help, support and encouragement in guiding me through
my research, writing and creative practice on this project over the past two years. Also, my two other project
supervisors Kevin O’Brien and Jennifer Craik. Thank you all for allowing me to keep my own voice and for
steering me in the right direction for this project.
Thank you to my grandmother, mother and my sister for sharing your knowledge with me.
I would also like to acknowledge Alethea Beetson, Imelda Miller, Sylvia Cockbourn of Queensland Museum,
Diane Moon and Ruth Mcdougal of QAOMGA, Jane Wilcock of University of Queensland Anthropology
Museum, the team at Gilimbaa, Tasha Lamb of the Australian Museum and Nicholas Crowe of Pitt Rivers
Museum.
Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my family, extended family, work colleagues and friends
for providing me with support and continuous encouragement throughout the last two years of my study and
creative practice for this project. Without them, this accomplishment would not have been possible.
Thank you.
Elisa Jane Carmichael
8 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Preface
Oral histories and stories shared with Elders, family and community have framed my research practice. Over the years, I have actively participated in community events and weaving circles on Quandamooka Country where our weaving stories and traditions have been collectively exchanged. In the past, our weaving practices supported our ancestors in daily life and activity. In the present day their importance remains and continues to strengthen into the future.
The knowledge and words of our Elders reflect this continuous and cyclical relationship and these insights inform my study. Engaging in these precious accounts and recollections has been an important aspect of my work, and attests to the cultural, historical and spiritual significance of weaving practices. Quandamooka weaver, Aunty Donna Page, expresses the continuing relevance,
Weaving is a healing. It’s like I belong to it and it belongs to me. It’s something that even though what has been taken from us…. You know like the language and what ancestors used to do over on Straddie… it’s still like it belongs. As soon as I picked it up and worked with it, it was like, there it is. I love it. It’s a really healing process for me (Page, 2016).
Aunty Donna continues to weave with our traditional fibre, Yunggaire (swamp reed), as well as employing different techniques and new materials. As an Elder and Quandamooka community member, she ensures her knowledge and skills are transmitted,
I see myself as an Elder, and what’s important to me is that weaving doesn’t belong to one person. It belongs to all and we as Elders, need to pass it down and that’s why it stopped for one generation. From my grandmother to my mother because they were told not to use and speak language and do any of the cultural things that they were taught and what was of our people (Page, 2016).
My mother Sonja Carmichael is also a Quandamooka weaver and researcher who actively shares her understandings both within our local community and the broader community. An important aspect of her work is honouring the weaving practices of our ancestors,
9 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
It’s important to reflect on our old practice of our old looped bags made by our ancestors pre- contact which I call - before the burn and then colonisation - the burn and the impact of that on our traditional practices and now in the spirit of regenerating our weaving and reconnecting - after the burn (Carmichael, 2016).
The traditional Quandamooka flat bags (the old looped bags which Sonja refers to) incorporated a distinct looping and knotting approach that was unique to our place of belonging. As Sonja notes, since colonisation the imparting of weaving knowledge surrounding these traditions has been seriously impacted and consequently Sonja is currently researching their regeneration,
The only existing evidence I guess of our old bags is in museum collections. They tell the stories. They are full of knowledge… they hold the stories and the knowledge of who made them so we are working on regenerating that…the techniques are unique to our place of belonging on Quandamooka country. The diagonal loop and knot, a non continuous beautiful piece of Yunngaire reed…which is unique to Stradbroke island and is in many museum collections…they all have that distinct beautiful looped technique which is very hard to work out how to do today and that’s why we want to rediscover this so that we can retain that not only looking at the knot… but also the object itself holds that connection to the past which was broken with colonisation. The practice of the knot was replaced during the mission times with a universal technique of coiling (Carmichael, 2016).
My Grandmother and Quandamooka Elder, Aunty Joan Hendriks, also shares the importance of traditional
Quandamooka weaving practices, and how these practices have endured through adaptation,
It’s particularly important to have it… Quandamooka weaving is based initially on the Quandamooka historical weaving; the weaving that was the tool of trade since time immemorial until contact in this country. Today we see both traditional and contemporary weaving, that’s part of the world today, bringing together the old and the new. Stradbroke has rich history of having early settlement here, being colonised and of course a lot of the culture was broken down and assimilated but at the same token the connection to the land was never lost and part of that was the weaving (Hendriks, 2016).
Similarly, Aunty Margaret Iselin remembers her time growing up on the Myora Mission. Her lived experiences reflect how weaving practices survived despite government assimilation policies where cultural practices were prohibited and access to traditional lands and natural resources was restricted.
As a young girl I went with these two grannies and for me to know all about the weaving… we had to pull all of the fronds from the Yunngaire (this is what they called it) out of the swamp to do, do the weaving, make the baskets. The baskets were made even in a couple of hours and they would be sold to the authorities for only 5 shillings but we just don’t know how much they sold them for when they took them away from us…Life on the mission was a very sad, sad place for us to live because we were under the due restriction of the government and lights out at 6 o’clock… everything was under very strict conditions for us there and I remember it. It
10 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
doesn’t make a different person of you. It makes you a better person because you don’t forget all that (Iselin, 2016).
Aunty Margaret recalls the strong women who continued to carry on our weaving tradition as she notes in the following recollection,
In my thoughts I talk about the two old grannies, wonderful people. Beautiful, with knowledge of all our work we did. You know, making the baskets, gathering the reeds all that came into it. Walking through the swamps. Through the mud and pulling out the reeds and the grannies would be saying ‘not the pink stems girlie, the white stems, always pick them, they’re stronger’. So you know all these things I haven’t forgotten… We would sit on the side of the hill and when the sun got to the top of this tree we knew it was 5 o’clock… the grannies would say, ‘come on, pack up, time to go home’ (Iselin, 2016).
Uncle Bob Anderson, Quandamooka Elder, also honours the strong women of his life and matrilineal onnections as he believes (2016), weaving is a ‘tribute to the dexterous fingers of the women’. An extract from his personal biography, History Life and Times of Robert Anderson Gheebelum, Ngugi, Mulgumpin (2001, 6), reflects the significance of women and maintaining culture,
Women have played a major part in my life. My Mother, Lydia Myee Tripcony, all my Aunties and my Grandmother, Mary Rose Tripcony, have been significant. I often reflect on the days of my boyhood, eating at the common table at the One Mile on Minjerribah when I lived with my Grandmother, where meals were served with the Grannies present, smoking their pipes and speaking softly in language. Those images constantly revisit me and are the source of my strength. During the full impact of what was happening, beginning with the colonial era - warfare, massacres, confiscation of the land, dispersal of families - somehow throughout all this they retained their capacity to endure, their elegance, serenity and dignity. In the midst of this overwhelming hardship this was remarkable and astounding.
Uncle Bob also imparted knowledge of weaving histories, providing a detailed explanation of the process involved the decorative and function woven bag (Dillybag),
Dillybags were made out of the reeds that grow by the side of the fresh water creek. They were collected by the women. They were processed and how they used to process them, they would lay out sheets of bark from the Oodgeroo tree and they’d lay the reeds out everyday in the sunshine to dry them. And when they were dry, they’d note some of them had a particular pink touch towards the end of them. So when they women were weaving the dillybags they’d be able to place that red so its a nice fine line with the distinguishing colours. The dexterous fingers showed the creative minds of the aboriginal women making all these things out of natural fibres (Anderson, 2016).
Quandamooka people are from saltwater country. As saltwater people, the sea provides us with the sustenance of food. Uncle Bob speaks of the ways prior to colonisation, where our ancestors would carry the 11 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? dilly to gather foods and carry important objects,
The quampie and the eugarie and the crab we’d get on occasions. They were sustenance that strengthened our bodies and made us the people that we are. In those days too, prior to colonisation, the only way people got to one place or another was by walking so the men and women were fit… so I’m mindful of all those things when I look at the baskets and particularly the photo of the dillybag with my grandmother Mary Rose Tripcony. My association with my grandma was that she was present when I was born… and possibly the first woman to hold me…(Anderson, 2016)
Honouring the importance of old ways, weaving practice continues today as Uncle Bob confirms (2016),
‘Weaving work is marvellous with natural materials, natural fibres and things, to sustain the people, it’s remarkable, it makes us remarkable people’.
Aunty Donna also feels our ancestors have guided the way for her to weave. She believes our ancestors would be proud that we are continuing to revive our weaving practices. When I asked Aunty Donna why weaving is important to her, she responded saying,
It’s bought a real identity of who I am…. something that weaving made me feel like was that I can do something, it wasn’t taught, it was a spiritual thing that I picked up. It was that belonging. It was that identity. In the spiritual world my ancestors would be very proud (Page, 2016).
My grandmother expressed to me the significance of our weaving practices today, as we have not lost the touch, whilst my mother too spoke of the reconnection with our ancestors and weaving practices,
The revival of our weaving is very important and reconnecting with our traditional practices which were part of everyday life in pre contact times so it is reconnecting with our ancestors… it is important to work on bringing the past back and transmitting it on to future generations (Carmichael, 2016).
Our elder, Aunty Margaret, was reflecting on her time with the grannies in our interview. During the interview, I shared sculptures I weaved with the Yunngaire through the experimentation of various techniques. I asked
Aunty Margaret where she sees the future of weaving and she replied,
You’re reviving something that no other people have ever done, you know, you’re bringing it back and it’s beautiful, lovely and it just brings memories back to me from when I was a girl (Iselin, 2016).
Our elders and our people are so proud of the Quandamooka weavers, who are regenerating our practices with both traditional and contemporary materials. Uncle Bob finished his interview reading a caption he wrote
12 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? for a photograph taken in Canberra in 2000, saying to me,
I am confident the upcoming generations will develop the skills and knowledge that will enable them to carry out their responsibilities and to honour themselves and their communities. I believe that the involvement of young people through accepting their responsibilities and development of their leadership qualities will enable them to see the richness in themselves… and that goes for you too (Anderson, 2016).
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14 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
1.1 Introduction
I begin this paper, honouring our Ancestors and acknowledging our Elders, past, present and future. I am a descendant of the Quandamooka people from Minjerribah and Moorgumpin, North Stradbroke and Moreton
Island. I come from a long line of traditional women, a descendant of the Ngugi people, one of three clans who are the traditional custodians of Quandamooka, known as Yoolooburrabee – people of the sand and sea. I have been a practicing visual artist from a young age. My creative practice traverses a range of mediums. The application of traditional weaving is anchored in my culture and my family is very passionate about the revival and regeneration of our weaving practices. Through the development of my weaving skills, my research contextualises my creative practice, drawing on both oral histories of my respected Quandamooka Elders and the cultural significance of weaving practices across Australia. My practice-led research investigates traditional weaving techniques as a mode of contemporary fashion whilst acknowledging the strength and structure of our techniques as the first forms of Australian adornments and textiles. In addition, my research also contextualises questions pertaining to western constructs of Indigenous fashion and how this in turn is connected to questions of Australian national identity. After researching the history of Australian fashion, I became confronted by the
cultural appropriations of Indigenous Australian motifs in fashion and the way in which this is understood and represented internationally as ‘Indigenous Australian Fashion’. I was also struck by the lack of recognition of the social histories of Indigenous dress in Australian fashion. The central aim of this investigation and creative practice is to acknowledge that woven forms of dress from the lands of Australia have existed for tens of thousands of years in the past, at present, continuing into the future.
Oral histories of my Elders have taught me that woven bags and baskets were a significant cultural form and that woven techniques formed garments, ornaments and ritual adornments. Various methods of twining, looping, knotting, coiling and string-making are the traditional techniques used to weave a diverse range of baskets and bags. In my creative practice, I have adapted these same techniques into woven garments of contemporary dress for the body. In doing so I acknowledge their cultural significance as a garment, ornament and ritual
15 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? adornment. Therefore my practice is a contribution to the development of authentic Indigenous Australian fashion. The resulting collection of my woven garments is thus both a cultural expression and a political statement.
Traditionally our bags and baskets were typically referred to as dillybags in Australian English language and
Bunbi in our Jandai language. These sacred objects reflect a deep connection between our people and specific places that has been central to Aboriginal identities for at least 60,000 years. Dillybags were one of the most important belongings to our Quandamooka people. As relayed by our Minjerribah and Moorgumpin Elders
(1998,20) ,
One of the most valued possessions of Quandamooka people who traded with people from the mainland or other islands was our dillybags. They were elaborate, intricate, decorative and functional. The weaving included plaiting and knotting ...using Yunggaire, chosen for its suppleness and strength...The reed varied in colour along its length and careful knots brought the colour into diagonal patterns. Berries were sometimes used to dye the reeds to vary the colour.
Ethnographic research over 150 years (Hamby and Mellor, 2000, Roth, 1901, West, 2006) shows fibrous objects and creations of traditional dress and ways of life for Aboriginal people were crucial to the sustenance of life in material and spiritual ways. Demonstrations of the sophistication of Aboriginal dress are visible in traditional forms of rock art, European sketches and photography. Jones (2011, 24) acknowledges, ‘visual records provide another rich source of data about Aboriginal clothing’. However, as a result of colonisation, traditional ways of life were significantly suppressed, stripping Aboriginal people of identity, forced to adopt the European way of life. Kleinert (2010, 4) noted that ‘colonial officials dispensed government clothing with the result that in the first decades of settlement, traditional clothing had almost completely disappeared’. Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people were moved to missions or reserves. Colonial dress became the everyday dress for our ancestors. Myora Mission, a government controlled mission located on Quandamooka country from 1892-1940 severely impacted on our people, who were relocated and prohibited from cultural practices. However, some traditional practices of weaving continued as reminiscences of weaving stories were recorded (Borey, 1984) including:
Aunty Charlotte Richards (nee Queary) – when my Granny Dungoo made baskets, the reeds 16 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
she used grew not far from where we lived, we would gather these reeds which we called noongies from the swamp...We always gathered the ones which were a pink colour stretching from the roots to about halfway up the reed. (1984, 21)
Aunty Sylvia Iselin – on my visits out to the Mission I can remember Granny Nooinya taking us out to collect rushes for her dillybags, we would gather the reeds from the swamp and then she would dry them out. After they were dry she would roll them on her leg to form a twine and then roll this twine up and use it as she needed it.(1984, 15)
Also, in the Myora Mission Cemetery publication (1984), Aunty Bethel Delaney refers to the European dress she saw her people wearing when she was growing up and remembers that basket weaving was still being done on the island at the time:
Their clothing was made of prints and flannel, the dresses were ground length with big frills on the bottom and the men wore cotton trousers, flannel shirts, also each person had 1 blanket per person….Granny Dungoo’s basket making was so fine and neat that it reminded me of lace. (1984, 23)
Aunty Bethel’s comment speaks to the material culture of both colonisation and traditional weaving practices and thus to a complex history of cultural inheritance, all of which informs my project.
Another highly respected Quandamooka Elder, Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1970, 84), expresses her yearning for traditional ways in the poem, Then and Now (1970) that also includes a reference to some of the ways that clothing and dress are deeply connected to cultural identity,
Then and Now
In my dreams I hear my tribe Laughing as they hunt and swim But dreams are shattered by rushing car, By grinding tram and hissing train, And I see no more my tribe of old As I walk alone in the teeming town. I have seen corroboree Where the factory belches smoke; Here where they have memorial park One time lubras dug for yams; One time our dark children played There where the railway yards are now, And where I remember the didgeridoo Calling to us to dance and play, Offices now, neon lights now, Bank and shop and advertisement now, 17 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Traffic and trade of the busy town. No more woomera, no more boomerang, No more play about, no more the old ways. Children of nature we were then, No clocks hurrying crowds to toil. Now I am civilized and work in the white way, Now I have dress, now I have shoes: 'Isn’t she lucky to have a good job!' Better when I have only a dillybag. Better when I had nothing but happiness.
As I see it, dillybags and woven objects hold the touch of our ancestors hands. These sacred objects and oral histories hold the knowledge, skillful techniques and connection with our ancestral hands that binds our weaving traditions today. Reflecting on the words of my elders, and knowing that our weaving practices have struggled to continue, I feel this impact and importance of reviving our weaving through my emerging practice. As a young artist today, the words of our Elders, the weaving practices, and skills of our ancestors inspire me. They inform my desire to develop work that acknowledges traditional weaving techniques, through intergenerational histories, fashioning the first forms of Australian textiles and body adornments.
1.2 Methodology
18 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
The broad methodological approach I have applied in this project draws on the work of Linda Tuhiwai Smith
(1999), who has developed an Indigenous research framework based on theories of decolonisation. My re- search decolonises western constructs of Indigenous dress and adornments as I have applied Indigenous re- search methods to form this practice-led research project and my creative practice. Following Smith, my pro- ject considers our people’s contextual histories, politics and cultural position. The practices involved in my pro- ject are grounded in tradition and the present. I have also adopted an interpretive research practice. As Denzin and Lincoln (2008,5) suggest,
Interpretive research practices turn the world into a series of performances and representations including case study documents, critical personal experience, narratives, life stories, field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings and memos to the self. These performances create space for critical, collaborative, dialogical work. They bring the researchers and their research participants into a shared, critical space, a space where the work of resistance, critique and empowerment can occur.
Therefore, personal experience, narratives, life stories, conversation, photographs, critical and collaborative methods are key methods in my practice. My work has developed after the lived experiences, which occur in my daily life and have occurred in my family’s lives for hundreds of years. My practice is a result of yarning with my family and reflecting in action. Through social yarning and collaborative yarning, conversations be- came research topic yarning. As Dawn Bessarab and Bridget Ng’andu (2010) explain,
Social yarning - ‘conversation that takes place before the research or topic yarn is informal and often unstructured, follows a meandering course that is guided by the topic that both people choose to introduce into the discussion’. Collaborative yarning - ‘yarn that occurs between two or more people where they are actively engaged in sharing information about a research project and or a discussion about ideas’. Research topic yarning - ‘conversation with a purpose. The purpose is to obtain information relating to the research question’.
Through the various methods of yarning comes the method of storytelling. As Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999, 144) argues, Storytelling, oral histories, the perspectives of elders and of women have become an integral part of all Indigenous research. Each individual story is powerful. But the point about the stories is not that they simply tell a story, or tell a story simply. These new stories contribute to a collective story in which every Indigenous person has a place.
19 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
My creative practice is full of stories of our culture as each weave tells its own story. My work is educative through action research. I have actioned my research through sharing my own stories in my creative output as my practice-led approach is based on a studio art practice which is experimental and reflective. As Malins and
Gray (1995, 3) note, ‘the informed intimate perspective of the reflective practitioner leads to a greater degree of insight that is only possible from experiential, 'tacit' knowledge’. I have worked directly with a range of mate- rials in constructing visual art works such as paintings on canvas, digital experimentation as well as the main focus of my practice to create forms and structures that dress the body. Of particular relevance is the way in which I have used traditional weaving techniques as a mode of contemporary fashion to share my research and to acknowledge the strength and structures of our traditional weaving practices in Australia. The tech- niques I have used in my practice were traditionally used to weave baskets, bags and many other diverse ob- jects. Hamby (2010, 10) acknowledges ‘the language used in describing making baskets is the same language that is used in creating children. Creating in a biological sense and the process of making a basket has lan- guage in common’. I have reflected on these techniques through the methods of deconstruction and recon- struction by translating them into my own unique woven forms, creating works developed through experimen- tation, using tacit knowledge that only my hands can demonstrate. As Nithikul Nimkulrat (2012) wrote,
With the slow pace of a craft making process, the practitioner-researcher is able to generate ‘reflection-in-action’ and document the process. Positioning craft practice in a research context can facilitate the reflection and articulation of knowledge generated from within the researcher- practitioner’s artistic experience. The procedural and experiential knowledge thus becomes ex- plicit as a written text and/or as visual representations.
Whilst reflecting in action, I have used the methods of the spirit of creating to share my stories through experimental weaving practices and my imagination to solve the problem of my research question. As Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999, 158) states,
The project of creating is not just about the artistic endeavours of individuals but about the spirit of creating which Indigenous communities have exercised over thousands of years. Imagination enables people to rise above their own circumstances, to dream new visions and to hold on to old ones. It fosters inventions and discoveries, facilitates simple improvements to people’s lives and uplifts our spirits. Creating is not the exclusive domain of the rich nor of the technologically superior, but of the imaginative.
20 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
My creative practice has been exhibited in Brisbane, Cairns, Adelaide and Virginia (United States of America).
The works have been presented as art works as well as worn on the body in the context of fashion perfor- mances.
My project is partly contextualised through historical records and artefacts, employing methods drawn from qualitative research practices in the arts and humanities. This includes investigating historical texts and photo- graphs of traditional weaving to gain knowledge about the history of the diverse range of weaving techniques, its uses, significance and materials. Through visiting museum collections throughout Australia such as North
Stradbroke Island Historical Museum, Queensland Museum, University of Queensland Museum, Australian
Museum, Melbourne Museum and, internationally, the British Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum (United
Kingdom) I have engaged in artefact analysis. As Jones (2011, 23) states, ‘museum collections provide unde- niable evidence that categories of Aboriginal clothing exist, even if these categories have been poorly dis- cussed or described in ethnographic literature’. Knowledge drawn from these sources not only provides my project with scholarly depth, it also works as inspiration providing me with a heightened aesthetic understand- ing of the materiality of textile based practices.
My practice analysis draws on examples covered in the survey exhibitions listed in the literature review. I have investigated the work of key contemporary practitioners working in the fields of textiles, weaving, visual art and fashion by exploring the methods, techniques and conceptual frameworks of these practitioners. My practice has involved a range of material investigations that have taken place both in my home studio and at Strad- broke Island. These include processes and methods that pertain to research, design and inspiration, those re- lating to fabrication and others that relate to documentation and display. While I list all of these methods sepa- rately it is important to note that these methods often occur simultaneously or in unison.
As this research project is examining ideas of fashion and dress across various cultural contexts I would like to define two key terms as I have used them in this project. Dress is a broad term that usually refers to the full
21 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? range of human adornment and coverings and also refers to the range of practices associated with of “adorn- ing the body” (Jenss, 2016, 5). Consequently, dress is the term that anthropologists studying ’traditional and or non- Western societies’ have routinely used (Entwistle, 2001, 2). Fashion on the other hand is a term that is usually associated with specifically Western forms of dress and the capitalist system of production and con- sumption that drives the constant changes in style over time. However, as Entwistle (2001) and more recently, Rocamora and Smelik (2016) note the term fashion has come to take on broader meanings in recent times – and is coming to supplant dress. Therefore, in seeking to make a contribution to the idea of Australian Indige- nous fashion I am willfully seeking to contribute to a broader understanding of fashion as both a ‘material cul- ture and as a symbolic system’ (Kawamura, 2005) that is constantly evolving not simply because of the pres- sure of consumer culture and capitalism, but also due to cultural exchange, creative innovation and critical in- quiry.
2.1 Literature Review
22 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
My research is a practice-led project drawing on traditional Indigenous knowledge pertaining specifically to weaving and dress. My literature draws on associated art fields, anthropological studies, contemporary craft/ textile practice and Australian fashion studies. This literature review specifically draws on publications pub- lished by museums and art galleries and key texts that examine the intersection of Indigenous culture and tex- tiles including texts that examine the historical practices of weaving across Australia, Indigenous dress and the revival of weaving practices.
This literature review covers three interlocking areas. Firstly, it establishes the significance of weaving as a traditional cultural form. Secondly, it provides examples of innovative practices, which have shaped and con- tinue to shape fibre art practices in Indigenous communities across Australia today. Thirdly, it overviews the broad yet under-researched topic of Australian Indigenous dress. As our traditional forms of dress have mini- mal recognition or acknowledgment in the history of Australian fashion, I have reviewed texts which study tra- ditional forms of Indigenous clothing and key examples of publications and articles where I question the history of Australian fashion. Through researching these three themes I am aiming to connect fibre art, weaving tech- niques and the history of fashion together to acknowledge the diversity of our weaving practices, and their strength and significance as Australian textiles and dress.
Weaving
Weaving, ‘one of the most ancient crafts … is a method of forming a pliable plane of threads by interlacing them rectangularly. Invented in a pre-ceramic age, it has remained essentially unchanged to this day’ (Albers in Moon, 2009,15). Central to weaving is the technical practice of twisting pliable fibres to make string, which has also existed since the beginning of human civilization (Hamby and Young, 2001). In the catalogue Art on a
String, Threaded Objects from the Central Desert and Arnhem Land curators Louise Hamby and Diana Young
(2001, 17) noted that ‘items made from string’ such as necklets, belts, breast pieces, pubic tassels and ochred
23 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? umbilical cords ‘were the only garments worn by Aboriginal people in central Australia before contact with colo- nisers’. My viewing of international and national museum collections of Australian Indigenous traditional dress confirms the diverse uses, strength and significance of string as a prominent feature in traditional dress and everyday objects such as tools. String today remains an important feature in many contemporary art forms and is a prominent technique in my creative practice for this project. Like Hamby and Young (2001, 16), I see string as a way of ‘materially binding people together, manifesting and mediating their relatedness to one another and the land’. In this way my use of string is both a practical technique and a metaphor for connection.
Like string making, the techniques and uses of woven objects across Australia are broad and diverse. The
Museum of Victoria's resource, Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage (2006) by anthropologist Alan West consists of an in-depth study of Aboriginal string bags, nets, cordage and the expansive techniques and uses of these objects across Australia. West displays maps and diagrams illustrating various techniques and maps the locations of where specific techniques were used. For example, the maps below demonstrate the various locations where diverse methods of looping and knotting have been recorded across Australia.
Figure 2. ‘Distribution of knotted looping fabrics with a spiralling form made on a circular support chord.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 83. Figure 1. ‘Distribution of knotted looping fabrics with a spiralling form made on a straight support chord.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 75.
24 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Figure 3. ‘Distribution of knotted looping fabrics with a flat form.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 88.
Figure 4. ‘Distribution of knot forms. The line indicates Davidson's Southern limit for the sheet bend technique. 1. Sheet bend 2. Slipknot: half-hitch appearance 3. Fish-net knot 4. Simple knot: half hitch 5. Complex knot 6. Knotted buttonhole knot 7. Clove hitch 8. Simple knot: overhand (half hitch appearance.)’ Adapted from West, 2006, 100.
Figure 5. ‘Distribution of knotted looping fabrics with a flat form.’ Adapted Figure 6. ‘Distribution of fabrics with a spiralling or incomplete spiralling from West, 2006, 104. form, made with looping techniques from a chain-of-mesh start.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 110.
25 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Figure 7. ‘Distribution of fabrics with a spiralling form made with looping techniques on a circular support cord.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 113. Figure 8. ‘Distribution of flat fabrics made with looping techniques.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 119.
Figure 9. ‘Davidson's distribution map for 'knotted and knotless netting' Figure 10. ‘Distribution of the simple loop form. The line indicates traits.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 122. Davidson's Southern limit for trait.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 123.
Figure 11. ‘Distribution of the loop-and-twist form including stitch variation eg loop-and-double twist. The line indicates Davidson's Southern limit for the loop-and-twist trait.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 125.
These maps provide a visual representation of the locations where knotting, netting and looping where practiced across Australia. They also provide an example of the immensity of fibre practices across Australia.
The other various techniques of coiling and twining are not referenced in these maps. The diagram below illustrates the unique looping and knotting technique from Quandamooka country.
26 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Figure 12. ‘(A) fabric structure G1 (d) showing the oblique lines of knots and simple loop stitching. In the lower part, a single foundation element has been introduced changing the fabric into a cooling type of structure. (B) the complex knots (enlarged) used to join the non-continuous sewing strands.’ Adapted from West, 2006, 69.
In addition to the maps and illustrations referenced by West (2006), he also speaks of the continuous strands of Aboriginal string making and how the finished product is made with no apparent joins. He quotes Irene
Emery's 1966 publication, The Primary Structures of Fabrics: An Illustrated Classification, which categorises fabric structures into two main groups, being felted fibre and inter-worked structures. Felted fabrics are defined when the fibre itself is the element of the fabric structure. Bark cloth, 'present in Aboriginal Australia, is an example of felted fabric, as is the paper on which these words are printed' (2006, 46). As well as felted fabrics being present in Aboriginal Australia, I believe that all weaving practices that evolve in the creation of fibre objects are inter-worked structures as they involve a ‘minimum of three stages of production’ (2006, 46). For example the techniques of looping, coiling and twining all involve weaving fibres into one another, which could also be described as inter-working. Therefore, the two main categories of fabric structures are both present in
Aboriginal Australia and have been for thousands of years.
Along with researching traditional weaving techniques across Australia, I have examined contemporary fibre art practices. Contemporary Indigenous fibre art practices have been surveyed in several exhibitions across
27 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Australia between 1998 and 2016. One of the first key exhibitions, Carried Lightly, 1998 (curated by Diane
Moon) showcased a wide range of handcrafted objects ranging from traditional baskets, body adornments and headdresses featuring materials of nature, found throwaway items and contemporary fibres. Moon (1998, 6) highlights the ways in which the artists ‘weave into their works their personal narratives, providing tangible evidence of their rich social and spiritual inheritance’. As Moon argues, the fibre artists featured in Carried
Lightly have connected the past and present through demonstrating the same weaving practices as used in objects in museum collections, or, through reflection of precious memories and connections to Elders. The significance of weaving to the maintenance of cultural forms is also noted in the catalogue to the exhibition,
Menagerie, Contemporary Indigenous Sculpture (2009). Co-curator Parkes (2009, 17) suggests that, ‘the range of traditional materials and techniques for working with fibre are as diverse as the geographies from which they emanate, and are a tangible embodiment and continuation of culture’. Similarly, in ‘From Baskets to
Bodies: Innovation Within Aboriginal Fibre Practice’ Keller (2010) suggests that artists learn to make traditional functional items such as baskets, matts, nets and bags when first learning to weave. She goes on to say that once the artists are comfortable they employ the techniques to develop innovative practices that experiment with new forms along with pushing the boundaries of materials. She concludes (2010, 34) that ‘in fibre sculpture they have found a medium to reconnect and reinterpret their cultural identity’ .
Recoil: Change and Exchange in Coiled Fibre Art (2008) was curated by Hamby to surprise and challenge viewers with established notions regarding authenticity (traditionally) as well as the ongoing questions about art verses craft (2008). Through the display of fibrous structures developed using the international technique of coiling, the exhibition discussed the complex history of fibre art in Australia. Hamby (2008, 5) states that in the exhibition, ‘Australia, people, techniques and ideas have been melded together to produce a vibrant history with a dynamic future’. An example of an innovative practice of using traditional techniques in new ways is Star
Mat (2006) by Margaret Djogiba. Djogiba formed Star Mat using pandanus and natural dyes by adapting the coiling technique to develop a flat, open structure. The coil technique is traditionally woven together into a solid fibrous shape. Djogiba has weaved a circular shape with open spaces and movement to define the star shape
28 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? within the large circular mat. The star points are almost triangular waves intersecting within the coil.
In addition to exploring the mediums of traditional techniques, another example of Indigenous fibre artists using innovative and experimental approaches to weaving and repurposing discarded materials is the Ghost
Net Art project. The Low Tide exhibition (2012) showcased the Ghost Net Art project of using traditional techniques to weave with fishing nets or marine debris that have surfaced on ocean shorelines. Ghost Net Art project worker, Sue Ryan (2012) believes that, ‘It’s about turning a negative into a positive; turning rubbish into beautiful things; it’s about expressing creativity and sharing skills and stories’. Many of the ghost net sculptures are woven into knots and coils to create sculptural structures such as sea animals or vessels whilst practicing the cultural significance of weaving. Arukun artist, Marvis Ngallametta featured in The Long Tide exhibition, learnt how to weave from her elders making basketry using traditional materials such as cabbage palm and pandanus. Years later, Ngallametta started weaving with ghost nets and adapted those techniques into innovative approaches towards the discarded seas ropes and fishing nets.
Colonisation
Through my project I am regenerating weaving practices, exploring new forms and reconnecting with our traditional techniques and practices, which rested as a result of colonisation. Colonisation also entailed the removal of cultural objects from their home. Baskets and Belongings (2011), a British Museum publication, profiles traditional woven baskets and bags along with photographs in the collection. Bolton (2011, 7) draws on the connection between baskets and their makers, quoting Verna Nichols ‘The baskets are not empty. They are full of makers, their stories, their thoughts while making. The baskets are never empty. All of the thoughts jump out of the baskets onto all of us’. The publication features photographs of many traditional forms of dress that we no longer hold in Australia as a result of colonisation. It also features photographic evidence of a basket from Stradbroke Island that was made c1890s, holding a great source of knowledge and connection to our ancestral hands, as well as the master weavers who made them a long time ago.
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In Australian Plants as Aboriginal Tools anthropologist and ethno botanist, Clarke (2012, 26) also makes the point that ‘bags and baskets are not just artefacts for carrying objects’. Their design, form and function varied depending on their uses. They were made waterproof by coating the materials used in layers of natural wax, and ‘held commodities that were economically important’ (2012, 26). Clarke (2012,27) states that ‘bags were generally made either with knotted netting or looped techniques, while fibre craft baskets and mats were chiefly made by coiling (sewing) and twining (weaving)’. Clarke (2012) refers to the process of coiling, which can be seen as sewing but pre-European settlement it was referred to as spearing or piercing. I see this statement as an example of the changes colonisation inflicted on materials, recognition and terms of practice.
Cordage, a significant fibrous implement made with various plant fibres, generally made the same way all across Australia, composed by one or two twists, is another important material which has been made all over
Australia for thousands of years.
Clarke (2012, 170), cites anthropologist John Bulmer’s early accounts of how cordage was made, ‘women invariably perform the rolling action on their thighs; some men use the soles of their feet on account of the growth of hairs on their legs’. Cordage was also the core of nets and Clarke references a written account from
1894 in which an Aboriginal man, Jacob Harris, wrote of the Ngarrindjeri people in the Lower Murrary region.
Harris (quoted in Clarke, 2012, 174) notes that before Europeans arrived, the Ngarrinderji people used to
‘make our nets almost the same as the Europeans did, the meshes were the same, the only difference being that yours [i.e. European nets] were made out of twine etc., while ours were made from rushes…’. I feel this account speaks strongly for the skills and practices of the first peoples of Australia, connection to country and
Indigenous technology.
My research is further contextualized through questions pertaining to the western construct of Indigenous fashion and how this in turn is connected to questions of national Australian identity. An anthropological study connected to my research is the writings of Walter E, Roth’s (1901) paper, ‘North Queensland Ethnography.
Bulletin No.15. Decoration, deformation and clothing’ describes fifty-six forms of everyday dress and everyday
30 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? materials from North Queensland. Some examples are head nets, feather tuffs, hair ornaments, ear piercing: earrings, nose pins, necklaces, cross shoulder ornaments, chest and back ornaments, waist skeins, waist belts, apron belts, hip and tail pieces, tassels, armlets, ankles, decorative scars, body paint, baskets, string bags, cloaks, rugs and blankets. Roth's findings provide an example of the vast variety and variations of traditional forms of dress.
Owing to the immense number of variations met within the way of fashion, I have found it impossible to carry out my original intension of describing seriatim all local costumes, but propose, as far as possible, detailing the various ornaments and means of cover, constituting clothing, according to the portion of body decorated and covered. Even by this arrangement, difficulties are to be seen in that: - A necklet may be worn as a waist-belt; an article donned by a male may be forbidden to a member of the opposite sex, and vice versa; an ornament worn throughout one district with a special signification attached to it may have no meaning whatsoever in another; certain ornaments according to their materials of construction are found only in certain areas; a decoration donned on different parts of the body will convey different meanings, an article of dress essential in early life may be discarded with adolescence ; and often nothing at all may be worn in contradiction to a complete costume indicative of rank, virginity, grief, fight, etc. (1901,21).
This statement describes the diversity of dress and the meanings associated with traditional Indigenous clothing, providing an insight into dress across Australia with this paper focusing on North Queensland dress.
Roth's research provides an awareness of the expansive scale of Indigenous cultural practices and ways of life for the many different countries which make up Aboriginal Australia. Roth has recognised our traditional forms of dress as clothing, not just as an artefact.
Over a century later, a chapter by Phillip Jones published in the Berg Encyclopedia of World Fashion and
Dress, ‘Aboriginal Dress in Australia: Evidence and Resources’ (2011) references journals and letters written during 17th, 18th and 19th centuries relating to traditional forms of clothing. Jones (2011, 23) believes that
‘museum collections provide undeniable evidence that categories of Aboriginal clothing exist’. His research also points to the ways in which traditional forms of dress were colonised by European clothing. According to
Jones, after a day of working as housemaids, women would remove their clothing, store it under a tree and return to camp, ‘naked’. Consequently, Jones refers to clothing in the ‘naked times’, before European contact, using visual records and sources such as museum collections and published records that list museum
31 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? collections that hold relevant artefacts and photography collections. He argues that traditional forms of dress are represented in ancient rock art and photography collections that came about as a result of colonialist practices. In ‘Aboriginal Dress in Arhnem Land’, Louise Hamby, too writes about the visual records of clothing and fibre art that can be seen in ancient forms of rock art. Hamby also acknowledges that in the western world people didn’t see Aboriginal dress as clothing rather ‘clothing was thought of in terms of western-style garments such as shirts, trousers and dresses. Therefore, many outsiders did not really consider the items that Aboriginal people were wearing as clothing. Aboriginal people were not concerned by the fact that they were not wearing ‘clothing’ because they were wearing items made by themselves on their bodies and in their hair and had no need or desire for western apparel’ (2011,43). Hamby also discusses how Aboriginal people saw no need to adapt to the customs of the intruders in their land and that Aboriginal people were clothed in collective objects which made up body wear. Despite this Jones notes that many explorers kept samples of woven cloths along with calico or red turkey twill cloth which can be found in journals and early ethnographies.
His research on these materials provides further evidence of the unique traditional textile practices of Australia pre-colonisation when fabrics were beaten from plant fibres and animal skins.
Sylvia Kleinert’s ‘Clothing the Postcolonial Body: art, artefacts and action in South Eastern Australia’ (2010) discusses both the impact of colonisation on dress and the fact that clothing was a crucial aspect of colonisation as it was a mark of civilization. According to Kleinert, Indigenous fibre art has played a large part in the productive activities of Australia from the past to the present. As Kleinert writes (2010, 39), ‘artefacts entered museum collections with little understanding of their Indigenous context and their intrinsic value for
Aboriginal people’. In agreeing with Kleinert, our traditional forms of dress have been taken and in most cases, placed in a context with no understanding or acknowledgement of their uses and functions. Kleinert discusses cultural revitalisation practices such as the revival of shell necklaces in Tasmania. Kleinert (2010, 43) quotes
Tasmanian artist Lola Greeno, ‘In Tasmania, where Trucanini (Truganini) stands as an ironic symbol of colonial narratives of extinction, the continuous production of shell necklaces is cause for great celebration’. The techniques used to make the shell necklaces are passed down from generation to generation with the skills
32 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? and knowledge held tightly between the families. Kleinert also reviews another artist whose work informs my practice, Bidjarra artist, Christian Thompson. In 2002, Thompson exhibited a series of works titled Blaks
Palace. Blaks Palace referenced stereotypes of Aboriginality and was showcased at the same time as
Melbourne Fashion week. Thompson’s work was targeted at Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson as he used kangaroos and boomerangs to address how our culture is marketed as a ‘unique symbol of Australia’ (2010,
53). Thompson’s work, Untitled from the Blak Palace series challenged ideas of Aboriginality as a jumper with extremely long sleeves as a literal and metaphorical straightjacket. Kleinert (2010, 54) stated, ‘As we have seen these city-based artists incorporate from both traditional Indigenous dress and European dress as a subject matter for their art. These artworks as a form of action contribute to social and cultural sustainability by rebuilding communities, by intervening as a witness to history and by challenging representations of
Aboriginality’.
Hayman's essay, ‘A Brief Redress of Indigenous Fashion in Australia’ (2013) examines Queensland
Indigenous dress pre-colonialism to the 1970s. She draws on the connection to country through dress, songs, dance, lore and cultural practices and the consequences of colonialism, when Aboriginal people were relocated to Missions and prohibited from cultural practices. Indigenous people were forced to adopt the
European way of life and colonial dress became the everyday dress. Government issued clothing made of harsh fabrics was forced upon our people. Hayman explains how changes in government policy in the 1960s came to impact aspects of Australian indigenous identity and dress. For example, following the design of the
Aboriginal flag in 1971, the flag and its associated colours became highly politicised. As recently as 1982 when the Commonwealth Games came to Brisbane it was a criminal offence to wear T-shirts that depicted the
Aboriginal flag. As Hayman (2013) concludes ‘Fashion is one area through which cultural identity can be expressed and indeed it can be a powerful statement of expression’.
Margaret Maynard's ‘Grassroots Style: Re-Evaluating Australian Fashion and Aboriginal Art in the 1970s and
1980s’ (2000) traced the cross-cultural threads between Indigenous and European fashion in the 1970s and
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1980s. Maynard’s article is significant to my investigation as she argues that during the 1970s and 1980s non-
Indigenous designers freely adopted not only the graphic qualities of Indigenous art (such as the dots of the central Australian desert artists), but also laid claims to spiritual and even mythical qualities of Aboriginal design (2000, 142-143). As an Indigenous practicing artist, I am well positioned to represent the authenticity of my work and feel deeply offended and concerned when non-Indigenous designers appropriate and consequently make claim to representing our culture. In the Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture,
Maynard (2000, 384-390) suggests that Aboriginal dress is the ancient territory of the ancestral body. Maynard argues that Indigenous dress is redolent with meaning and cultural significance and that the confusions and cross-cultural relations are important historical references of dress between Indigenous people and Western people.
Another publication of Maynard’s, Out of line, Australian Women and Style, questions whether Australian fashion is systematically appropriating European fashion (2001, 2). Maynard quotes Tulloch (2001, 2) who believes that ‘our fashion history is for the most part, the history of others’. Maynard disagrees with this view. I believe that the history of Australian fashion has been recorded from a non-indigenous perspective and therefore is the history of others, as the representation of European dress is more highly regarded than the dress of Australia’s first people in the history of Australian fashion. Maynard quotes Jenny Kee (2001, 163) in
1981 stating, ‘We have started an Australian fashion and we are proud of it’. Kee and Linda Jackson collaborated with Indigenous artists and in some cases misrepresented and appropriated the artwork of
Indigenous artists into fashion, which was claimed to be the beginning of Australian fashion. I would like to inform Kee and Jackson that dress from the land of Australia existed thousands of years before 1981. Kee also quoted Margaret Preston (1925) stating ‘I have gone back to the art of a people who had never seen or known anything different from themselves and were accustomed to use the same symbols to express themselves. They are the Australian Aborigines and it is only from the art of such people in any land that a national art can spring’ (2001, 170). Each country within Australia has its own symbols, dress, songs, lore and dance which was passed down through intergenerational histories for thousands of years. We knew more than
34 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? ourselves. We lived and survived off the land. Our ancestors were connected with the country, land and surrounding environments. The land was and is our lifeblood. A national art can spring if a country learns its history and identity and draws inspiration without appropriation.
Through the misrepresentation of Australian Indigenous fashion, in the article, ‘Is Australian Fashion and Dress
Distinctively Australian?’ (2009) Jennifer Craik presents a list of national identities in relation to Australian dress, proposing three forms of 'Australianess' in fashion: Bush wear, Swimwear and Surf wear and, the use
Indigenous motifs in fashion. As Craik points out, (2009) Indigenous motifs have been appropriated and used to denote a type of kitsch Indigenous Australiana. The appropriation of these motifs saw the original artworks stripped of their identity, losing their integrity, positioned in a field of tourism, marketing misrepresenting
Aboriginal Australia.
When researching the cultural significance of weaving in fibre art practices, techniques and uses of weaving and Indigenous dress, it becomes apparent there is little recognition of the influence that traditional forms of weaving and fibrous structures have had on the vital elements which have shaped the form of textiles and the first forms of Australian textiles and adornments. The key sources I have drawn on highlight the cultural signifi- cance of woven implements for Aboriginal people and some of the impacts of colonisation and settler interrup- tions on the cultural practices of weaving. However, research also indicates that there is minimal attention to the social histories of dress, Indigenous fibre and textile practices in the history of Australian fashion. As the sources above show, most of the knowledge of Indigenous Australian fashion in the history of Australian fash- ion is linked to appropriation or written from a western perspective. There is minimal reference to the design practices of Indigenous dress. Indigenous practitioners across Australia are continuously exploring many excit- ing innovative processes of weaving. This research also notes the significance of string, baskets and bags and it can be recognised that the creation of these implements informs the developing practice of many weavers
35 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? today. I have linked my research to form the basis of textiles, past, present and future, exploring ways to crea- tively acknowledge these weaving techniques as a form of building textiles, through incorporating our historical practices.
36 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
2.2 Contextual Review
This research draws on contextual reviews of other Indigenous creative practitioners who work in the areas of fashion, weaving and visual arts. I have selected designers and artists with methodologies that relate to my creative practice and research by examining their creative backgrounds and the concepts of their works and processes.
Firstly, reviewing Indigenous fashion designers, I discovered the designs of Bronwyn Bancroft, a Bunjulung woman from northern New South Wales. Bancroft is one of Australia’s most successful Aboriginal designers. In
1985, Bancroft opened the doors of her store, Designer Aboriginals in Rozelle, Sydney. As Kleinert (2011) noted, the shop stocked Bancroft's designs, which included garments, fabrics and jewellery. She employed
Aboriginal women for designing, producing and retailing. Designer Aboriginals closed in 1990. In 1987, during the period of the Designer Aboriginals store, Bancroft designed and hand-painted a cotton drill opera cape titled, Cycle of Life. The Powerhouse Museums Paperback online catalogue (source unknown) explains that the opera cape depicted the journey through life for Aboriginal men and women. The Cycle of Life was paraded in 1987 in Printemps, the prestigious department store in Paris, France. Maynard (2009) believes
Bancroft’s dramatic hand painted cape, ‘traverses the definition of both fashion and political statement clothing’. Kleinert (2011, 34) also noted 'Bancroft's use of young Aboriginal models made a further political statement'. Reflecting on Bancroft's Cycle of Life, I see this work as traditional contemporary fashion, with the beauty of her work spreading political messages worldwide through her fashion practice. Her hand-painted garment mixes traditional and contemporary styles through her use of materials. Like the Cycle of Life, I am aiming to spread messages and acknowledgements of our culture through my works for the body.
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Figure 13. Cycle of life opera cape designed by Bronwyn Bancroft. Modelled by Anthea Carter. Cotton drill, handpainted, 1987. 94/120/2. Powerhouse Museum Collection. Photo: Bronwyn Bancroft. Photo: courtesy IBM.
Clothing provides us with comfort and a shelter for our skin like a home does, which has led me to research
Shirley Macnamara's work, Wingreeguu. Macnamara was born in Mt Isa and has lived in spinifex country all her life. Seear (2009, 127) quotes Macnamara, 'The spinifex amazes me. Every time I learn something more about it: the fragility; the strength, the colour...it is the colour of the earth itself. That is country isn't it?'
Wingreeguu was created in 2012 using materials of the land, reflecting Macnamara's personal environment and life, linking the past and the present. She has combined ochre from the land of her country, woven spinifex and an upturned serpentine shrub to remind herself of her childhood providing Wingreeguu's viewers with an
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insight into her experiences and the lives of her people by exploring ideas of home and shelter. Macnamara's family sometimes lived in temporary shelters called Wingreeguu and Macnamara remembers the comfort and shelter Wingreeguu provided for her family. The sheltering woven spinifex rings represent the songlines of
Macnamara's people and the upturned turpentine shrub provides protection from the wind and rain.
Macnamara's use of materials and concepts of her work are relevant to my research as Macnamara links the past and the present through her work by incorporating the use of ochre to depict what is above and what is below which Macnamara believes are 'all part of our existence’. Macnamara has woven a traditional shelter for the contemporary setting of a modern art gallery. Like Wingreeguu, my work will provide comfort and shelter for the body by incorporating traditional techniques for contemporary settings such as galleries and activation on the body in events.
Figure 14. Shirley Macnamara, Indilandji/Alyawarre people, Australia b.1949 / Wingreeguu 2012 / Spinifex (Triodia pungens), turpentine bush (Acacia lysiphloia), yellow ochre / Commissioned for APT7. Purchased 2013. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / © The artist 39 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Victorian artist Glenda Nicholls created three hand-woven life-sized sculptured cloaks out of jute string resembling bush twine. The three sculptural cloaks formed a body of work titled, A Woman's Rite of Passage.
The hand-woven cloaks saw Nicholls successfully win the Deadly Art Prize at the Victorian Indigenous Art
Awards in 2015. Whilst Nicholls was creating A Woman's Rite of Passage, the works themselves took on a new meaning and became deeply spiritual forms as Nicholls stated in a press release (2015), ‘I was going to call them 'A Rite of Passage to Country', (but) the collars didn't match up and something was telling me it was not quite right. It dawned on me that they were for women. The cloaks spoke to me - it was a spiritual connection’. The three cloaks symbolise the presence of Indigenous women in Welcome to Country ceremonies and speak for the unspoken stories of Aboriginal women's lives during settlement. Each cloak has its own name being, Acknowledgement, Elders and Welcome. Nicholls embellished the cloaks separately with natural objects like emu feathers and shells as well as token items and other objects which symbolise the concealed history of Australia. As a young Indigenous woman myself, I have attended Welcome to Country ceremonies from a young age and have grown up with the presence of Aboriginal women surrounding me which allows me to connect with spiritual qualities of Nicholls’ sculptures. Nicholls’ mother and grandmother taught her the processes of weaving like my mother has taught me. Like the work of Nicholls, I am also hand- weaving my string ,which is also symbolic of the different forms of traditional bush twine. I also see my works
40 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
taking on their own forms during my creative process.
Figure 15. A Woman’s Rite of Passage – a woven sculptural work by Indigenous artist Glenda Nicholls that won the 2015 Deadly Art award. Photograph: Ben Cox/HANDOU
Cycle of Life, Wingreeguu and A Woman's Rite of Passage are three hand-sculptured works which are relevant to my project. The three female artists have created three bodies of work using their hands to express and acknowledge the stories of our people and culture. Bancroft and Nicholls have worked in textiles for the body to develop forms of sculptural garments making political statements whilst the works of Macnamara and
Nicholls are both created to sit in a contemporary gallery setting. I see the three works of art as both traditional and contemporary pieces. The three artists have used both traditional and contemporary processes and materials to structure and display their works as I have hand-painting and weaving. Macnamara and Nicholls mothers have also passed the skills of weaving onto their daughters.
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2. 3 Discussion of practice
Through the fabrication of my collection, I have hand-woven each piece strand by strand, with continuity and innovation using the methods of looping, coiling and twining. The contemporary fibres I weaved were also bound with digital prints of my paintings which are about various landscapes of Quandamooka country. I have transferred my paintings into a digital format onto fabric to cut and weave into a garment as my own process and technique of weaving the land and wearing the land. I experimented with various materials such as cotton yarns, recycled materials, synthetic ropes and discovered the texture and strength of jersey was the right material for this project. The woven structures are also influenced by modern fashion clothing and my personal aesthetic of wearing various colourful, textured and patterned materials on my body in my everyday life. Each garment was shaped through experimentation on the body of a mannequin where I organically adapted the
42 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? woven techniques of basketry. I adapted these techniques into innovative shapes, opening the forms up to have four opening spaces for the body as baskets only have one opening. I believe bags and baskets still provide sustenance, supporting everyday activities, and are an accessory worn every day, all around the world made from various materials, most of which are harsh on the environment such as plastic bags. The jersey that is used as the main base material in my garments is factory offcuts. Some elements in my works are plastic-based from found recycled plastics that have been discarded at some time so they have now been repurposed. Working in various materials, I have used bold colours to emphasise the techniques and form within the structures as I hand spun the cordage with one twist, using my hands to roll.
All areas of Australia have weaving traditions, which play a major part in the productive activity of
Aboriginal Australia. There are many different techniques used to incorporate a diverse range of functional structures which support daily activities in the past and present. These various techniques all shape my collection and Diane Moon (1999, 16) also notes:
The discovery that short filaments could be twisted into lengths as long and strong as were needed made a monumental change in the lives of early peoples and cordage remains vital in the contemporary world. Soft, flexible threads made from animal and plant materials are still the basis for making cloth, both plain and decorative, for the textiles we need and enjoy.
While in Hamby and Young’s publication, Art on String – Aboriginal threaded objects from the Central
Desert and Arhnem Land, Djon Mundine (2001, 9) notes string as:
A fibre, a string – substance, threads, filaments, that can be spun, woven, or felted. A series of persons or things, a family lineage. A dietary material. The structure, grain or character of something. A cord for tying or holding things together. If stone tools are the beginnings of human civilisation then the making of string must be there also. To fix these stone tools to handles and shafts, to weave, to wrap, to carry or, to sling.
This technique of string is a persistent feature of the structure of the materials we wear today. The first skill of weaving that was passed on to me was how to make string, using Yunggaire, fresh water swamp reeds grown on Quandamooka country. The reeds we use today are the same reed Anthropologist Walter E. Roth (1901, 8) recorded as our weaving fibre from Stradbroke Island as ‘String, etc, derived from Vegetable products - This is made from the stems or complete plants, from the leaves, or from the bark.’ I have gained knowledge of the 43 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? processes of gathering, preparing and weaving with Yunggaire. The significance of the processes of gathering and preparing materials is equally as imperative to the techniques that form the fibrous structures. Through my development of string-making and other techniques, my practice moved from using traditional materials to con- temporary fabrics to push the boundaries of my materials and practice.
I have shaped the garments through my use of space and materials to produce as ‘a basket shapes space through its choice of materials, and makes negative space a positive form of character’ (Diana Wood Conroy
2005, 11). I did not pre-plan the forms as my body of work stemmed from experimenting with weaving many threads intuitively together into organic shapes. Each garment grew into its own form as I let my hands and the movements of the techniques naturally shape the structures.
Figure
16.
Exam-
ples of
pro-
cess
and
mate-
rials
My woven forms could be described as inter-worked structures involving a minimum of three stages of produc- tion, '(1) loose fibres or fibrous materials which are composed into (2) elements which are in turn into worked
44 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? to the form of the (3) fabric, (West 2006, 46)', with the four main components of inter-worked structures which are 'exemplified or lesser extent in Australian Aboriginal fabrics’ (West 2006, 46). The four breakdowns of in- ter-worked fabrics are:
1. Two single element structures formed by coiling – one element is the foundation and the other working or
sewing element
2. 'One set of element' structures- braiding, plaiting and macrame
3. Structures with ' two or more sets of elements' embracing textiles, or woven fabrics of all kinds where warp
and weft elements interwork with each other
4. Single element structures
The single element structures are built by the repetition of interworking the single element structure continu- ously within itself (West 2006, 47).
Figure 17. Examples of various techniques of looping, coiling and twining using Yunngaire
My practice is developed by these single element structures and inter-worked fabrics. The techniques of string, looping, inter-looping and knotted looping are all examples of single element structures. Where the materials have been looped, they appear to be identical on both surfaces. This is visible on each of my woven garments.
As West quotes Emery, (2006, 47), 'The use of the structure is so widespread chronologically and geographically that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it universal, and it ranges in application all the way from heavy rope
45 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? fender, to sturdy carrying nets, to delicate decorative laces. It is used extensively for loose net like structures and firm, close worked cloth like fabrics’. There are three major types of fabrics, which are single element, coiled and woven structures. I have incorporated each of these fabrics into my practice. Coiling is described as the binding of a thread that secures the coiled fibres into an intended form and twining as a warp which is interlaced with two strands of fibre weft.
An example of contemporary weaving and innovative coiling which informs my practice is the Madonna Bra sculptures from the Northern Territory. In the 1980s, pop icon Madonna's music was popular around camps and at the local disco in Arnhem Land. Women adapted the weaving techniques of looping and coil-weaving pointed baskets into bras in response to Madonna's bra designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, for example, Margaret Rarru's
Madonna Bra. Like Rarru's bra sculpture, I applied techniques of basketry through the combination of techniques to dress.
Figure 18. Margaret RARRU b.1940 Liyagawumirr/Garrawurra people NT Madonna bra 2006 Pandanus palm leaf, kurrajong bark string with natural dyes
During my research and creative practices I have also viewed museum collections nationally and internationally,
46 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? studying the collections of traditional forms of dress, including the materials and techniques incorporated into the form. I captured detailed photographs of these objects of everyday dress such as bags, baskets, skirts, armbands, anklets and various forms of adornment. I then adapted these same techniques into full body garments. In 2015, I had the honour of holding two baskets that had been removed from Quandamooka country in the 1860s. These two precious baskets were collected after a massacre in the Moreton Bay region and were taken to England. They had been housed in various museum collections across the United Kingdom and are now housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum collection in Oxford. I was the first Quandamooka woman to hold these baskets since they were taken from my family and our country.
47 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Figure 19. Visiting our Quandamooka basket and bag at Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford United Kingdom
It was an emotional and confronting experience to be reunited with these baskets, formed by my ancestors hands and held in a place to which they do not belong. The baskets were labelled with tags that read 'Coiled
Basketry. Bag of grass in coiled work with buttonhole stitches. This specimen was taken from the scene of the
Nagoa Massacre in 1861, Moreton Bay, Brisbane, Queensland'. The other label read, 'Coiled basket in buttonhole stitch. Made by King Sambo's Gin, Juno. She was so called, because she was so very ugly. These were not their native names’. It was extremely confronting reading these labels that were written about my family.
My ancestors stories, memories and connection to place of belonging are woven into natural objects that they gathered and wore. Natural body adornments, baskets, bags and fibres were moulded and shaped by our ancestors hands, the master weavers. For me, these precious objects hold the story of their creation and environment in which they were made, the meanings and purposes for why they were made. These experiences
48 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? and this process of my research inspired me to showcase my creative practice as an exhibition and also activated on the body in a fashion performance. Please refer to the Appendix of Research and Creative Practice
Events and Exhibitions, for the exhibition, events and discussion dates of my project.
Throughout the journey of this research I have participated in many weaving and yarning circles with my family. My older sister Freja Carmichael curated Gathering Strands, a fibre art exhibition at the Redlands Art
Gallery, 2016. Through the curatorial stages of this exhibition, Freja organised weaving circles for the
Quandamooka community and weavers. We gathered together and weaved with Yunggaire, our traditional weaving fibre and shared stories of our weaving practices. Gathering Strands ran from June 10 - July 24, 2016 and had a strong presence of Quandamooka weavers with a focus on fibre art in South East Queensland.
Gathering Strands provided us Quandamooka weavers with the precious experience of exhibiting beside a basket and a bag woven by our ancestors hands on Quandamooka country. The University of Queensland
Anthropology Museum lent a bag woven pre-colonisation and a basket woven post-colonisation to the Redland
Art Gallery for the duration of
Gathering Strands.
Figure 20. Gathering Strands, Yunngaire Weavers, Redlands Art Gallery, 2016
49 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Prior to the opening of Gathering Strands my sister Freja, my mother Sonja and myself were invited to the
University of Queensland Anthropology Museum to examine the traditional weaving techniques of the
Quandamooka bags and baskets in the collection with internationally acclaimed researchers, academics and curators Diana Wood Conroy, Kay Lawrence, Sally Butler, Diana Young and Diane Moon.
Figure 21. Visiting our Quandamooka bags at the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum with Kay Lawrence, Diana Wood Conroy, Sonja Carmichael, Diane Moon
As my sister Freja Carmichael stated (2016, 44), ‘Over time, tides and sand have shifted and patterns and ways of life have changed. But Yunggaire has survived and continues to thrive as have our people and our practices’. We will continue to thrive, revive and share our stories through weaving and as Carmichael quotes the words of curator Hetti Perkins (2016, 6), ‘one rush is strong but bound together, the rushes become stronger’.
The collection that I have made reflects my position as a young Indigenous textile artist and also a young woman who takes delight in the possibilities of fashion as a form of creative expression. The forms draw on my aesthetic sensibility including my vibrant palette deriving from items of everyday contemporary western dress including skirts, dresses and tops. However, their fabrication speaks of deeper cultural connections with
50 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures? practices and ways of making belonging to our ancestors. Following Hayman (2013) I see fashion as an ‘area through which cultural identity can be expressed’. The sorts of identities that i am expressing through this collection include my activism as a young Indigenous artist reclaiming traditional practices thought muted through colonisation. When the collection is shown on the body for example in the context of the Cairns
Indigenous Art Fair, it connects with a wider community of practice.
Figure 22. Gathering Yunggaire on country with my Grandmother and Mother
51 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
3.1 Conclusion
Our cultural practices of weaving have been unseen and unrecognised by western eyes as a result of colonisation. Colonisation entailed the redressing of our people in western clothing, whilst at the same time Aboriginal people were put on display in their traditional dress for photographing. Today, these photographs can be found in museum collections around the world, holding the first sighting of
Australian handcrafted textiles and body adornments. As Jones (2011, 24) shows,
The growing demand for ethnographic images of Australian Aborigines was fuelled by the late-nineteenth-century vogue for photography in international exhibitions. Several photographers began catering to this new demand, and an unsophisticated international audience began consuming studio images of Aboriginal people dressed in photographers’ props, such as skin cloaks, garlands of leaves, or feather headdresses.
The handcrafted textiles and adornments featured in these photographs were taken off the colonised by the colonisers, woven from mother earth. They were the first creations of Australian fashion – baskets, bags, arm bands, anklets, head bands, neck adornments, nose bars, skirts and cloaks which were all hand-woven from the lands of Australia.
As stated by Julie Ewington, (2009, 68), ‘late 19th Century baskets surviving in the world museums testify to the ways Aboriginal peoples in Queensland, as elsewhere, managed their lives with the assistance of fibre implements and objects’. Museum collections worldwide hold the evidence of our woven forms. In the present, these forms continue to be woven as UMI Arts gallery curator, Teho Ropeyarn (2016,10) writes, ‘The art of dillybag-making has passed through many groups of peoples in Australia with distinct adaption, materials and unique forms and techniques reflecting the origin of country and where it was made’. Today, Australia-wide, we are connecting our practices with our place of belonging, our history and our objects that are held in museum collections with our use of techniques and significant materials, shaping our own forms of country as our ancestors did. Despite the harsh histories of colonisation, we still have our oral histories and close connections to keep our weaving traditions alive, weaving all the
52 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
threads together that bind our traditional and contemporary weaving practices to pass on to our future generations. Weaving today allows contemporary fibre artists to keep our cultural heritage alive, linking the past to the present and future, presenting our connection to country through contemporary practices.
As Tjanpi Desert Weaver, Josephine Mick says, 'A woman keeps so many memories in her head, about where she has travelled to and all the places she has been to, where she grew up, the stories she was taught' (quoted in Cardoso and Clouston, 2009, 3). Using modern day fibres, I’ve shaped my own stories, using my hands, weaving personal narratives into wearable mediums, reviving the techniques of our ancestor’s traditional forms of everyday dress, developing works from then and now which are unique to our culture. Our traditional woven forms of dress have been placed in museum collections around the world as artefacts. These forms of dress were everyday attire for our people and need to be acknowledged in the history of Australian fashion nationally and internationally.
Earlier in 2016, the National Gallery of Victoria showcased a westernised exhibition titled Celebrating 200
Years of Australian Fashion. This exhibition could have been a great platform to celebrate, educate and collaborate on cross-cultural threads, dress and fashion, however the whole exhibition focused on colonial fashion from settlement with no mention of Australia’s First Nationals people or the showcasing of Indigenous design practices. Even though our national galleries are still curating exhibitions of this kind today, the growth of Indigenous fashion in arts and design is expanding Australia-wide in regional galleries, museums and art fairs. In extending traditional weaving techniques into a practice that focuses on dressing the body, I am contributing to an expanding field of textile-based work from an Indigenous perspective. As Hamby and Mellor (2000, 370) write,
The current range of new initiatives in the field of textiles provides a hint of diversity which once existed; some of the practices now being carried out, especially by women, attest to the lively creativity which undoubtedly existed through those centuries of activity unseen by western eyes.
Our traditions are rooted in knowledge as part of our cultural heritage. Therefore these practices need
53 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
to be preserved, protected and revitalised. My practice addresses how traditional weaving techniques can be used as a basis for creating contemporary fashion through developing a contemporary practice that acknowledges the strength and structure of Australia’s traditional weaving practices and techniques which have shaped our sacred objects. As my mother tells me, our sacred objects have outlived our ancestors. These objects are full of knowledge and are still here in the present and will be here in the future.
54 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
3.2 Appendix of Research and Creative Practice Events and Exhibitions
• The Fashion Project: Exploring Critical Issues, September 24 – 26 2015
I presented my research paper Indigenous Fashion, Past, Present, Future at an international conference, The
Fashion Project: Exploring Critical Issues held at Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom.
• QAGOMA APT8, November 21 2015 – April 10 2016
In the earlier stages of my project I was approached by QAGOMA to activate Rosanna Raymond’s SaVAge
Klub installation. I was invited to weave and work in the SaVAge Klub during the opening hours of APT8 at the
Gallery of Modern Art. I participated in the APT8 LIVE events in the SaVAge Klub and shared my research with many other artists who were working on the installation.
• Culture Couture, March 19 2016
Prior to the completion of my collection, Kluge Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia invited my work to feature in their event on Australian Indigenous Fashion, Culture Couture held on at the
Jefferson theatre in the USA. My work was showcased beside the designs of Injalak Arts and Crafts, Merrepen
Arts, Erub Erwer Meta, Babbarra Women’s Center, Nicole Monks (Wajarri Yamatji) and Cara Mancini Geros,
Julie Shaw, Lucy Simpson (Yuwaalaraay, Kamilaroi) and Grace Lillian Lee.
• Night by the Fire: Culture through Fashion, May 17 2016
I was invited to be a guest presenter at Night by the Fire: Culture through Fashion at the State Library of
Queensland.
• Night by the Fire: Culture through Fashion Forum, May 31 2016
I was invited to be a guest presenter with Grace Lillian Lee and Arkie Barton at Night by the Fire: Culture through Fashion Forum, State Library of Queensland.
55 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
• Gathering Strands June 10 – July 24 2016
I was invited to exhibit in the fibre art exhibition, Gathering Strands at the Redlands Art Galllery, 2016. My own works were profiled in the gallery as a sculpture and two paintings and my yunngaire woven sun was also featured in the Yunngaire Weavers wall installation in the exhibition.
• Weaving: Past, Present, Futures July 1 2016
In my solo exhibition showcasing my university creative practice, Weaving: Past, Present, Futures held at
Gilimbaa, driftwood and ropes which washed up on the shore of Minjerribah held my garments on the wall.
The ropes and the driftwood used to hold the garments symbolised resilience, resilience of our people and our practices. After viewing many museum collections and seeing the derogatory way in which our objects have been labeled in museum collections, I labeled my works acknowledging each material and technique within the structures I created. Our traditional weaving fibre Yunggaire, fresh water swamp reeds was woven into small forms which hung beside the garments demonstrating the same woven techniques in both traditional and con- temporary materials. Beside the garments on the wall were photographs of collection items from the Queens- land Museum, which showcased traditional objects in the collection which hold the same techniques that in- spired my work. The digital work, Today, filmed by myself and edited by Signe Boman, represents weaving in the past, present and in the future, on country as I wear my contemporary woven forms, weaving with tradi- tional materials in the same techniques I wear. The first documentation of my works was on myself wearing the garments on Quandamooka country with the techniques worn on the body and country as the main focus of the photographic documentation which was captured by my father.
• Jana Jaral (RESPECT), July 15 2016
56 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Following on from the Weaving: Past, Present, Future exhibition, my garments were featured in the Jana Jaral
(RESPECT) 2016 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair fashion performance. My creative practice was activated on the body by 8 Indigenous models from far north Queensland. The works were showcased with 11 other Indige- nous Queensland designers with an audience of over 1200 people in two sold out shows. During the week prior to the performance, I worked collaboratively with the models on the body adornments for the finale perfor- mance of the fashion event. This gave me an opportunity to yarn, sharing knowledge and stories with other far north Queensland designers, artists, models and youth.
• CreatEx, August 28 2016
My collection was showcased in the opening event of the QUT Creative Industries Precinct CreatEx event, along side the designs of Arkie Barton, Grace Lillian Lee and MIArts curated by Gail Sarronda.
• OFFGRID, September 14 – October 1 2016
I was invited to exhibit in the OFFGRID exhibition at Blindside Gallery in the Nicolson Street building, Mel-
bourne. OFFGRID profiled artists working in textile practices around Australia.
• Nurlanthi – Weaving the Magic of Art and Fashion, October 20 2016
After the Jana Jaral (Respect) performance I was approached to exhibit my work in Tandanya National Aborig- inal Cultural Institute’s Spirit Festival event Nurlanthi – Weaving the Magic of Art and Fashion which opened
Adelaide fashion week showcasing Indigenous designers across Australia. The event was put together by the team of Grace Lillian Lee (Curator), Deon Hastie (Choreographer), Chantal Henley (Set Designer) and Deni
Jones of Culdesac creative (Producer) and my work was showcased beside MiArt Designs from Mornington
Island and Wujal Wujal Art Centre from Queensland, Grace Lillian Lee, Chantal Henley, Senior Anangu Pit- jantjatjara Yankunytjatjara artists and Ngarrindjerri weavers from Camp Coorong of South Australia to the sounds of Electric Fields live. 57 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
• Fashion Statement, Indigenous Designs - ABC News, 7pm 21st October
ABC interviewed me for the Nurlanthi performance, which took place during Adelaide Fashion Week. I spoke about my creative practice and university research during this interview.
• Frock Paper Scissors magazine
I was a model wearing my garments for the 2016 issue of Frock Paper Scissors for the cover shoot and edito- rial featured in the magazine.
• GOMA 10, December 2 2016
As a result of my current creative practice my work and experimental practice of working with diverse materials and techniques was recognised by internationally acclaimed artist, Judy Watson. I have been invited to assist
Watson with her permanent public art work of a bronze cast of a traditional tow row net which will be located at the gallery entry of GOMA. In December 2016, my creative practice will be showcased at the celebration of
GOMA 10, the 10th anniversary of the Gallery of Modern Art.
3.3 Appendix of Exhibitions Researched
Art on a String, threaded Objects from the Central Desert and Arnhem Land (2001)
58 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Carried Lightly (1998)
Containers of Power - Women with Clever Hands (2010)
Floating Life Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art (2009)
Freshwater Saltwater: Moving Time (2016)
Gathering Strands (2016)
Kuru Alala, Eyes Open (2009)
Menagerie Contemporary Indigenous Sculpture (2009)
Recoil: Change and Exchange in Coiled Fibre Art (2008)
String Theory: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art (2013)
The Low Tide (2012)
Twined Together: Kunmadji Njalehnjaleken (2005)
59 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
3.4 Bibliography
Ahmat, Natalie. (2015). ‘Weaver Glenda Nicholls has won Victoria’s richest Indigenous art prize, the Deadly Art Award, at the 2015 Victorian Indigenous Art Awards’. Accessed August 15, 2015. http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2015/08/11/glenda-nicholls-wins-top-prize-victorian-indigenous-art-awards.
Artisan. (2012). The Long Tide- Contemporary Ghost Net Art. Australia: Artisan. Bessarab, Dawn and Ng’andu, Bridget. (2010). ‘Yarning About Yarning as a Legitimate Method in Indigenous Research’. In International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 3 (1), 37-50. Bolton, Lissant. (2011).Baskets and Belongings. England: The British Museum Press.
Borey, Bernice. (1984). Myora Aboriginal Cemetery. Australia: Friends of the Myora Cemetery.
British Museum and the National Museum of Australia. (2015). Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum. Australia: National Museum of Australia Press.
Cardoso, Maria Fernanda and Clouston, Alison. (2009). Kuru Alala, Eyes Open. Australia: Gold Coast City Art Gallery.
Carmichael, Freja. (2016). Gathering Strands. Australia: Redland Art Gallery.
Clarke, Phillip. A. (2012). Australian Plants as Aboriginal Tools. Australia: Rosenberg Publishing.
Craik, Jennifer. (2009). ‘Is Australian Fashion and Dress Distinctively Australian?’ In Fashion Theory, 13 (4), 409-442. Australia: RMIT University.
Denzin, Norman. K and Lincoln, Yvonna. S. (2008). ‘Introduction: Critical Methodologies and Indigenous Inquiry’. In Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies. (p 1-21). India: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Denzin, Norman. K, Lincoln, Yvonna. S and Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. (2008). Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies. India: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Dunbar Jr, Christopher. (2008). ‘Critical Race Theory and Indigenous Methodologies’. In Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies. (p 85- 101). India: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Eicher, Joanne B. (2011). Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (7). England: Berg Publishers. Entwistle, Joanne and Wilson, Elizabeth. (2001). Body dressing. England: Berg Publishers. Emery, Irene. (1995). The Primary Structures of Fabrics: an illustration of classification. New York: Watson- Guptill Publications.
Foreshew, Nicole and Parkes, Brian. (2009). Menagerie: Contemporary Indigenous Sculpture. Australia: Object: Australian Centre for Craft & Design.
Graves-Brown, P. (2000). Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture. England: Routledge.
60 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Hamby, Louise. (2010).Containers of Power – Women with Clever Hands. Melbourne: Australia: Utber & Patullo Publishing.
Hamby, Louise. (2010). Craft + Design Enquiry – Cross Cultural Exchanges in Craft and Design (2). Australia: Australian National University.
Hamby, Louise. (2005). Twined Together: Kunmadj Njalehnjaleken. Gunbalanya, Australia: Injalak Arts and Crafts.
Hamby, Louise and Mellor, Doreen. (2000). ‘17.1 Fibre Tracks’. In The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. (p 370-377). England: Oxford University Press.
Hamby, Louise and Young, Diana. (2001). Art on a String: Threaded Objects from the Central Desert and Arnhem Land, Australia. Australia: Object: Australian Centre for Craft & Design.
Hayman, Amanda, ‘A Brief Redress of Indigenous Fashion in Australia.’ Last modified September 24, 2013. http://thefashionarchives.org/?fashion_smarts=a-brief-redress-of-indigenous-fashion-in-australia
Ingold, Tim. (2000). ‘Making culture and weaving the world’. In Matter, materiality and modern culture. (p 50- 68). England: Routledge. Jenss, Heike. (2016). Fashion studies: research methods, sites and practices. New York; London: Blooms- bury.
Johnson, Viven. (2000).‘9.5 Desert Art’. In The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. (p 211-220). England: Oxford University Press.
Jones, Phillip. (2011). ‘Aboriginal Dress in Australia: Evidence and Resources’. In Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (7). (p 17-25) Oxford, England: Berg Publishers.
Keller, Christiane. (2010). ‘From Baskets to Bodies: Innovation Within Aboriginal Fibre Practice’ In Craft + Design Enquiry – Cross Cultural Exchanges in Craft and Design (2). (9-36). Australia: Australian National University.
Kleinert and Neale. (2000). The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. England: Oxford University Press.
Kleinert, Sylvia. (2011). ‘Aboriginal Dress in Southeast Australia’. In Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (7). (25-34) England: Berg Publishers.
Kleinert, Sylvia. (2010). ‘Clothing the Postcolonial Body: Art, Artifacts and Action in South Eastern Australia.’ In Craft + Design Enquiry – Cross Cultural Exchanges in Craft and Design (2). (37-58). Australia: Australian National University.
Lauer, P.K. (1987).’Chapter 1 Mi-an-Ji: A Re-creation of Aboriginal Life ways on Brisbane River.’ In Brisbane, Aboriginal Alien Ethnic, Australia: Brisbane History Group. 61 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
Malins, Julian and Gray, Carole. (1995). Appropriate Research Methodologies for Artists, Designers & Craftspersons: Research as a Learning Process. Scotland, UK: The Robert Gordon University.
Maynard, Margaret. (2011).‘17.5 Indigenous Dress’. In The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture. (384-390). England: Oxford University Press.
Maynard, Margaret. (2000). ‘Grassroots Style: Re-Evaluating Australian Fashion and Aboriginal Art in the 1970s and 1980s.’ In Journal of Design History,13 (2), 137-150. England: Design History Society.
Maynard, Margaret. (2001).Out of Line, Australian Women and Style. Australia: University of New South Wales Press Ltd.
MCA Australia. (2013). String Theory – Focus on Contemporary Australian Art. Australia: Museum of Contemporary Art.
Mildura Palimpsest Biennale #10. (2015).’Glenda Nicholls.’ Accessed August 15, 2015. http://mildurapalimpsestbiennale.com/artists-thinkers/glenda-nicholls/
Minjerribah/ Moorgumpin Elders. (1998). Minjerribah, An Indigenous Story of North Stradbroke Island. Austra- lia: Minjerribah/ Moorgumpin Elders.
Minjerriba Moorgumpin Elders-in-Council. (2011).Jandai Language Dictionary, Australia: GEON Print and Communication Solutions.
Moon, Diane. (2009). ‘Visible songs: Captured Flight’. In Floating Life - Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art. (10- 27) Australia: Queensland Art Gallery.
Moon, Diane. (2016). ‘Madonna Bra’. Accessed March 15, 2016. Email.
Noonuccal, Oodgeroo. (1970). My People. Australia: John Wiley and Sons Australia, Ltd.
Nimkulrat, Nithikul. (2012). ‘Hands-on intellect: Integrating craft practice into design research’. In International Journal of Design, 6(3), 1-14.
O'Reilly, Nathanael. (2010). 'Introduction: Australian Literature as Postcolonial Literature'. In Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature. (1-13) New York: Cambria Press.
Page. (2016). August, Wynnum, Interview with Aunty Donna Page, conducted by Elisa Jane Carmichael.
Parkes, Brian. (2005).Contemporary Basket Making in Australia. Australia: Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design.
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery Townsville. (1998). Carried Lightly. Townsville, Australia: Perc Tucker Regional Gallery.
Powerhouse Museum.(Unknown). ‘Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander textiles’. Accessed April 1, 2015. https://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/paperbark/contemporary.htm.
62 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
QAGOMA. (Unknown). ‘Shirley Macnamara Wingreeguu 2012’. Accessed May 15, 2015. http://learn- ing.qagoma.qld.gov.au/?p=1143. Rocamora, Agnes and Smelik, Anneke. (2016). Thinking through fashion: a guide to key theorists, New York; London: I.B. Tauris.
Ropeyarn, Teho, UMI Arts. (2016). Freshwater Saltwater: Moving Time. North Cairns, Australia: UMI Arts.
Roth, W E. (1901). North Queensland Ethnography: Bulletin no 1. String and other forms of strand: basketry, woven bag and net-work. Australia: Government Printer.
Roth, W E. (1910). North Queensland Ethnography. Bulletin No.15. Decoration, Deformation and Clothing. Australia: The Australian Museum.
Roth, W.E. (1984) The Queensland Aborigines (2). Australia: Hesperian Press.
Ryan, Judith. (2004). Colour Power: Aboriginal art post 1984. Australia: National Gallery of Victoria.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples. England: Zed Books Ltd,
Seear, Lynne. (2009). ‘The Spinifex Amazes Me’. In Floating Life - Contemporary Aboriginal Fibre Art. (126- 129) Australia: Queensland Art Gallery.
Spring, Alexander.(2015). ‘Glenda Nicholls wins 2015 Deadly art award for A Woman’s Rite of Passage’. Accessed August 15, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/aug/08/glenda-nicholls-wins- 2015-deadly-art-award-for-a-womans-rite-of-passage .
Swadener, Beth Blue and Mutua, Kagendo. (2008). ‘Decolonizing Performances: Deconstructing the Global Postcolonial’. In Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies. (31- 45). India: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Tilley, C, Kuechler, S, Spyer, P, Rowlands, M, & Keane, W. (2006).The Handbook of Material Culture. Eng- land: Sage.
Walker, Faith. (1998). Useful and Profitable: History and race relations at the Myora Aboriginal Mission, Strad- broke Island, Australia,1892-1940. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Culture,1 (1), (137-174). Australia: Queensland Museum.
West, A. (2006). Aboriginal String Bags, Nets and Cordage. Australia: Museum of Victoria.
West, Margie. (2007). Recoil: Change and Exchange in Coiled Fibre Art. Australia: Artback Northern Territory.
Wood Conroy, Diana. (2005). ‘Woven Forms: Traces and Traditions of Australian Basket Making’. In Contemporary Basket Making in Australia. Australia: (10-15). Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design.
Young, Diana. (2011). 'Dressing the body in the Western Desert, Australia.' In Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (7). (37- 41) England: Berg Publishers.
63 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
3.5 Interviewees
Anderson. (2016). August, Tarragindi, Interview with Uncle Bob Anderson, conducted by Elisa Jane Carmichael. Carmichael. 2016. August, Dunwich, Interview with Sonja Carmichael, conducted by Elisa Jane Carmichael. Hendriks. (2016). August, Dunwich, Interview with Aunty Joan Hendriks, conducted by Elisa Jane Carmichael. Iselin. (2016). August, Dunwich, Interview with Aunty Margaret Iselin, conducted by Elisa Jane Carmichael.
64 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?
65 How is Weaving, Past, Present, Futures?