Photos // Exhibition opening: Longwater, Institute of Modern Art - September 2020
All images featured in this post are courtesy of the IMA, and copyright of the photographer, Marc Pricop 2020
String Harvest is proud to have supported artists featured in the exhibition, Long water / fibre stories 2020 presented by Institute of Modern Art, and curated by Freja Carmichael. Our contribution of over $1000 in materials grants to select artists featured in the exhibition aided in the commission of these works.
What I particularly love about this exhibition is the traveling component; taking the art of the artists back to their country and places of belonging. Over the last 18 months, long water has exhibited in Milingimbi, Cairns, Thursday Island, Darwin and is currently showing at Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, NSW until 11 December 2022.
long water: fibre stories illuminates spiritual, ancestral, and physical connections to water through fibre practices of artists from Yuwaalaraay (North West NSW), Quandamooka (Moreton Bay, South East QLD), Kuku Yalanji (Far North QLD), Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait Islands, QLD), Yurruwi (Milingimbi Island, NT), and surrounding homelands. Together this group—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, spanning different generations and ancestries—share an inseparable relationship to water, be it the vast sea, inland waterways, or expansive river systems.
Water places have always been a well-spring of vitality, knowledge, and connection for people and culture, yet these sites also resonate with the experiences of colonisation, difficult histories, and the pressing environmental concerns of today.
Similarly, fibre work communicates a strong sense of history, place, and knowing, found in the meanings, materials, and processes of production. In long water, artists embed the links between water and weaving in intricate forms, layered prints, and spirited installations that are guided by ancestral memory and grounded in personal interpretations.
Janet Fieldhouse, 'Sails 1–4', 2020, raffia, feathers, bamboo. Photo: Marc Pricop
Elisa Jane Carmichael, 'Carrying Fish Trap 1–2', 2018–19, ghost net, synthetic fibre, raffia, yarn, wool, cane, wire, fish scales. Photo: Marc Pricop.
Background: String Harvest founder Cass Harris, in conversation with Elisa Jane Carmichael
Foreground, right: Works by Paula Savage. Photo: Marc Pricop.
Foreground: Ceramic works incorporating feathers, raffia, paper - Janet Fieldhouse
Fiona Elisala-Mosby, 'Ngurpay – Aramytidamay 1–15', 2020, ink on 300gsm cotton rag paper; 'Ngurpay – Uman 1–15', 2020, ink on 300gsm cotton rag paper. Photo: Marc Pricop.
Works by Paula Savage, Moa Arts. Photo: Marc Pricop